For twenty years, CCL has trained curators to become visionary leaders of art museums – in turn building a stronger and more dynamic museum field
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CCL is guided by five core values:
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Moral leadership
Established by professional practice, personal growth, and informed response to changing conditions, this is the foundation of CCL’s enterprise.
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Equity
The principle that guides every CCL decision.
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Intellectual rigor
Underpins CCL’s instruction and commitment to continuing education and professional growth.
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Representation
A wide spectrum of perspectives and art historical expertise strengthens CCL’s programmatic infrastructure.
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Our Network of Support
Catalyzes exponential impact, both for our alumni and for the art museum field as a whole.
In 2007, aware that boards often preferred executives with management credentials over curators with art historical expertise for museum director positions – and believing that museum leaders must prioritize a dedication to art objects, programs, and audiences – philanthropist Agnes Gund and curator Elizabeth Easton launched CCL.
The core Fellowship program transformed the model for developing leaders in art museums. In 2014, CCL expanded its arc of training, launching new programs designed specifically for art history doctoral candidates and international curators of modern and contemporary art. Participants emerge with essential management skills, self-awareness, and a clarity of purpose that grounds their leadership and positions them to navigate institutional challenges with conviction and rigor.
Nearly two decades later, CCL has become indispensable to the museum field. Graduates now lead major art institutions worldwide, combining art historical knowledge and intellectual rigor with administrative, managerial, and strategic expertise.
CCL is located in New York City and runs programs at home and in other cities, drawing upon the resources of museums and academic institutions across the United States.
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Elizabeth Easton
Director & Co-Founder
Elizabeth Easton
Director & Co-Founder
director@cclcurators.orgElizabeth Easton is the Director of the Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL), a nonprofit organization she co-founded with Agnes Gund in 2007 to train art museum curators in the fundamentals of management and leadership. Now celebrating its twentieth year, and with over 500 alumni around the globe, CCL has become the leading institute for training curators and defining their role in museums.
From 2003 to 2006, Ms. Easton served as the first elected president of the Association of Art Museum Curators. Previously, she was chair of the Department of European Paintings and Sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum, a position she held from 1999 to 2007. A specialist in nineteenth-century French art, Easton earned her PhD from Yale University, writing her dissertation on Édouard Vuillard’s interiors of the 1890s. Her academic background and extensive museum experience inform her commitment to developing the next generation of museum leaders and strengthening the curatorial profession.
She is the recipient of the Wilbur Cross Medal, the highest distinction awarded to alumni of Yale University’s Graduate School. The French government appointed her Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2008, and elevated her to Officier in 2024. In 2024, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She is a trustee of MASS MoCA and the Alliance of HBCU Museums and Galleries, and has served on the boards of the Town School, the Spence School, Studio in a School, and the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR). She is on the Visiting Committee of the Department of Paintings Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the advisory boards of a number of other cultural institutions.
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Caitlin Palmer
Chief Operating Officer
Caitlin Palmer
Chief Operating Officer
Caitlin Palmer joined the Center for Curatorial Leadership in 2021. As Chief Operating Officer, she leads CCL’s financial and operational functions to support the organization’s effectiveness and long-term sustainability. Working closely with the Executive Director and Board of Trustees, her responsibilities span organizational strategy, governance, and the systems, processes, and resources that sustain CCL’s work. She also serves as a key liaison to staff, trustees, institutional partners, donors, funders, and other stakeholders to ensure the organization is well-positioned to deliver its programs and advance its mission. Ms. Palmer’s work is motivated by her belief that, to meaningfully advance the field, nonprofits’ missions must be matched by thoughtful leadership, strong administration, and a robust infrastructure.
Before joining CCL, Ms. Palmer was Curatorial Administrative Coordinator at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania. There, she assisted on notable exhibitions including Ree Morton: The Plant That Heals May Also Poison, Cauleen Smith: Give It or Leave It, the Colored People Time series, and the retrospective Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation. She also volunteers as a nonprofit consultant, advising organizations on incorporation and organizational structure, development strategy and stewardship, and leadership models. Her consulting work has included Art for Philadelphia and Ulises Co.
Ms. Palmer holds an MS in Nonprofit Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice, and a BS from Wesleyan University. Her senior thesis in printmaking, temporal states, received High Honors in general scholarship and is included in Wesleyan’s permanent collection. She is a member of the Steering Committee for ArtsPool, an administrative cooperative in New York City serving nonprofit arts organizations.
