Philadelphia Museum of Art hires a new chief financial and operating officer
Mitchell Lee Wein will oversee finances, facilities, and operations as the museum wrestles with an operating deficit.
Philadelphia Museum of Art director and CEO Daniel H. Weiss has hired a longtime associate to be the museum’s new executive vice president and chief financial and operating officer.
Mitchell Lee Wein will oversee finances, facilities, operations, risk management, and strategic initiatives, the museum announced Friday.
Weiss and Wein worked together in similar roles when Weiss was president of Haverford College and, before that, at Lafayette College. Wein, 63, has extensive experience on the financial and operations side of nonprofit organizations, but has never worked in a museum.
A Philadelphian for more than three decades, he takes up the new post April 22.
“It’s such an important institution that I’m happy to play a role for as long as I can and leave it better for the future. I think the mission is critical,” said Wein. “When I was in the private sector I thought about how we attract firms to Philadelphia, how people can have a great experience here, and the museum plays a role in that. I smile when I think about the opportunities.”
Wein is currently senior vice president for finance and COO at the Brookings Institute, the Washington, D.C.-based think tank. He was senior vice president for administration and finance at Haverford College and held a similar position at Lafayette College. Previously, he was managing director in investment banking with UBS Investment Bank/UBS PaineWebber, and, before that, at PNC Capital Markets.
Weiss took over the museum in December and has been making a series of changes in the executive leadership team as he determines how to close the operating deficit and revive attendance. He must decide what to do about paused expansion plans and much-needed maintenance on existing buildings. And he will consider whether to re-open to the public the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, the museum’s major addition that closed during the pandemic.
Among Weiss’s early moves: he reversed the name change that had been unveiled months earlier as part of the museum’s widely-panned rebranding.
Wein says he has been following coverage of the museum’s challenges and reading financial statements in preparation for his start. He said he looked forward to developing a plan for the museum “in support of what Dan has outlined along with other colleagues.”