Miguel Angel Corzo is an American arts administrator and Founder and President of the Global Alliance for Conservation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of the world's cultural heritage. He is also an international consultant in the arts, culture, innovation, and creativity, and sustainable development.
Early life and education
Miguel Angel Corzo was born and raised in Mexico City. His father, Miguel Angel Corzo Blanco, was an attorney who in the forties and fifties helped develop the city of Cuernavaca, Mexico. His mother, Josefina Melgar Pacchiano, was born in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico and leads an active family life in Los Angeles, California. Corzo grew up in a traditional Mexican household, being the only child resulting from this union. Miguel Angel Corzo as a child attended a small private French school whose principal was by Madame Tron. As a teenager, he attended the Lycee Francais of Mexico City. He then completed an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from the UCLA University of California, Los Angeles in 1967. Corzo did his doctoral work at the Technical University of Munich, attended Harvard University as a post doctoral Fulbright Scholar, and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Lecce in Italy and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Professional life
Corzo became the first President and CEO of LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in Los Angeles in August 2009. Corzo's contract ended in September, 2011. LA Plaza, which opened in April 2011, presents and celebrates the founding of Los Angeles and the communities that have made it a vibrant, diverse city. Corzo was President and CEO of The Colburn School in Los Angeles until October 2008. Prior to Colburn, between 2000 and June 2007, he was the President and CEO of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. During his time at the University of the Arts, the university grew in size and influence, earned wide recognition for inspiring and educating innovative artists and creative leaders, and created important initiatives such as the Center for the Creative Economy named in his honor. During his tenure, enrollment increased significantly, the campus expanded, technology was enhanced and fundraising increased 375 percent. The university received a $50 million gift, the largest in its history. As Corzo's tenure was ending at the University of the Arts, the university allocated a $5 million gift from Philadelphia-area philanthropist Dorrance Hill Hamilton and renamed the CCE "The Miguel Angel Corzo Center for the Creative Economy". The mission of the Center is to seek and define, research and promote the creative process as a transformative force for society. Corzo has been an international consultant in the arts, education, culture, and sustainable development. He was the Director of the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles where he developed projects in over 40 countries, from 1991 to 1998. He has served as President and CEO of the Friends of the Arts of Mexico Foundation where he participated in the organization of the successful exhibition: "Mexico Splendors of Thirty Centuries" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, traveling later to San Antonio and Los Angeles. Corzo was a technical advisor to international projects such as the Grand Louvre, the Museum of Egyptian Civilizations, the Opera on Paris, the Museum of Black Africa and the Royal Academy of Morocco, among others. A Mexican-born U.S. citizen, he was the Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Tourism in Mexico, a technical advisor to the Minister of Human Settlements and Public Works as well as the founding Dean for Academic Affairs at the Metropolitan University. He is the recipient of UNESCO’s distinguished Miro Medal of Patron of the Arts as well as the Gabarrón International Prize for Conservation. Corzo is the author or editor of twenty-one books, the producer of fifteen television documentaries on the arts and culture and has organized sixteen museum exhibitions around the world. He was twice appointed by President Bill Clinton to serve on the President’s Advisory Committee on Cultural Property. He was a member of the Art Commission of Philadelphia and served on the boards of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, the Cultural Fund, the Avenue of the Arts, the Center for Cultural Innovation, the Chamber of Commerce, the Preservation Alliance and the Mayor's Planning Commission for Arts and Culture in Los Angeles. He is on the Board of the International Cultural Center in Guadalajara, Mexico.
