Max Hollein, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will add the title of chief executive, the museum’s board announced on Wednesday, giving him full control of one of the world’s largest museums.
Hollein will take on that new role upon the departure of Daniel H. Weiss, the Met’s president and chief executive, who last month announced that he would step down in June 2023. (Weiss has been president of the Met since 2015 and president and chief executive since 2017.)
“Max has done a great job during his tenure” as director, Candace K. Beinecke, one of the museum’s two board chairs, said in a telephone interview. “He has inspired enormous confidence as a future leader.”
The move returns the museum to its single chief management structure, one from which it has departed over the years. The Met’s current two-pronged leadership structure, which is unusual for art museums, was put in place in 2017, after Thomas P. Campbell resigned under pressure as director and chief executive.
Having led other institutions before — most recently the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco — Hollein said he felt prepared to expand his purview. “It’s a great honor, but also something that comes with a great responsibility,” Hollein said.
Asked how his leadership might differ from that of Weiss, Hollein said that while they have “different personalities,” he saw this “as a step of continuation.”
As for Weiss, the former president of Haverford College and an art historian, he has made clear that, at 65 and after steering the museum through a period of instability, he was ready for a new chapter.
“I would rather go out on top,” he said. “Better to go out when things are going well from a position of strength.”
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