Nancy Shapiro Added As Senior Advisor in Nashville Mayor’s Office

Nancy Shapiro

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry has appointed Nancy Shapiro to serve as senior advisor on innovation in the Mayor’s Office in a volunteer capacity. She continues in her post as Senior Vice President, Special Projects for The Recording Academy (Grammy Awards), where she has served music education and reform since 1985.

With the Mayor’s Office, Shapiro will focus on bringing together members from the public, private, and non-for-profit sectors to guide Metro on ways to incorporate new techniques and innovative ideas into how government operates.

Shapiro’s experience includes working with the Mayor’s Office and Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) to ensure that Nashville is recognized as the nation’s most innovative public school music program. Through Music Makes Us, Shapiro has helped bring high school programs such as the student-run record label in partnership with Warner Music in addition to curriculums in hip hop, mariachi, technology, country/bluegrass, and rock, helping to elevate classical, jazz, choral, and marching band programs.

“Government is not a business and you don’t get to run it like one, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take best business practices like using data and reasoned analysis to make our government more efficient and effective for taxpayers,” said Mayor Barry. “Nancy will help us to do just that as our senior advisor on innovation, working with Metro government to rethink the way we do things and better incorporate technology and new techniques that have worked in other cities to improve city operations.”

“I am honored to be working with Mayor Barry to connect citizens with city government though civic innovation. We will engage collaborative partners in Metro, diverse community and business sectors, entrepreneurs, academics, and non-profits,” said Shapiro. “Using open data resources, we will pinpoint challenges, review successes in other cities, and present creative solutions for consideration to improve how Metro works for citizens in Nashville.”