Current Opportunities

The Philadelphia Museum of Art

Director and Chief Executive Officer

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

THE SEARCH

The Trustees and the Search Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) seek an exemplary leader, for one of the world’s great art museums in the heart of one of the nation’s great cities.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art was founded in 1876, the year of the nation’s centennial, in the city that launched the Declaration of Independence. Since then, it has grown into an artistic campus made up of the landmark main building; the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman building; the Rodin Museum; and two fine eighteenth-century houses in Fairmount Park: Mount Pleasant and Cedar Grove. The Museum was intended to express the city’s highest aspirations and it has succeeded. In 2004, facing the need for significant capital repairs and more public areas, the Museum hired Frank Gehry to design a Master Plan. In a careful, sympathetic design, Gehry created a multi-staged effort to repair the essential infrastructure and open circulation to engage the Museum with its visitors

The Museum welcomes everyone. Over half of its visitors come from the U.S. and international visitors come regularly, drawn by its artistic reputation. In the century and a half since its founding, the Museum has acquired, through the work of its curators and from devoted and generous collectors, one of the world’s great encyclopedic collections, making it a museum of “magic and majesty.” The collection features one of the finest gatherings of American, Asian, and European art anywhere. Over the decades, the Museum has proved inventive and daring. It creates large, traveling, and shared exhibitions that attract local, national, and international acclaim. In recent years, it has developed new digital technologies that reach millions of visitors, beyond the ordinary, geographic constraints.

In 2015, the Museum launched the public phase of It Starts Here: The Campaign for the Philadelphia Museum with $190 million raised in the silent phase. As of September 2021, the Campaign has raised $557 million against a goal of $525 million. Through recent difficult times, the PMA has stayed focused. The Board and leadership believe in the value of long-term planning, careful execution, and successful fundraising. The Board feels strongly that all the fundamentals remain firmly in place, that the Museum has extraordinary assets and that it has taken action to prepare the way for a new Director. The PMA stands at the brink of a transformative moment, with excellent opportunities for growth, greatly improved inclusion and invention. Armed with state-of-the-art facilities, a world-renowned collection, a passionate and talented staff, generous donors, an iconic image, and the learnings of the last few years, the next Director will usher the PMA into a new chapter, a time to further motivate staff, to engage the community and the city, to manage the finances, to invent and create, and unleash the joy and the beauty of the art.

The Search Committee seeks a Director and Chief Executive Officer who is the equal to its history, who can bring superb management, a history of demonstrated success and creative invention to the staff and the visitors, and who will help this venerable institution to invent the future. The next Director will be an inspiring, resilient, seasoned, and astute leader of the utmost integrity with a demonstratable track record who will build trust and respect and invigorate all the Museum’s constituencies.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has retained Isaacson, Miller, a national executive search firm, to assist in the recruitment of this important leader. All inquiries, nominations, and resumes with cover letters should be directed in confidence to Isaacson, Miller at www.imsearch.com/8198.

At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, we actively seek to employ a diverse group of people who embody our organizational values. PMA welcomes and encourages individuals of all backgrounds to apply, especially those from marginalized and underrepresented groups in the museum field, who are inspired by its shared purpose and enjoy working collaboratively with others.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship or immigration status, color, disability, ethnicity, familial status, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other protected status.