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FeedStabilizing Force
Villanova’s Natalye Paquin gets down to business as the Kimmel Center’s COO.
Photo by Jared Castaldi Published December 15, 2009 at 01:44 PM
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Natalye Paquin is quite comfortable touting her achievements. After all, you don’t get to the top by downplaying your assets.
Technically speaking, the top position at Center City’s much-revered Kimmel Center is president and CEO. But since Paquin did fill in at that post during her first 10 months on the job, no one’s splitting hairs in an effort to dethrone her—even if she’s now the Kimmel’s executive vice president and COO, the job she was hired for.
And those who question whether that truly equates to being at the top have got a lot to learn about Philadelphia’s standing in the arts. Since opening in December 2001, the glass-encased, 40,000-square-foot Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts has garnered international raves. One of the top five venues of its kind in the country, it features countless performers and productions from all over the world. The Kimmel Center and the affiliated Academy of Music are home to the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Opera Company of Philadelphia, the Pennsyl-vania Ballet, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, American Theater Arts for Youth, PHILADANCO, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and Peter Nero and the Philly Pops.
The Kimmel Center’s spectacular facility houses the cello-shaped, 2,500-seat Verizon Hall, the smaller Perelman Theater, the 150-seat Innovation Studio, an education center, a rooftop garden terrace, a café and restaurant, and a gift shop. It employs 100 full-time staff members, along with 140 part-timers and 150 volunteers. Its annual operating budget: $35-$40 million.
If all that makes your head spin, join the club. As for the 48-year-old Paquin, she’s a wiz with numbers—and other things, too.
“I like people,” she says. “And I know that there are a lot of things you can’t do by yourself. If you’re properly networked, you’re two telephone calls—three at the most—away from getting anything done.”
Paquin’s career trajectory began in civil law. From there, she became managing deputy commissioner for transportation in Chicago before taking the job as chief of staff for Paul Vallas, Philadelphia’s school district superintendent.
“When he was appointed CEO of the Philadelphia schools, he called me one Sunday afternoon and asked if I would consider joining his team,” Paquin recalls. “He said, ‘Hey, will you come with me to Philadelphia to help fix the public schools? It’ll be fun.’”
Back in the Windy City, she’d advised Vallas as an associate general counsel in the Chicago Public Schools’ legal department. And as his chief purchasing officer, she oversaw $1 billion in annual expenditures. After two years in Philly, Paquin was appointed COO, overseeing a $400 million budget and 4,700-plus employees.
“I’ve always been a leader,” she says. “I finished high school when I was 16 and college at 19. I finished the curriculum in three years, and took management and business classes in my fourth year.”
Paquin grew up in Miami, living in a racially isolated area with limited opportunities. Thanks to desegregation, she was bussed to a school in the white section of the city. There, she studied a foreign language and played viola in the orchestra. Her parents paid for piano, ballet, tap and jazz dance lessons, which inspired an appreciation for the performing arts.
