Kent Devereaux

Kent Devereaux is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the New Hampshire Institute of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire, in the United States. He was named President by the college Board of Trustees on November 24, 2014, and took office on January 5, 2015.

A native of Aptos, California, Devereaux attended the University of California, Santa Cruz and Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, where he graduated magna cum laude with a BFA in music composition (1982). His teachers included Lou Harrison, Anthony Braxton, and Gil Evans. He subsequently studied computer science at Stanford University and earned an MFA in Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1985), where he was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow.

From 1985 to 1992, Devereaux taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Indonesia in 1986 and also served as the Andrew W. Mellon visiting fellow in criticism at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 1990–91.

An accomplished composer and director, Devereaux also worked as a management consultant in the emerging Internet industry beginning in 1993. In 1998, Encyclopædia Britannica recruited Devereaux as their Senior Vice President, Product Development & Editorial, where he oversaw development of all digital products worldwide. In 2002, Devereaux joined Kaplan, Inc., first as Vice President of Product Development and Chief Academic Officer for the professional education division, and later as Senior Vice President, Dean of Curriculum at Kaplan University.

In 2008, Devereaux returned to his alma mater Cornish College of the Arts as Professor and Music Department Chair. During his tenure at Cornish, Devereaux launched the college's first post-baccalaureate program, an Artist Diploma in Early Music. He also served as the Artistic Director for the college's presenting series, Cornish Presents, and festival director of the Seattle Jazz Experience, an annual youth jazz festival he founded, before departing to assume the presidency at the New Hampshire Institute of Art.