New Museum Expands Board Leadership and Announces New Trustees

Over the past five years since reopening in its new building at 235 Bowery, the Museum has grown dramatically: with a budget that has increased from $3.5 million annually to nearly $13 million and a staff that now numbers more than seventy-five people.

Now in its thirty-sixth year, the Museum's Board has also grown to represent an ever more international and cross-generational leadership force. Saul Dennison, President of the Board since 1999, has become the Chairman. James-Keith Brown, a New Museum Trustee since 1998, will now serve as President. Trustee Paul T. Schnell has been appointed Vice Chairman. Mitzi Eisenberg, Lonti Ebers, David Heller, and Toby Devan Lewis have been named Vice Presidents, joining Shelley Fox Aarons, Secretary, and John S. Wotowicz, Treasurer, as officers of the Board.

"The New Museum is New York City's only museum devoted exclusively to contemporary art from around the globe. Our Board is as distinctive as our institution and its mission, with all the Trustees passionately devoted to new art and new ideas. Like the Museum's programs, we have great strength in an international and generational mix among our Trustees-a very special combination reflected by the recent expansion of the Board. This is an exciting time at the New Museum," said Saul Dennison.

Lisa Phillips also announced that the Museum has elected four new Trustees, deepening its national and global leadership: Hank Latner of Toronto, Leonid Mikhelson of Moscow, Gael Neeson of Chicago and Aspen, and José Olympio Pereira of São Paulo.

"The New Museum has evolved consistently since its founding in 1977," said Lisa Phillips. "It has developed a strong global presence through initiatives like our Generational Triennial, the Museum as Hub, and the IDEAS CITY festival, engaging ever broader audiences and catalyzing innovative thinking. As part of our evolution, we have actively sought out new leaders who represent active cultural centers around the globe. We welcome our new Trustees to the Museum at a great moment in its history."

About the new Board President and four recently elected Trustees:

James-Keith ("J.K.") Brown, President, is an active collector of contemporary art in New York. He is head of Global Investor Relations for Och-Ziff and is a member of Och-Ziff's Partner Management Committee. Brown is also an Executive Managing Director. Prior to joining Och-Ziff in 2003, Brown spent more than four years at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he was a Managing Director and Head of US Institutional Sales and Relationship Management. He serves on the Board of the Lincoln Center Theater, the New School for Public Engagement, and the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts. Brown, a New Museum Trustee since 1998, has served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Museum's Board since 2005.

A philanthropist and collector based in Chicago and Aspen, Gael Neeson, together with her husband Stefan Edlis, have assembled a significant collection of contemporary art. Together, they founded the Edlis-Neeson Foundation in 2007, which supports diverse causes such as contemporary art, music, opera, public media, and community outreach, providing key funding to institutions and initiatives such as the Aspen Music Festival and School and the Aspen Institute, among other national museums and organizations.

Harold (Hank) A. Latner currently serves as a Managing Director at the Shiplake Development Company in Toronto, Canada. He is a third-generation family member to join the Management Committee that oversees the family's investments. In addition, he is a passionate collector of contemporary art and serves on the Board of Directors of the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto. He has a BA (Honors) in Architecture from the University of Toronto and an MBA from the Ivey School of Business (Western).

Leonid Mikhelson is the founder and CEO of OAO Novatek, Russia's second-largest gas producer. Together with his daughter, Victoria, Mikhelson founded VICTORIA - the Art of being Contemporary, a new institution founded in Moscow in 2009, committed to promoting contemporary art in Russia and abroad. Born in a town on the Caspian Sea in Russia's Republic of Dagestan, Mikhelson graduated in 1977 from Samara's Civil Engineering Institute before helping to create Novatek in 1994.

José Olympio Pereira is the President of Credit Suisse's Brazilian unit in São Paulo and oversees investment banking, private banking, and asset management divisions. Together with his wife, Andrea, Pereira has assembled one of the most important collections of modern and contemporary Brazilian art in the world. Pereira joined Credit Suisse from Citibank, where he was head of investment banking in Brazil and co-head for all of Latin America. Pereira has a degree in Civil Engineering from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica of Rio de Janeiro and has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

New Museum Board of Trustees 2013
For a complete listing of the New Museum Board of Trustees, please visit: newmuseum.org/leadership

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