Clive Chang HBS ’11 began his artistic journey very early. Born in Hong Kong, he and his twin sister moved to Canada when they were just five years old. That was around the same time his parents finally gave in to years of pleading and signed the pair up for piano lessons. “I still distinctly remember we didn't yet speak English,” Clive laughs, “and our Russian piano teacher also didn't speak English, and over time, we all learned English together.” This set Clive on a path that would lead to a decade of performing on the piano circuit, including competitions and festivals. 

That path came to a head in his senior year of high school, when he told his parents he wanted to pursue a career in music. As Clive recalls, their response was essentially, “‘Wait a minute, no, that's not why we put you in lessons… You're supposed to be a lawyer, or an engineer, or a doctor. What do you mean you want to go study music?’” But Clive says the ‘rebellious’ teenager in him wasn’t deterred. “I ended up dual enrolling in a music degree and a finance degree. I used to tell my friends, it was one degree for me, and one for my parents.” Clive smiles. “I actually grew to love both disciplines, to be honest, and I also really grew to admire that there's much more to business than debits and credits. There is a real art to it.” 

The business of art became Clive’s calling. After graduating with the dual degrees as Valedictorian, he went on to earn an MFA in Musical Theater Writing from NYU and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Since then, Clive has been uniting those two passions in his career. He worked as Head of Strategy for Disney’s theatrical division, overseeing the global strategy for many beloved animation-turned-Broadway-shows: THE LION KING and ALADDIN, to name a few. He then moved over to the nonprofit side of the arts world and took over at Lincoln Center as the Head of Advancement and Innovation. Now, Clive is thrilled to be the President and CEO of YoungArts, which is, in Clive’s words, “a real gift to lead an organization that really lives and breathes for artists. It feels like coming back home.” 

2026 marks the 44^th year of YoungArts, a nonprofit dedicated to helping artists along their path to a sustainable artistic career. “The heart and soul of the organization began and remains today as a nationwide call to any young artist aged 15 to 18 to apply to our national competition.” Clive says proudly. “This past year, we received almost 13,000 applications… If you think about the early winners, like Vanessa Williams and Viola Davis… our heritage is incredible, but you also have to remember, for every Viola, there are hundreds of other artists in that same class whose careers didn't quite take flight in the same way. And so, our work really exists to help as many artists as possible navigate their career over a lifespan.” 

What has been an interesting challenge for Clive since he stepped into this role is how to deal with the influx of incredibly passionate multi-hyphenate artists who apply to YoungArts. “Among the newest generations, any artist who reaches an advanced level has multiple artistic identities, and it's our job as an ecosystem to make sure we recognize that and adapt the structures of arts education and training accordingly.” Clive insists. “And we are behind as an ecosystem.” Part of getting that ecosystem back on track is restructuring the strict—and rather outdated—way that society thinks about the delineation of artistic disciplines. Students tend to feel pressured to pick whichever discipline they are most likely to succeed in when applying to post-secondary programs or competitions. “To all of the Juilliards of the world, all of the art schools, how can we better welcome all of the dimensions of an artist's identity without boxing them into the structures that have been built out of tradition over many decades?” Clive asks. 

Another part of keeping our artist ecosystem moving in a positive direction is supplying accessible resources for artists. Clive and the YoungArts team are particularly proud of their

Artist Resource Collective (ARC) initiative, which aspires to become a “widely-adopted model for helping artists build sustainable careers.” YoungArts heard from artists, institutions, and educational organizations that artists are not equipped to be financially empowered. “The most important element of career preparedness is building financial empowerment from an early age.” Clive states. “We're calling it empowerment and not literacy. Because it's not about understanding accounting. It's about understanding your own aspirations, your own values as both a human and an artist, and your relationship with money and capitalism, and how you build a sustainable model around all of those values. And this is why we call it Artist Resource Collective.”

Clive’s passion for supporting artists comes in part from being a dedicated and talented artist himself. He credits his musical training for both his analytical capacity and creative thinking. “I bring my artistry into everything I do, including being a CEO. And I think artistic skills continue to go underappreciated.” Clive says. “Artists are often relegated to entertainment… And it's ironic, because there are a lot of people who really value art, but forget to value artists. Let's never forget the humanity and ingenuity that goes behind the creation of some of the most beautiful things that we enjoy as a society. Everything that we touch, everything that we hear, everything that surrounds our lived environment was created by an artist. And I think that is a message that we can't really preach loud enough. Every corporate board would be so lucky to have an artist in its midst, right? Now, it's just convincing the decision makers to understand the value they bring.” 

Being an artist has also given him other skills for success that transfer into his daily work. Clive says, “My ability to influence colleagues productively in a room, my ability to navigate a complex decision-making process, that comes from my background as a collaborative artist… As an arranger, composer, music director spending a lot of time directly with artists making art; those kinds of skills, as you ascend in seniority in the workplace, become far more important. Because it's about EQ and not just IQ. Even when I make hiring decisions now, the hardest thing to find is a really well-developed EQ. This is where artistic training is so valuable.”

When asked about his view on the often tortured relationship artists have with money, Clive urges a practical approach. “Collectors, gallerists, patrons, audiences--they all play a critical role in sustaining a healthy arts ecosystem.” he says. “Let's view their wallets as a vote of support for art and for artists. There is this unnecessary self-imposed paradigm of the artist’s struggle… How do we actually move away from the trope of the starving artist? How do we help young artists from a very, very early age to develop a healthy relationship with money and help them enter the world more prepared to make deliberate decisions about building their life and career?” 

Beyond YoungArts, Clive is currently on the ballot for Harvard's Board of Overseers, and he hopes to apply his background in both business and art to the role if he’s elected. He connects his work leading an arts organization to “the tension that Harvard faces between its academic mission and fiscal health” and highlights his experience in nonprofit governance and fundraising. 

“My expertise would align very naturally with an important standing committee of the board: the Committee on Arts & Humanities.” he notes. “Because Harvard doesn't have a dedicated school of the arts in the traditional sense, this committee plays an important role in promoting access to and participation in the arts at Harvard, and I'd be uniquely suited to advise on how best to integrate the arts across the various Harvard schools. I believe that artists have some unique 'superpowers'. One of these is a heightened ability to feel and sense their own energy in relation to a larger tapestry—visual, aural, physical, kinetic—and that ability is particularly powerful in rooms with layers of divergent views and perspectives.”

Clive adds, “My favorite quote comes from an artist leading a jazz workshop: "Don't just play; contribute to the sound that is already in the room". As both an artist and a champion of artists, I hope to leverage this ability in contributing to the sound in the boardroom.”