It’s cutting-edge in the nicest, accessible way,” Susan Baker said of New York City Opera. “It’s innovative and intellectual but entertaining.”

Ms. Baker, who became chairman of the opera’s board over the summer, likes to emphasize the popular appeal of City Opera productions. She credits artistic and general director Paul Kellogg, who programs Baroque and American works with some classics mixed in. “There’s a theatrically immediate feel to anything he does,” she said, ever the booster, noting his talent at casting young American singers to fit individual parts.

Supporting his artistic vision remains a priority, even though the opera is running at a loss. “This is the time to do more and better of what we are so terribly good at, rather than shy from the risks.”

Ms. Baker’s mission is to raise City Opera’s profile at a time when classical music audiences are shrinking. The oft-repeated key to success at any arts organization these days is to attract younger viewers, and Ms. Baker’s corporate background has led her to the same conclusion. “You have to bring more people to the art form. We have a young demographic for an opera company, and we need to be even younger,” said the investment banker-turned-philanthropist.

Ms. Baker presents the bright outlook of a new leader. “I don’t worry about getting through this difficult chapter, because we have a healthy endowment and a strong board that’s very committed,” she said.

“It’s an underrated commodity in the city of New York,” said Ms. Baker, looking businesslike in a pantsuit and rectangular, red eyeglasses. “I have a feeling that there’s a huge cross section of the New York population who would happily spend many evenings at City Opera if they only knew about it.”

In accentuating the positive, she chooses to play down the opera’s search for a new home – a goal since

Mr. Kellogg made clear his desire to leave the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center. In the four months since it was denied a spot in the new cultural complex at ground zero, the exhaustion and tensions of putting in a major bid have eased. Ms. Baker seems unfazed by the recent turn of events: “Pollyanna is my middle name. I’m convinced that things happen for the best.”

She commented on being turned away from the new center, whose directors chose other local groups, such as the Drawing Center and the Joyce Theater: “My take is the people making the decision voted for smaller, and for more what they thought might be more populist organizations. I hope that they will be very successful in what they’ve pulled together down there.”

Meanwhile, the company has had “a number of approaches with respect to sites … of course we are running all those down; there’s a small group of the board that’s been asked to take it under their wing,” she said. “In the future maybe we’ll find some place that would be more wonderful than what we would have had downtown,” she said.

“But as far as I’m concerned, as important as that is, the notion of raising the profile of City Opera is what I’d like to focus on. … I’d really like to take the attention of everyone – the audiences, the board – right back to what we’re doing center stage.”

Ms. Baker describes herself as a “consensus builder, strategic, a clear communicator.”

“Many board chairs don’t want discussion on too many topics, the meeting is so programmed; but I think the more voices you hear from the more constructive it is.”

Until 10 years ago, Ms. Baker had no time to serve on boards. “For 17 years, I worked like a demon,” she said. “I’m not proud of the fact there really wasn’t an extra second. I should have been a better friend. I certainly should have been giving more back. But there just wasn’t time to do it,” she said.

She grew up in McLean, Va., with dreams of writing fiction. She graduated from Wellesley with highest honors in literature, and was headed to study English at graduate school when she had a change in heart. Her parents were divorcing and her mother urged to choose a career that would allow her financial independence.

“I decided to be practical,” she said. She found a job in real estate tax shelters. Ms. Baker cried over discounted cash flows at first, but quickly adjusted. Pursuing a degree at Harvard Business School, though, was “a more difficult transition.”

“Harvard is not a benign environment; it thrives on bringing people to opposing positions and it uses controlled conflict as a way to teach,” she said. Ms. Baker describes herself as “terribly shy.” After earning her MBA, Ms. Baker headed to Goldman Sachs, where she met her husband (he continues to work there).She founded the Swaps Group at Kidder, Peabody & Co., specialized in capital markets at Lehman Brothers, and held senior posts at First Boston Corporation and a boutique investment bank, Southport Partners.

When she left her job, in her early 40s, she gravitated to New York’s culture. “I started going to performances almost every night of the week, all around town,” she said.

At City Opera, Mr. Kellogg had just come on as artistic director, and Ms. Baker was impressed. “I became riveted in the early Paul years by the Baroque repertoire. I’m kind of an early music nut,” she said.

A Handel opera galvanized her to join the board. “‘Xerxes’ just caught me up short,” she said. “It was a revelation to me.”

“Then a dear friend of City Opera’s and of mine, Jim Marcus, introduced me to Paul, and I was here in a heartbeat,” she said. She said they had an instant connection. On her reading table now is Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children,” a selection inspired by City Opera’s new fall production of Charles Wuorinen’s opera based on Mr. Rushdie’s “Haroun and the Sea of Stories.”

Other organizations Ms. Baker is involved with are the School of American Ballet, the Shakespeare Society, and the Collegiate Chorale. Outside of her nonprofit responsibilities – and she’s at the City Opera offices nearly every day – Ms. Baker has an interest in 18th-century English furniture (“We’ve got some friends who are interested in fast boats. I’ll take a pretty table any day.”) She’s also mom to three dogs, three cats, and a dove.

“I’ve found so many people think arts are frivolous and irrelevant when it comes to the whole world of volunteerism and philanthropy,” she said. “But I believe the arts are food for the soul, and we really need to be nurtured in that way to be the best people we can be,” she said.