Mary Lou Aleskie is an internationally known advocate for the power of the arts to bring people together, not only within local communities, but around the globe. Since 2017, Ms. Aleskie has been the Howard Gilman '44 Executive Director of the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College. On campus she chairs the Provost's Council on Arts Advancement and Integration focusing on the creation and evolution of Dartmouth's Arts District. This initiative is catalyzed by the reimagining and expansion of the historic Hopkins Center in collaboration with world renowned architects and leaders in global transdisciplinary practice, Snøhetta. Under her leadership, the Hop has secured $89M in philanthropic support for the reimagining of its iconic building. Her key achievements also include establishing Dartmouth's first Arts Integration Initiative, one of the nation's most progressive arts integration in research programs in the country, linking the arts with humanities and sciences across campus.

With her at the helm, the Hop has transformed into a hub of creation, with over 30 commissions and new productions in dance, theater, music and more, as well as dozens of artist residencies. As Executive Director, she has shaped the vision and direction of some of these creations and Hop productions, most notably The Ritual of Breath Is the Rite to Resist, an interdisciplinary opera responding to state-sanctioned violence against Black life. This groundbreaking opera received its World Premiere at the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth, travelled to Stanford's Bing Hall, and was featured at Lincoln Center in summer of 2024. The opera has been hailed for its bold creativity as well as for transcending the stage to reach out to communities of resistance and offer healing through rituals and activations, and a central component of the project is the powerful inclusion of a group of mothers who lost their children to police violence.

Before Dartmouth, Ms. Aleskie was the director of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, 2005 to 2017, where she was responsible for leading the largest international multi-disciplinary festival in New England, acclaimed for gathering world-class artists, thinkers and leaders, while attracting and engaging a broad and diverse audience. During her tenure, the Festival was recognized among the top arts presenters in the nation by the National Endowment for the Arts and grew its audience in record numbers. While there, she also served as a lecturer at Yale and was a Fellow at Branford College.

From 2002 to 2005, Aleskie served as President and CEO of La Jolla Music Society, San Diego's premier presenter of world-renowned orchestras, dance companies and soloists and as producer of the award-winning chamber music festival, La Jolla SummerFest.

For the decade prior Aleskie was Executive Director of Da Camera of Houston, the ensemble music presenter and producer-in-residence at the world renowned Menil Collection.

She was also the General Manager of Houston's Tony-award winning Alley Theatre.

Ms. Aleskie's work stems from her commitment to amplify the essential role of the arts in learning, research and society. She has been a frequent speaker and panelist as well as an invited international delegate to numerous arts and culture forums, most recently the China Shanghai International Arts Festival Forum.

She was also a lecturer at the University of Houston and served on the Connecticut State's Planning Commission for Higher Education.

She is Emeritus Chair of the International Society for the Performing Arts (a New York-based global association for performing arts leaders that has 500 members from 60 countries) and served on ISPA's executive committee for nine years, and as Board Chair from 2016 to 2019.

Currently she serves on the steering committee of the International Presenters Common, the IPC, an emergent group of US-based arts presenters and creators who have joined forces to keep international cultural exchange and engagement alive and vibrant now and into the future.

She received the 2024 ISPA Patrick Hayes Award for her "commitment to mentoring young professionals in the performing arts." Other awards include the Wise Woman Award from the National Organization of Italian American Women, the Bang on A Can Visionary Award, being named one of New Haven Living's 50 Most Influential Leaders, and she received the prestigious The Links Incorporated, New Haven Chapter Honors Award.

Prior to her career in the arts, Aleskie worked in the financial sector for Deloitte, and as a certified public accountant she served clients in Arts, Entertainment, Government and Design.

A native of New Jersey, she graduated from Saint Peter's University, and participated in the National Arts Strategies Executive Program, where as part of the program she studied at the Harvard Business School, at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, and the University of Texas McCombs School of Business.