JOFFREY BALLET's Greg Cameron to Depart as President and CEO

The Joffrey Ballet has announced that President and CEO Greg Cameron will depart in December 2027, concluding a 15-year tenure that transformed the organization's financial and institutional strength and elevated its standing in Chicago and the international dance community.

The transition follows a succession plan Cameron and the Joffrey Board of Directors developed three years ago. The Board has formed a search committee and is finalizing the selection of a national search firm. The committee will conduct an extensive search within and outside the dance world, with Cameron's successor expected to begin before the end of 2027. Cameron will continue to lead the organization throughout the search and work closely with the Board and incoming CEO to ensure a smooth transition.

“All of us are temporary stewards of these organizations,” Cameron said. “Our responsibility is to leave them stronger. This transition was set in motion from a place of stability and with great confidence in the Joffrey's future. I will spend the next 15 months advancing our priorities and creating every opportunity for the next President and CEO to succeed.”

Cameron joined the Joffrey in 2013 with extensive experience in philanthropy and civic leadership. His appointment demonstrated the value of looking beyond traditional backgrounds to identify an executive whose vision matched the organization's ambitions. The Board will take the same expansive approach in identifying the Joffrey's next President and CEO.

“Greg's leadership changed the trajectory of the Joffrey, and we enter this transition with tremendous momentum,” said Board Chair Jim McDonough. “Our next CEO will inherit a thriving cultural institution, prepared to pursue its future from a position of extraordinary strength. We will cast a wide net for a leader who champions artists, cultivates enduring partnerships, and can spearhead a complex organization of this scale.”

Under Cameron's leadership, the Joffrey eliminated an ongoing budget deficit, established the organization's first endowment, and created the Artistic Innovation Fund, which is on its way to successful completion. These achievements placed the Joffrey in the strongest financial position in its history and created an enduring foundation to artistically thrive. In 2026, Make It Better Foundation founder Susan B. Noyes honored Cameron's tenure with a $3 million endowment gift to the Joffrey, carrying forward his leadership values of collaboration, innovation, and artistic excellence.

Cameron also led the organization through two strategic planning sessions with McKinsey & Company. The resulting plans became road maps for the Joffrey's growth, guiding long-term financial modeling and sustained investment in its people. With a high-performing leadership team, the Joffrey strengthened governance and negotiated two consecutive five-year agreements with the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA). This institutional stability allowed the Joffrey to invest more deeply in its artists and increase the scale of its work.

“The business of the Joffrey exists to give the art form the support it deserves,” Cameron said. “Financial strength equips artists with the freedom and resources to take risks and create on a grand scale. We built an organization capable of sustaining the Joffrey's artistic ambitions while supporting the health and well-being of our artists. I am enormously proud of what our team has accomplished together.”

Cameron guided the Joffrey's move to Lyric Opera House, increasing the Company's production capabilities and establishing a long-term residency through 2034. He also helped forge partnerships with leading ballet companies that brought major co-productions to Chicago, including Anna Karenina with The Australian Ballet, Princess and the Pea with Oregon Ballet Theatre, Atonement with Ballett Zürich and Eugene Onegin with San Francisco Ballet.

His tenure included the 2016 world premiere of Christopher Wheeldon's reimagined The Nutcracker, now a cornerstone of the Company's repertory. Cameron championed the expansion of live music and helped secure the Joffrey's first commissioned orchestral scores.

“Greg gave the Joffrey the structure to pursue ambitious ideas with confidence,” said The Mary B. Galvin Artistic Director Ashley Wheater MBE. “He understood that the Joffrey could honor its remarkable history while building something larger for the future. Greg sees possibility everywhere—in a partnership, a production or a relationship waiting to grow. His belief in the Joffrey inspires others to believe in it, too.”

Beyond the dance field, he developed collaborations with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Ravinia, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Partnerships with Art on theMART, Aurora University, and the Golub Capital Board Fellows Program at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management strengthened the Joffrey's role within Chicago's cultural community.

Cameron led the transfer of the complete Joffrey archive to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in 2017—the Library's largest acquisition in a decade. The archive led to the Company's first large-scale retrospective, The Joffrey + Ballet in the U.S., which opened at the Library for the Performing Arts in 2024 before traveling to Chicago in 2025, presented by Wrightwood 659. The project brought nearly 70 years of the Joffrey's history before the public while preserving its films, photographs, and records for future artists and scholars.

