(NEWARK, NJ) -- RWJBarnabas Health President and CEO Barry H. Ostrowsky and Steven M. Goldman, Esq., a senior partner in the Corporate Department at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, have been elected co-chairs of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) Board of Directors, succeeding John R. Strangfeld, retired chairman and CEO of Prudential Financial, Inc.
The co-chairmanship, effective July 1, brings together the leader of New Jersey’s largest, most comprehensive integrated health care delivery system, and one of the nation’s finest legal minds, to ensure a sound and smooth volunteer leadership transition of the state’s anchor cultural institution. NJPAC, opened in 1997, is the country’s most diverse performing arts center in terms of programming, audience and staff.
“From the time of its first imagining by Gov. Tom Kean and Ray Chambers, the Arts Center has been blessed with extraordinary volunteer leaders. Their business expertise and civic activism have positively informed the exponential growth of NJPAC’s work and mission over a generation,” said NJPAC President and CEO John Schreiber. “I extend great gratitude to John Strangfeld for his service during the transformation of our business model over the last five seasons, and I look forward to partnering with Barry and Steve, who put wisdom and heart into everything they do.”
Many of New Jersey’s most prominent corporate executives, public administrators and cultural leaders comprise the Arts Center’s Board of Directors.
Elected to the NJPAC board in 2017 and a current member of its Executive Committee,Barry H. Ostrowsky has championed a strong partnership between RWJBarnabas Health and the Arts Center for promoting wellness in the community.
“I’m incredibly impressed with NJPAC’s commitment and mission,” Mr. Ostrowsky said. “I think NJPAC’s greatest gift is its willingness to invest in the lives of the people who reside in the community, and it does so in a culturally competent way. Its program is led – and has been led – by people who are genuinely devoted to elevating lives.”
Mr. Ostrowsky cited arts education as a unique ingredient provided by NJPAC to engage students, families and educators.
“I think arts education discretely is terrific, but it has great enhancing powers when it is incorporated in general education,” he said. “NJPAC’s effective work in enhancing and transforming lives through arts learning is second to none.
“NJPAC’s mission and the mission of the organization that I oversee are not only very much complementary, but to a great extent overlap, obviously from a slightly different perspective,” Mr. Ostrowsky concluded. “I look forward to working with outstanding partners, Steve and John, to improve our community.”
Steven M. Goldman was an early advocate for the creation of the Arts Center, beginning about a decade before its opening in 1997. His nine-year tenure on the board includes chairmanships of the Operations and Finance Committee and of the Board of Managers of Theater Square Development Co., the subsidiary for NJPAC’s real estate projects. He also serves as assistant treasurer of the NJPAC board.
He identified some of the priorities on leadership’s agenda as: the growth and enhancement of arts education programs; the continued advancement of NJPAC’s five-year, $175 million capital campaign, and other redevelopment opportunities, building on the success of last year’s completion of the One Theater Square luxury residential tower on NJPAC’s campus.
“In particular, I think a lot of the initiatives in arts education are very important. We can continue to expand the availability of these programs not only in Newark but around the state as we continue to develop the campus,” Mr. Goldman said, referencing a $20 million gift to NJPAC from the Leon and Toby Cooperman Family Foundation for construction of an arts education and community center. “The center is going to be a great place for everyone in the city because it will have so many avenues of outreach in every age bracket.
“I’m really pleased that Barry Ostrowsky is going to be co-chair with me and I’m looking forward to working with him, John Schreiber and the rest of the management team to make certain that the Arts Center continues to be a national leader for cultural literacy.”
Last year John Strangfeld announced his retirement from Prudential Financial, capping a four-decade career. Charles Lowrey, formerly executive vice president and COO of International Businesses of Prudential, succeeded Mr. Strangfeld as Prudential’s chief executive and will assume his role as a member of NJPAC’s board and Executive Committee.
Mr. Strangfeld joined the NJPAC Board of Directors in 2009. He and William J. Marino, retired chairman and CEO of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, were named co-chairs in 2013; Mr. Strangfeld was elected board chair two years later.
“I’m very confident about the continuity of quality leadership promised by the forward-thinking team of Steve Goldman, who has a long internal history with NJPAC, and Barry Ostrowsky, who’s a prominent and socially conscious member of the business community,” said Mr. Strangfeld. “The combination of these two individuals bodes exceedingly well for NJPAC’s future. I think the best is yet to come.”
About Barry H. Ostrowsky - Barry H. Ostrowsky is the President and Chief Executive Officer of RWJBarnabas Health (RWJBH). RWJBarnabas Health has a service area that covers nine counties with five million residents. The system includes 11 acute care hospitals (five are teaching hospitals), three children’s hospitals, a pediatric rehabilitation hospital and its multiple outpatient facilities, ambulatory care centers, geriatric centers, a free-standing behavioral health center, New Jersey’s largest statewide behavioral health network, a satellite emergency department, trauma centers, comprehensive home care and hospice programs, pharmacy services, multi-site imaging centers, an accountable care organization, as well as medical groups with primary and specialty care physician practices. The system is comprised of 34,000 employees (largest private employer in New Jersey); nearly 9,000 physicians (representing more than 40 percent of the state’s actively practicing physicians); and 1,000 residents and interns.
Mr. Ostrowsky is spearheading a system-wide endeavor to promote healthier living for employees and the members of our communities and develop an effective strategy to address the true social needs of our diverse communities.
