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University of Southern California

Search for the Executive Director of the Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education 

Los Angeles, California

The University of Southern California (USC), a leading global, private, research university, seeks its next Executive Director of the Shoah Foundation - The Institute for Visual History and Education. 

The Shoah Foundation (“Foundation” or “Institute”) was founded in 1994 by Steven Spielberg to give timely opportunity for survivors and witnesses to the Shoah (the Holocaust)—the genocide of the Jews—to tell their own stories in their own words in videotaped interviews. In an effort to preserve testimonies through digitization and access critical channels for education, the relationship between USC and the Institute was consummated sixteen years ago. Since then, the relationship has worked remarkably well, providing the Foundation a welcoming and stable home and providing USC with a well-established research laboratory to investigate the very limits and depths of the human experience. Today, the Institute has collected over 55,000 video testimonies stored in the Visual History Archive. 

Collecting and preserving Holocaust testimony remains at the core of the Institute’s mission, and the Foundation uses this archive to starkly reveal anti-Semitism and every form of hate. In a deliberate effort, the Visual History Archive has grown to include testimonies from genocides and humanitarian atrocities that preceded the Holocaust but were denied or forgotten, including the 1915 Armenian Genocide and the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. In an equally deliberate effort, the Foundation has highlighted the frequent, contemporary civil war- genocides, since World War II, including the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi Genocide and the murder and expulsion of the Rohingya from Myanmar. 

The Foundation and its Executive Director have three fundamental missions: The acquisition and preservation of witness testimony, ensuring the protection of current and future testimonies in perpetuity; the creation and distribution of educational programming, through partners, world- wide; and the stimulation of research and scholarship by scholars at the University of Southern California and their colleagues across the globe.  

The incoming Executive Director will have the opportunity to make a tremendous impact on the Institute, and on global opinion, by documenting and distributing witness testimony of the Holocaust, of contemporary genocides, enslavement, and other acts of hate, in an effort to counter future unconscionable atrocities. They will lead a group of passionate staff committed to the mission of the Institute. They will oversee the continued development of the Institute’s missions while serving as the external face and chief fundraiser for the Shoah Foundation. In order to be successful, the incoming Executive Director will address the following opportunities and challenges:

Lead innovation to constantly improve collection, preservation, and protection of testimony from survivors of the Shoah as well as other genocidal survivors
Serve as a leading global voice for countering antisemitism and other identity forms of hatred through internal and external advocacy
Manage and grow resources to enable the Shoah Foundation to achieve its ambitious objectives 
Further the integration between the Shoah Foundation and the broader USC community to enhance the Institute’s visibility and collaborative research and teaching efforts
Further develop the curation and distribution of world-class educational material to expand the Shoah Foundation’s impact and reach locally, nationally, and globally
Collaborate closely and effectively with the Shoah Foundation’s Board of Councilors to advance strategy central to the Institute’s mission
Hire, manage, and retain a diverse, dynamic, and world-class staff

The University of Southern California has retained Isaacson, Miller, a national executive search firm, to assist in this search. Screening of complete applications will begin immediately and continue until the completion of the search process. For more details, including the full position profile and to submit inquiries, nominations, referrals, and applications, please see the Isaacson, Miller website for the search: https://www.imsearch.com/search-detail/S8-395. Electronic submission of materials is required.

John Isaacson, Courtney Wilk-Mandel, Rafa Escobedo, Thea Kosmack, Mindy Crimini, and Cara Meyers 

Isaacson, Miller

1925 Century Park East, Suite 1700

Los Angeles, CA, 90067

USC is an equal-opportunity educator and employer, proudly pluralistic and firmly committed to providing equal opportunity for outstanding persons of every race, gender, creed, and background. The university particularly encourages members of underrepresented groups, veterans, and individuals with disabilities to apply. USC will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with known disabilities unless doing so would result in an undue hardship. Further information is available by contacting uschr@usc.edu.