Creative Pinellas Announces Barbara St. Clair to Retire as Chief Executive Officer

Barbara St. Clair, CEO of Creative Pinellas has announced that she will retire at the end of this year. She has led Pinellas County's non-profit Local Arts Agency (LAA) since 2016. The board of directors has established a search committee consisting of both board and community members and will conduct a national search for her replacement with the aid of an executive recruitment firm to be selected this spring, according to Creative Pinellas Board President David Warner. CEO candidates will be identified over the summer and the new CEO will begin work in 2024.

Creative Pinellas was established in 2011 as the designated LAA for Pinellas County. Since joining the organization, Barbara St. Clair has been instrumental in establishing it as a champion of the arts in Pinellas. During her tenure, Creative Pinellas has instituted a wide array of grant programs, forged new community partnerships, and revitalized the former Gulf Coast Museum of Art to become the Gallery at Creative Pinellas. St. Clair's trusted leadership has enabled the agency to play a key role in supporting the local arts community during the Covid pandemic, teaming up with other local nonprofits to create the Arts Community Relief Fund; partnering with the Board of County Commissioners to provide over $3M in CARES Act Funding to artists and arts businesses and organizations; and acquiring a $500,000 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant to provide $450,000 in direct funds to Pinellas County artists and arts & cultural organizations.

"It has been an extraordinary honor to lead Creative Pinellas during this time of growth and change, and explosion of arts and culture in Pinellas County," said St. Clair. "I am fortunate to have worked with so many amazing artists and arts and cultural organizations who bring such vibrancy to our community, with a great team who helped build the organization from the ground up, with a board of directors who saw and supported our shared vision for the arts in our community, and with a Board of County Commissioners, Tourist Development Council, Convention and Visitors Bureau (Visit St. Petersburg/Clearwater) and community partners who recognized the economic impact of the arts and its value to building Pinellas County as a truly awesome arts and cultural destination. I am thankful for all of their support."

"Creative Pinellas would not be the force that it is today without the leadership of Barbara St. Clair," said Warner. "Thanks to her financial savvy, keen instincts, and passion for the arts, she was able to grow a small organization with limited scope into a nationally esteemed non-profit Local Arts Agency that is playing a huge role in asserting Pinellas County's identity as Florida's Arts Coast."

St. Clair was hired to lead Creative Pinellas following a successful career in corporate marketing and management. Starting out seven years ago with an annual budget of $300,000 and a staff of 1.5 independent contractors, St. Clair grew Creative Pinellas into a $1.7M organization with 6 full-time staff. The agency's grant programs have supported the work of more than 180 professional and emerging artists and helped more than 600 Pinellas children to attend arts summer camps. Under St. Clair's leadership, Creative Pinellas launched the Pinellas Mural Arts Program to commission area artists to paint murals on county rights-of-way and in community/business locations; oversaw the expansion of Creative Pinellas's online Arts Coast Magazine; and shepherded the creation of the Arts Navigator, an exciting new tool to connect residents and tourists with activities and events that they'll enjoy most while visiting the Arts Coast.

St. Clair has forged productive partnerships between Creative Pinellas and the Tourist Development Council, Visit St. Petersburg/Clearwater (VSPC) and county and state officials. She has also developed programs with the Tampa Bay Rays; American Stage; the Florida Botanical Gardens; Heritage Village; Pinellas African American Heritage Celebration; and Pinellas County Schools. To establish the Arts Community Relief Fund, which raised $140,000 for artists and arts organizations in the spring of 2020, she partnered with the Pinellas Community Foundation, St. Petersburg Arts Alliance, and The Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg. Pinellas Community Foundation was also Creative Pinellas's partner in presenting the We Convene series of public talks on the state of the arts in Pinellas County.

"Barbara has established Creative Pinellas as an indispensable resource for the arts community and the county as a whole," said Warner. "She'll be a hard act to follow. Fortunately, she has provided us with both the foundation and the vision to guide us in finding Creative Pinellas's next CEO. One example is that she was able to get County funding and support for the creation of a Cultural Plan, the first for Pinellas County since 2005. That project, which was recently launched, will be well on its way to completion by the end of the year."

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