The System and Rutgers University are forming New Jersey’s largest and most comprehensive academic health system. The public-private partnership aligns RWJBH, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Rutgers Health and Rutgers’ education, research and clinical activities, including those at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey – the state’s only National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center – and Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care. The partnership will result in a multi-specialty group comprised of more than 2,500 practitioners – one of the largest medical groups in the country. The alliance is dedicated to providing high quality patient care, leading edge research, and world-class health and medical education to transform and advance health care in New Jersey.
Mr. Ostrowsky joined Saint Barnabas Medical Center in 1991 as Executive Vice President and General Counsel and served in the same role when Barnabas Health was created in 1996. At Barnabas Health, he became President and Chief Operating Officer in 2010 and President and Chief Executive Officer in 2012. In April 2016, with the merger of Barnabas Health and Robert Wood Johnson Health System, he assumed his present position.
Among active memberships, Mr. Ostrowsky serves on the boards of PSEG; the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce; Public Media NJ, Inc., operator of NJTV; and New Jersey Performing Arts Center. He is a member of the American Hospital Association (AHA) Health Care Systems Governing Council.
Mr. Ostrowsky was named to the 2018 and 2019 ROI-NJ Influencers Power list and the 2018 NJBIZ Power 100 list. In 2016, NJBIZ named him the Executive of the Year in Business in New Jersey, and in 2019 he was named once again to the NJBIZ Health Care Power 50 list of the most powerful people in New Jersey health care, and to the Power 100 list, which includes the state’s most influential people in business. Previously, he had been named by Becker’s Hospital Review as one of its “300 Hospital & Health System Leaders to Know.” Mr. Ostrowsky received a BA from Rutgers University and a JD from the University of Tennessee School of Law.
About Steven M. Goldman - Steven M. Goldman is a senior partner in the Corporate Department at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP. He represents clients in connection with mergers and acquisitions, financings, joint ventures, private placements, and leveraged buyouts, as well as in general corporate matters. Mr. Goldman advises boards of directors and independent committees of boards on corporate transactions. He also represents companies in the insurance industry in connection with regulatory enforcement issues and in purchase and sale transactions.
Among his most recent notable work, Mr. Goldman represented PBM Pharmaceuticals Inc., a privately held specialty pharmaceutical company doing business as Revive Pharmaceuticals, in its sale of Donnatal® to Concordia Pharmaceuticals Inc., a subsidiary of Concordia Healthcare Corp. He also led the deal teams in the acquisitions of French toy company Juratoys and its subsidiary brands Janod and Kaloo, two leading European toy brands, and of Hong Kong-based Buzz Bee Toys, a diverse line of active play toys, for the Alex Brands family of children’s creative products.
Mr. Goldman’s recent work on behalf of boards of directors includes his representation of an independent committee of the board of directors of Wawa Inc. in connection with the change in the company’s tax structure from a C corporation to an S corporation. He also represented Leading Pharma LLC in its acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Excellium Pharmaceutical Inc., as well as in a private equity offering by Leading’s parent company.
Before joining Kramer Levin in 2009, Mr. Goldman served as the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance, appointed by Gov. Jon S. Corzine. In that role, he chaired the Reinsurance Task Force at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which during his tenure completed a framework for modernizing the regulation of reinsurance both in the United States and between the United States and other countries. He also chaired the International Insurance Relations Committee of the NAIC, and the Reinsurance and Other Forms of Risk Transfer Subcommittee on behalf of the U.S. at the International Association of Insurance Supervisors. Mr. Goldman was also one of seven commissioners nationally developing insurance regulatory modernization reform proposals on behalf of the NAIC. He has testified before Congress on multiple occasions regarding insurance regulation and health care reform.
Mr. Goldman devotes significant time to civic work. President Barack Obama appointed him to the President's Advisory Committee on the Arts for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in August 2014. He is a member of the board of directors of Macaulay Honors College Foundation at The City University of New York. He is also a member of the Board of Directors, the Executive Committee, and the Operations and Finance Committee and Assistant Treasurer of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and Chairs the Board of Managers of Theatre Square Development Co., LLC (the real estate development subsidiary of NJPAC). Mr. Goldman also serves as a member of the advisory group to the American Law Institute in connection with the development of the Restatement of the Law of Liability Insurance. He served for 13 years on the Board of Directors of Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, N.J. and also as the hospital’s outside counsel in numerous matters. He serves on the Dean’s Board of Advisors for the George Washington University Law School and as Chair of its Business and Finance Law Advisory Board. Mr. Goldman is a member of the Economic Club of New York and the Lotos Club, and serves as the firm’s liaison to the Partnership for New York City.
He received an LL.M., Taxation, from New York University School of Law, a J.D. with honors from the George Washington University Law School and a B.A., cum laude, from Boston University.
About John Schreiber - Termed a “visionary producer” and “impresario of brand names” by The New York Times, Emmy- and Tony Award-winning producer John Schreiber is President and CEO of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC). The State's largest cultural institution, NJPAC presents over 600 events each season. Via its best of class arts learning programs, the Arts Center reaches over 100,000 students annually. Prior to joining NJPAC, Schreiber was Executive Vice President at Participant Media, the Los Angeles film production company responsible for movies such as Lincoln, The Help, Waiting for Superman and An Inconvenient Truth. He also served as President of George Wein’s Festival Productions, the world’s largest producers of music festivals.
Photo L-R: Barry Ostrowsky, John Schreiber, Steven Goldman. Photo credit: Yasmeen Fahmy/NJPAC
