SEATTLE SYMPHONY WELCOMES CHERONNE WONG AS VICE PRESIDENT & CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

SEATTLE, WA – Seattle Symphony President & CEO Krishna Thiagarajan has announced a new Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, Cheronne Wong. Wong replaces previous Vice President & CFO Maureen Campbell Melville, who was recently named CFO for the San Diego Symphony. 

Wong has an extensive background in finance, most recently as CFO with The Garrigan Lyman Group, a digital marketing and design agency in Seattle. While building her career in accounting and finance with design and tech companies, she was also a dancer and choreographer in New York and Seattle, receiving numerous grants and commissions for her work.

“Cheronne’s background in financial strategy and leadership, paired with a unique understanding of the challenges and opportunities we face in the arts, make her an excellent choice as our next CFO,” shared Krishna Thiagarajan, President & CEO of the Seattle Symphony.  

CHERONNE WONG

Cheronne Wong arrives at the Seattle Symphony following more than 13 years with The Garrigan Lyman Group, a digital marketing and design agency in Seattle. As CFO, she was a member of the executive team and responsible for all finance-related functions within the firm, including strategic vision and planning, evaluating ROI, providing data to support decision-making, and leading and mentoring her staff team. She also led all capital expenditure planning, cash forecasting and budgeting processes, in addition to regulatory compliance and tax filing activities. Prior to The Garrigan Lyman Group, she held accounting and finance positions of increasing responsibility in Seattle in the design and tech fields, as well as arts administration positions in New York.

Parallel to her earlier career in finance, Wong was a professional dancer, choreographer and producer and has performed with dance companies both in Seattle and New York. She is the recipient of multiple commissions and grants for choreography, and her multidisciplinary performance art works have appeared at On the Boards, Velocity Dance Center and the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Seattle; at the Mulberry Street Theater and Judson Church in New York; at the Wexner Center in Ohio; and at the National Arts Academy in Malaysia. Wong also co-founded Open Flight Studio, a unique performing arts studio in Seattle’s University District.

Wong holds a BBA degree in Accounting from College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and an MFA in Performance from Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. She was previously a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and is currently a member and publicity committee officer of the Washington chapter of Financial Executives International (FEI). 

SEATTLE SYMPHONY

The Seattle Symphony is one of America's leading symphony orchestras and is internationally acclaimed for its innovative programming and extensive recording history. Under the leadership of Music Director Ludovic Morlot since September 2011, the Symphony is heard from September through July by more than 500,000 people through live performances and radio broadcasts. It performs in one of the finest modern concert halls in the world — the acoustically superb Benaroya Hall — in downtown Seattle. Its extensive education and community engagement programs reach over 65,000 children and adults each year. The Seattle Symphony has a deep commitment to new music, commissioning many works by living composers each season. The orchestra has made nearly 150 recordings and has received three Grammy Awards, 23 Grammy nominations, two Emmy Awards and was named Gramophone’s 2018 Orchestra of the Year. In 2014 the Symphony launched its in-house recording label, Seattle Symphony Media.

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