Lane joined the Ford Foundation in 2018, after serving as the founding executive director of the service organization Dance/NYC for nearly eight years. Prior to Dance/NYC, he held the senior development role at the arts-wide advocacy group Alliance for the Arts. A lifelong New Yorker and a product of its creative and social justice sectors, Harwell’s history in the arts also includes training at the School of American Ballet and a performance career with American Ballet Theatre Studio Company.

Lane co-chairs the Chancellor’s Arts Committee to the Panel for Education Policy. He is an appointee to New York State’s Blue Ribbon Commission on the Arts and New York City’s Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission and is a member of the Board of New Yorkers for Culture & Arts and leadership committees for Hunter College and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Lane is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Lane has an MBA from Columbia Business School, an MA in performance studies from the University of California at Berkeley, and a BA in philosophy from Princeton University.