Sanaz Hojreh is the Victoria Foundation’s Youth Self-Determination Strategy Officer. In this role, Sanaz provides leadership for the Foundation’s grantmaking and partnerships that create the conditions for young people to cultivate agency, lead with confidence, and shape their futures while strengthening their families and community.
Sanaz is an equity-driven strategist, arts education leader, and nonprofit executive with more than two decades of experience helping communities, schools, foundations, and cultural organizations build systems that expand opportunity for young people through the arts. Her work is grounded in the belief that the arts are essential infrastructure for youth well-being, civic participation, and thriving communities.
She has partnered with public agencies, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropic institutions to design collaborative strategies, strengthen organizational capacity, develop evaluation frameworks, and advance initiatives that center youth voice, healing, and community leadership.
Prior to the Victoria Foundation, Sanaz led a robust consulting portfolio, including work on strategic initiatives with the School District of Philadelphia to implement its Arts and Creativity Framework and strengthen shared delivery with community arts partners; the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation's Arts Integration Project; the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation's statewide arts education landscape survey; strategic leadership for Arts Education Newark (formerly the Newark Arts Education Roundtable); and coaching and curriculum development for the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association/Foundation for Educational Administration's Healing-Centered Schools Program.
Sanaz served as Director of the Newark Arts Education Roundtable, where she led a citywide collective impact initiative dedicated to ensuring equitable access to high-quality arts education for every Newark student. Under her leadership, the organization significantly expanded its philanthropic support, deepened cross-sector partnerships, launched innovative healing-centered professional learning initiatives, and secured National Endowment for the Arts funding to develop a shared arts education evaluation system.
Before leading the Roundtable, Sanaz spent sixteen years at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, including ten years as Assistant Vice President of Arts Education. She oversaw nationally recognized arts learning programs, including Passport to Culture SchoolTime and FamilyTime Series, and youth arts training initiatives. Collectively the department engaged more than one million students, educators, and families during her tenure.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Rutgers University, Sanaz earned dual degrees in Theater Arts and Marketing. She completed Columbia University's Emerging Leaders Program and is certified as both a Trauma Competent Professional through Lakeside Global Institute and a Healing-Centered Engagement Practitioner through Flourish Agenda.
