Emily Madero Leaves The Idea Village to Run French Quarter Festivals, Inc.

The Idea Village wrapped up its annual New Orleans Entrepreneur Week less than a week ago. During the festival of entrepreneurship and innovation, acting CEO Emily Madero let stakeholders and others closely tied to the organization that she would not accept the offer to become CEO and instead would be moving on completely from The Idea Village.

Madero has accepted a position as President and CEO of French Quarter Festivals, Inc., (FQFI) which also runs Satchmo SummerFest and Christmas New Orleans Style. Representatives from FQFI initially approached her, asking Madero to join the board with the new roles.

Madero had been the acting CEO of The Idea Village since Tim Williamson, who is also a co-founder of the organization, left last summer. Prior to her most recent role, she was the COO for nearly a decade.

Madero shared that her entire career has been built on driving positive change in New Orleans. “I’m really excited to be able to do that in a new capacity and invest in the culture-makers,” she said. “The last 10 years have been an incredible, wonderful, challenging and optimistic journey, and I’m…really hoping to take that experience and leadership and really work with French Quarter Festivals to continue the momentum and build a thriving next chapter.”

This year’s French Quarter Fest kicks off on April 6. “It couldn’t be better timing,” Madero said. “French Quarter Festivals has an incredibly talented team, and I think they have risen to the occasion in the last couple of months and have tremendous positive momentum.”

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