Board of Trustees

Ann Marie Wilkins is the founder and CEO of Wilkins Management, Inc. (WMI), an entertainment company located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Wilkins founded WMI in the mid-'80s with an emphasis in music management, and over the past two decades has been instrumental in developing the careers of such musicians as current clients Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick Jr., and Joshua Redman. In the process, she has expanded the activities of WMI's artists beyond live and recorded music to encompass film and television, as well as Broadway and regional theater productions. 

Wilkins has produced Emmy Award-winning and critically acclaimed television shows and DVDs as a principal of HC Productions, Inc. Marsalis Music, the record company she cofounded with Branford Marsalis a few years ago, has produced Grammy-nominated recordings and award-winning DVDs. The label, which has built a catalogue of two dozen releases and features a roster of leading jazz artists including 2008 MacArthur Fellow Miguel Zenón, has also become a pioneer in jazz education via the Marsalis Jams programs it presents at high schools and colleges through the auspices of its nonprofit affiliate Music Education Initiative, Inc. (MEI).

In addition to these professional activities, Wilkins serves as president of the board of New Orleans Habitat Musicians' Village, an organization created in response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, which provides Habitat for Humanity-constructed homes for displaced low-income musicians and a cultural center for the entire New Orleans community. Wilkins also serves on the board of the Cambridge Community Foundation and MEI.

Wilkins received both her B.Sc. and M.B.A. degrees from Cornell University. After completing business school (with a concentration in accounting and finance), she became a CPA and worked for KPMG (formerly Peat Marwick Mitchell) in Houston, Texas. She then earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School, after which she practiced corporate law at Arnold and Porter, a major law firm in Washington, D.C., before founding WMI.

Wilkins is married to David Wilkins, a professor at Harvard Law School, and is the proud mother of a son, Brian.