Yukiko Yamagata

Interim Executive Director

Yukiko Yamagata is Interim Executive Director at Creative Time and an arts leader with over two decades of experience leading programs and organizations at the intersection of arts, culture, and social justice. She has a passion for developing cross-sector initiatives and partnerships that transcend disciplinary silos, cultivate community, and foster a cross-cultural exchange of art and ideas.
 
Prior to joining Creative Time, she led global arts, culture, and photography programs at Open Society Foundations, the world’s largest private funder of independent groups working for rights, equity, and justice. She has also held curatorial and research positions at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
 
Yukiko holds an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business, where she specialized in leadership and change management, strategy, and sustainable business and innovation, and a BA in art history and women’s studies from Barnard College. She is an executive board member of Peace is Loud and Women Photograph. She is part of the 2025 cohort of New York Foundation for the Arts’ Incubator for Executive Leaders of Color.