Joseph Specter. Photo Credit: Andrew Pielage
Career changes are normal, but rarely does one move from the top of one industry to the top of another. Even rarer still is when one doesn’t have to move cities in order to do so, but a recent career move that encompassed all of this exemplifies the talent of the person involved as well as the level of respect he demands across disciplines in the Valley.
Joseph Specter has long been a mainstay in the local opera scene, but in an intriguing career move recently announced that he has accepted the position of the President and CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Those who are familiar with him have demonstrated surprise but not shock, due to the deep level of respect he has commanded from those around him.
Specter’s career naturally began as a singer, having honed his craft as a baritone at Philadelphia’s prestigious Academy of Vocal Arts. As any starving artist can tell you however, it’s difficult to pay the bills with musical talent alone, so to pursue his love on the side he took on a role that undoubtedly paid dividends later on in his career, as a Senior Client Associate with the investment management firm Lord Abbett. In that position his role was to make sure that the firm’s wealthy investors were happy, the sort of soft skills that would prove valuable down the line.
He soon was able to parlay his musical passion into a paying role, serving as the Director of Institutional Relations at the Metropolitan Opera, where he helped strengthen corporate relationships and turned them into sponsorships. From there he moved up to the role of General Director at Austin Opera, and eventually made his way to Scottsdale when he became the President and General Director of the Arizona Opera in 2016.
This unusual career shift will now have Specter leading the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, the organization named after the iconic Arizona architect that is designed to inspire people to “discover and embrace an architecture for better living through meaningful connections to nature, the arts, and each other.” Regular readers may remember that Stuart Graff decided to step down from this role last year after eight years at the helm, and that the search had been underway since to find the person best suited to continue on Wright’s legacy of furthering architecture as an artistic endeavor. That national search didn’t have to go far to find the next leader.
Certainly there is a lot of overlap in this role and the head of a prominent opera, even if it is not obvious; Both are dependent on fundraising with a fundraising base that is both wealthy and respects the arts deeply. Specter’s previous roles (including his position long ago at Lord Abbett) have seemed to be almost exclusively focused on this, which makes an unusual career jump make more sense.
People who know Specter talk about how deeply likable and respected he is, so while it may have been a head-turning announcement, it makes a whole lot of sense once you look under the hood a bit. We hope that he is able to have as much success in building out and deepening such an important institution like the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation with as much success as he did the Arizona Opera.