At the Global Center for Cultural Entrepreneurship we envision a world in which cultural entrepreneurship creates cultural value and economic wealth, self-determination, and cultural diversity in communities across the globe.

Tom Aageson, Executive Director

Tom is the Executive Director GCCE. Tom previously served as the Executive Director the Museum of New Mexico Foundation where he successfully led a $25million capital campaign. Since coming to Santa Fe, Tom has developed New Mexico Creates, an economic development initiative creating market links for New Mexico artists and artisans. He is the co-founder of the International Folk Art Market. Before coming to Santa Fe Tom was director of Aid to Artisans, an international artisan enterprise development NGO. Previous to that he was at the Mystic Seaport Museum where he created the Mystic Maritime Gallery, which led to opening new markets for maritime artists and eventually spawned six for-profit gallery enterprises across the US. The market for maritime art grew by several times as did the prices for maritime artists work. He started a graphics enterprise, Mystic Maritime Graphics, publishing prints, posters and books. Tom created New England clambakes as a catering business as Mystic Seaport Museum. He holds a MBA from Columbia University and BFT from the Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird). Tom can be reached at Tom(AT)culturalentrepreneur(DOT)org

In 2000, after working in Central America to create economic and cultural sustainability programs with Native communities, Alice was recruited to run the University of New Mexico’s Small Business Institute where she mentored dozens of businesses and placed MBA students in volunteer positions with entrepreneurial ventures, both for-profit and not-for-profit. In 2003 Alice founded Social Venture Partners New Mexico while finishing her MBA at the University of New Mexico (UNM). She has taught Social Entrepreneurship at the Anderson Schools of Management at the University of New Mexico, and created a Green Technologies course at the College of Santa Fe.

Alice co-founded GCCE in 2008 and has become a leading champion for cultural assets as essential building blocks for proseperity and cultural dynamism.  Passionate about culture, entrepreneurship, and network creation, Alice holds a PhD in Entrepreneurship and Social Networks from the University of New Mexico.