Ariana Austin Makonnen

Princess Ariana Austin Makonnen of Ethiopia (née Ariana Joy Lalita Austin) is an American writer, arts manager and philanthropist. She is the founder of the evening arts festival Art All Night and of the creative agency French Thomas. In 2018, she and her husband launched Old World/New World Productions, a media company that produces content focusing on the African diaspora. Makonnen, who is the granddaughter of Lord Mayor John Meredith Ford of Georgetown, Guyana, serves as the Goodwill Ambassador of Friends of Guyana. In 2019, she spoke at the Third Annual Women's Leadership and Business Conference at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre. She is a member of the Ethiopian imperial family through her marriage to Prince Joel Dawit Makonnen, the great-grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie I. Family Makonnen was born in Washington, D.C., to Bobby William Austin, president of the Neighborhood Associates Corporation and the first African-American full-time faculty member at Georgetown University, and Joy Ford, the former executive director of Humanities DC, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is of African-American and Indo-Guyanese descent. Her maternal grandfather, John Meredith Ford, was Lord Mayor of Georgetown, Guyana. Her maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Janki, was the first ordained Presbyterian elder for Demerara in British Guiana. Education and career Makonnen graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in English literature from Fisk University. While at Fisk, she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. As an undergraduate she studied abroad at Magdalen College, Oxford and through Semester at Sea. She has a master's degree in arts education and creative writing from Harvard University. After finishing school she moved to Paris and worked as a teacher and freelance journalist. Inspired by the French art festival Nuit Blanche, she founded and directed Art All Night, an evening arts festival in Washington, D.C. featuring visual arts, live paintings, musical performances, light projections, and poetry readings. Five years after starting Art All Night, Makonnen founded French Thomas, a creative agency that produced cultural and educational experiences in New York City, Camden and Washington, D.C. She works in philanthropy at a division of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and serves as the Goodwill Ambassador of Friends of Guyana. She has worked as a contributing writer for HuffPost.