Job Description

President & Chief Executive Officer
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

The Museum

Founded in 1842 with a vision for infusing art into the American experience, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is home to a collection of over 55,000 works of art, spanning 5,000 years and encompassing European art from antiquity to contemporary as well as the art of the Americas from Pre-Columbian through today. The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is the oldest continuously-operating public art museum in the United States, opening its doors to the public in 1844.

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art was founded by Daniel Wadsworth (1771–1848), one of the first major American art patrons. Daniel Wadsworth donated his extraordinary collection of paintings to create a public “Gallery of Fine Arts,” but was persuaded to additionally support a library, an historical society, and a natural history society under the same roof, thus forming an atheneum, a term popular in the 19th century to describe an institution devoted to the promotion of learning, art, and culture.

The Wadsworth Atheneum has paved the way for public museums across the country, being at the forefront of collecting works by artists as diverse as Caravaggio, Frederic Church, Joseph Cornell, Salvador Dalí, and Joan Miró as well as presenting engaging and groundbreaking exhibitions that explore every era of art history. Today, visitors to the Wadsworth’s galleries in downtown Hartford, Connecticut find captivating and innovative installations that illustrate the breadth and quality of the world-class collection.

Highlights include the JP Morgan collection of Greek and Roman antiquities and European decorative arts; world-renowned Baroque and Surrealist paintings; an unsurpassed collection of Hudson River School landscapes; Modernist masterpieces in painting and works on paper; the Serge Lifar collection of Ballets Russes drawings and costumes; the Wallace Nutting collection of American colonial furniture and decorative arts; the Samuel Colt firearms collection; costumes and textiles; African American art and artifacts; and contemporary art.

The Opportunity

Position: President & Chief Executive Officer

Location: Hartford, CT

Reporting Relationship: Reports to Board of Trustees

Website:

Purpose of the Position

The CEO’s primary responsibilities include strategic leadership, business planning, external relations, and stewardship of the Wadsworth brand and reputation. This passionate and entrepreneurial individual will oversee a $12.5 million-dollar annual operating budget, approximately $90 million in investment assets, an urban campus of five historic buildings and over 200,000 square feet of building space housing over 55,000 works of art. Reporting to the Board of Trustees, the CEO is responsible for providing strategic, financial, and operational leadership for the institution and will serve as the primary liaison to the Board as well as taking the lead on all external affairs, including fundraising, communications, and political advocacy. Under a distributed leadership model, the CEO works closely and in parallel with the Director in collaboratively shaping major institutional initiatives, articulating shared priorities, and ensuring organizational alignment at all levels. The success of this model depends on strong communication, shared values, and a deep commitment to collegial leadership—qualities the CEO must exemplify and foster. The CEO and Director both serve as ex-officio members of the Wadsworth Atheneum Board of Trustees.

The next CEO will be a dynamic and externally facing leader with a strong background in nonprofit administration, financial strategy, and relationship-building. This leader will champion the museum's mission and steward its financial sustainability, philanthropic growth, and community relevance. The CEO must possess business acumen, political dexterity, and the ability to navigate complex civic landscapes—including state and federal advocacy. The CEO is charged with ensuring that the financial, operational, administrative, and strategic infrastructure of the organization are strong and forward-looking, providing a solid foundation for the Wadsworth to fully realize its artistic and cultural mission.

Experience in board development, fundraising from major donors, and implementing capital campaigns is essential. A successful candidate will demonstrate proven success in managing and inspiring cross-functional teams, empowering staff, and sustaining a positive and transparent organizational culture.

The CEO must drive results across key priority areas including revenue generation, strategic communications, and departmental performance. Immediate goals include significant fundraising, reducing the museum’s deficit, securing new trustee and donor commitments, expanding the paying membership base, and supporting the implementation of a major rebrand. The incoming leader will need to advance current development of a long-range facilities plan and earn the trust of a wide array of stakeholders, from staff across the museum, to board members, and regional political leaders.

This role requires not only expertise in leadership and nonprofit management, but also a high degree of interpersonal skill, cultural facility, and respect for artistic independence, quality, and integrity. The CEO will play a crucial role in helping the organization thrive in a rapidly changing cultural environment by bringing financial insight, operational clarity, and a clear strategic organizational mindset to bear in support of an innovative and ambitious artistic program mapped out by the Director. As a key member of the executive leadership team, the CEO will demonstrate strong HR leadership by fostering a high-performance culture grounded in accountability, inclusion, and continuous improvement. To this end the CEO will oversee the development and refinement of organization-wide performance evaluation processes that support individual growth and organizational excellence. They will ensure robust new hire onboarding practices that promote early engagement and alignment with the organization's mission, vision, and values. Additionally, the CEO will lead ongoing efforts to refine position descriptions, ensuring clarity and alignment with strategic goals, and will work to continually assess and define roles and responsibilities across the organization to promote operational efficiency and team effectiveness.

Ideal candidates will bring deep competencies in non-profit and/or corporate environments, with the sensitivity to honor artistic vision and cultural heritage while innovating for future impact. A strong candidate will be comfortable with ambiguity and rapid change, exhibit humility alongside executive presence, and possess a mastery of human-centered leadership. The CEO must have the emotional intelligence to navigate a complex and passionate institution while demonstrating clear vision and fiscal responsibility.

Key Responsibilities

• Advance an innovative vision for museum operations and management by bringing new philosophies, ideas, and approaches.
• Lead and manage with the Director strategic planning, operational priorities, and long-term institutional vision.
• Act as the primary liaison to the Board of Trustees; build strong relationships and instill confidence through transparency, presence, and a demonstrated ability to manage governance relationships.
• Partner with internal leadership (e.g., Director of Finance, Director, Development Director) to sustain momentum in financial restructuring, fundraising, and infrastructure improvement.
• Prioritize and systematize ongoing deferred maintenance issues—spanning facilities, staffing, HR, and collection care—with a triage-to-strategy mindset.
• Help manage and support the new Director of Development in meeting the organization’s philanthropic and engagement goals.
• Spearhead reaccreditation efforts and rebranding initiatives.
• Lead Board and staff in development and execution of strategic plans with clearly defined priorities, goals, funding expectations, and measures of success and galvanize and coalesce staff, Board, community and other stakeholders in ensuring successful implementation of such plans.
• Oversee the organization’s financial structure, ensuring adequate and sound funding for the purpose, mission and goals of the museum.
• Ensure the museum’s compliance with all applicable laws, rules, regulations, and standards.
• Serve as an inspiring, accessible, and supportive leader, promoting an organizational culture that attracts, retains, and motivates a highly talented work force who bring a broad range of lived experiences by reinforcing rigor, quality, clarity, and transparency of communication and decision-making, promoting constructive and collegial collaboration among departments, and working closely with the management team to develop effective hiring, training, performance management and compensation plans
• Develop a management structure and hire and lead a diverse leadership/management team that embraces and fosters the museum’s desired organizational culture.
• Work in partnership with the Director in the development, implementation and oversight of the museum’s artistic, curatorial and interpretive strategies.
• Provide leadership and oversight for the construction, revitalization, and maintenance of the Wadsworth’s physical plant including the prioritization of capital projects plus development of capital spending and maintenance budgets.
• Assure the museum’s ]]>

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