Cameron also helped bring the story of Winning Works—The Joffrey Ballet's annual choreographic competition for emerging artists—to a national audience. Working with Kartemquin Films, he helped launch the documentary project, secured funding, and engaged PBS as its broadcast partner. Premiering Friday, September 18, Joffrey Ballet: The Next Movement follows the 2024 Winning Works choreographers in Chicago as they create original works with students from the Grainger Academy. The documentary reveals how choreographers find their voice and how access to a studio can change an artist's life.

Cameron established Joffrey for All, an organization-wide commitment to making dance accessible and ensuring that people across Chicago can experience and participate in the art form. Under his leadership, the Joffrey increased its investment in dance education and access. The Joffrey also deepened its presence in Chicago Public Schools, providing dance education to approximately 1,600 students in 30 partner schools each year. Free student matinees of The Nutcracker welcome more than 5,000 CPS students, offering many their first experience of live ballet accompanied by a full orchestra.

In 2018, the Joffrey received its first naming gift: $5 million from the Galvin Family, which named the Mary B. Galvin Artistic Director position. Two years later, in 2020, a $3 million gift from the Abbott Fund named the Abbott Academy Director position, and, in 2025, a $5 million gift from The Grainger Foundation endowed and renamed the Joffrey Academy of Dance to the Grainger Academy of The Joffrey Ballet—a landmark commitment that secured the Academy's future and increased scholarship support for the next generation of artists.

The Joffrey generates an estimated $51 million in economic activity across Chicago, including $32 million in direct spending. The organization supports over 300 jobs and welcomes more than 135,000 audience members each year. Its artists, staff, students, and patrons contribute to the vitality of downtown Chicago while driving business to local restaurants and hotels.

Cameron has championed the arts as an essential part of Chicago's civic future. His work includes stewardship efforts along State and Randolph Streets and support for the Cultural Stadium, a vision for harnessing the city's cultural institutions as a force for downtown renewal. In 2011, he was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame, whose members also include Joffrey co-founder and former Artistic Director Gerald Arpino.

Cameron describes his leadership philosophy as being an “elegant partner”—leading with trust, caring for people, and becoming the kind of partner others seek out. That approach guided the Joffrey through the COVID-19 pandemic and informed its continued investment in professional growth, wages, and employee benefits, including recent completion of the Joffrey Tower Refresh Project to support the health and wellness of artists and staff.

“As Board Chair, I had the privilege of working closely with Greg during one of the most difficult periods in the Joffrey's history,” said former Joffrey Board Chair Anne L. Kaplan. “Throughout the pandemic, he led with wisdom and extraordinary compassion, keeping care and feeding of our community at the center of every decision. His attentiveness to the individuals across the organization, paired with his steady judgment, carried the Joffrey through the crisis and made us stronger. That is the kind of leader Greg is, and it is one of the many reasons the Joffrey stands apart today.”

Cameron's planned departure comes as arts organizations nationwide face constrained funding, rising costs, and shifting audience behavior. Against that backdrop, the Joffrey stands as a powerful story of resilience. The Company is debt-free, its long-term investments are $40 million and growing, and it continues to break box-office records.

“Greg's impact can be seen in the Joffrey's financial strength and on its stages, but it is equally present in the culture he created,” McDonough added. “He cares deeply about the people who make this organization possible, sustaining it by investing in talent and establishing a culture of care and accountability. The leadership team he assembled is a defining part of his legacy and an important source of continuity for the years ahead.”

The transition continues the Joffrey's history of reinvention. Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino founded the Company in 1956 as a touring ensemble dedicated to creating a distinctly American form of ballet. Its move from New York to Chicago in 1995 established a permanent home and began a new era of growth. Cameron's arrival in 2013 opened another chapter, defined by financial stability and greater institutional reach. Today, the Joffrey is recognized across the dance field as a model of how administrative strength can advance artistic achievement.

“We have accomplished far more than I imagined when I arrived,” Cameron said. “Every milestone belongs to the artists, administrative staff, Board of Directors, Women's Board Members, and supporters who believed in where the Joffrey could go. We made deliberate choices about our future and followed through. Now we have the strength to build what comes next.”

Following his departure, Cameron plans to continue supporting artists and arts education while broadening his civic work across Chicago.

“I remain committed to this city and to the artists who give it life,” Cameron added. “I believe Chicago is the greatest city in the world, and I look forward to bringing my experience—and my values of curiosity, creativity, community and collaboration—to more organizations in service of its future. For now, my focus remains fully on the Joffrey and on preparing the strongest possible handoff to its next leader.”

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