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Denise Saunders Thompson is a creative arts administrator, producer, presenter, funder and has extensive experience in non-profit and for-profit, established or start-up organizations. She has advised organizations on administrative, programmatic and fundraising issues including strategic plans, policy and procedures, communications programs, budgeting and contracts. Currently, Denise is the President and Chief Executive Officer for The International Association of Blacks in Dance, a nonprofit service organization, and Assistant Dean for Administration at Howard University’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts. She is also Founder/CEO of D.d.Saunders & Associates, Inc., a comprehensive fine arts advisory firm offering artist management/representation, arts producing, consulting, and production services; Co-Founder of PlayRight Performing Arts Center, Inc., a nonprofit arts organization in Atlanta, Georgia, and former Business Manager for The Malone Group, Inc., a nonprofit arts organization in Washington, D.C. that co-produced Black Nativity at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for six years.

From 2015 – 2019, she was Professorial Lecturer for the Graduate Arts Management Degree Program at American University and now serves as an Executive Consultant to the program. In 2015, Denise concluded 17 years of service at Howard University in the capacities of Professor, Theatre Manager/Producing Artistic Director for the Department of Theatre Arts and Manager of Cramton Auditorium. Denise currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Performing Arts Alliance, Friends of Theatre and Dance at Howard University and is a member of Actors Equity Association (AEA) and Women of Color in the Arts (WOCA).

As a creative worker in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and across the nation in production and arts management, Mrs. Thompson has held positions at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Debbie Allen Dance Academy, Alliance Theatre Company, National Black Arts Festival, 1996 Olympic Arts Festival, 1996 Olympics, Lincoln Theatre, Several Dancers Core, the Atlanta Dance Initiative, the Mark Taper Forum, the Shakespeare Theatre at the Folger, Harrah’s Marina Hotel Casino as well as other numerous positions. In addition, she is a grant recipient of the Andrew Mellon Foundation, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Ford Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African Art and the St. Paul Companies. She holds an M.F.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles in Arts Producing and Management, and a B.F.A. from Howard University in Theatre Arts Administration. She’s completed coursework for a Ph.D. in Organizational Communications at Howard University. Mrs. Thompson is the proud mother of, Kellen, stepmom to Darrin, Jr., and happily married to Darrin, Sr. ~ Long Live #BlackLove.