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Tatiana Mouarbes
Director of Programs
Tatiana Mouarbes
Director of Programs
Tatiana Mouarbes joined the Center for Curatorial Leadership in 2024. As the Director of Programs, she leads the Programs Team and guides the strategy, design, and delivery of CCL’s programs for curators across the arc of their careers. Her responsibilities include shaping and evaluating curricula, developing new programmatic initiatives, strengthening alumni engagement, and building relationships with participants, partners, speakers, and the broader cultural field. As a team leader, curator, grantmaker, and creative strategist, Ms. Mouarbes is committed to fostering dynamic, equitable, and diverse cultural ecosystems where artists, arts leaders, and cultural organizations can thrive.
Most recently, Ms. Mouarbes served as Senior Team Manager for the Global Culture and Art program at the Open Society Foundations. There, she spearheaded and launched arts-centered global initiatives, grantmaking portfolios, and multi-stakeholder partnerships, distributing more than $15 million to artists, activists, cultural leaders, and organizations working at the intersection of art, culture, and social justice across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East. She also directed the Soros Arts Fellowship and oversaw arts and culture grantmaking in the Middle East and North Africa, increasing support, visibility, and advocacy for arts and culture across the region.
Ms. Mouarbes holds an M.A. in Art History from Hunter College and a B.A. in Art History and Critical Theory from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Her curatorial research has been supported by fellowships and grants from the Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Program, The Artist’s Institute, Hunter College Art Galleries, and Ashkal Alwan in Beirut. Ms. Mouarbes regularly serves as a panelist reviewing fellowships and grant funding for private funders, and holds panels and workshops on sustainability and resource mobilization for artists and cultural organizations.
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Maggie Black
Director of Development
Maggie Black
Director of Development
Maggie Black joined the Center for Curatorial Leadership in 2025. As Director of Development, she leads CCL’s fundraising strategy, securing resources to sustain and advance the organization’s programs and mission. Her work encompasses major gifts, annual and campaign giving, foundation and corporate support, donor communications and stewardship, and long-term fundraising initiatives. She is focused on broadening CCL’s base of support and building lasting relationships with those committed to strengthening leadership across the museum field.
Ms. Black brings more than 15 years of experience in arts administration and fundraising in New York City. Prior to joining CCL, she served as Director of Institutional Giving at the Friends of the High Line. Her previous positions include roles at The Moth, Art21, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Lark Play Development Center. Ms. Black has also worked as an independent development consultant, collaborating with organizations including the Trisha Brown Dance Company, the Laundromat Project, and the International Center of Photography.
Ms. Black has a BA in Economics from Central Connecticut State University and an AAS in Interior Design from the Fashion Institute of Technology.
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Grace Oller
Executive Assistant & Office Coordinator
Grace Oller
Executive Assistant & Office Coordinator
Grace Oller joined the Center for Curatorial Leadership in 2023. As Executive Assistant and Office Coordinator, she manages the Director’s Office and helps facilitate the organization’s day-to-day operations. As a key point of contact for external partners, donors, funders, and other stakeholders, she manages scheduling and correspondence and provides research support on a range of current and prospective initiatives. She also works across CCL’s teams to contribute to the effective operation of the organization as a whole.
Prior to joining CCL, Ms. Oller served as a Curatorial Research Assistant at the Columbus Museum of Art, where she contributed to the exhibition Raggin’ On: The Art of Aminah Robinson’s House and Journals. She has also worked as a contributing writer for the Grey Art Gallery in collaboration with the Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation, and as Co-Editor in Chief of IFAcontemporary, an online publication. She currently serves in a volunteer capacity as a project manager of the Neighbor Artist Exhibition Residency, a program that supports artists as they prepare for their first solo exhibitions in Chelsea, New York.
Ms. Oller holds an M.A. in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, where she studied modern and contemporary art, institutional critique, and labor theory. Her master’s thesis, which was awarded an honorary distinction, examined the political and economic implications of the performances of artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles. She received her B.F.A from the Columbus College of Art & Design where she majored in Fine Arts and minored in Creative Writing and the History of Art & Visual Culture.
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Agnes Gund
Co-Founder and Chair Emerita (in memoriam)
President Emerita, Museum of Modern Art; Founder and Chair Emerita, Studio in a School
Agnes Gund
Co-Founder and Chair Emerita (in memoriam)
President Emerita, Museum of Modern Art; Founder and Chair Emerita, Studio in a SchoolAgnes Gund was president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art and chair of its International Council. Ms. Gund joined the MoMA Board in 1976 and served as president from 1991 until 2002.
Ms. Gund was also founder and chair emerita of Studio in a School, a non-profit organization she established in 1977 in response to budget cuts that virtually eliminated arts classes from New York City public schools.
A philanthropist and collector of modern and contemporary art, Ms. Gund served on the boards of MoMA PS1, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies, the Morgan Library and Museum, and the Center for Curatorial Leadership, of which she is co-founder and chair emerita. She was trustee emerita of the Barnes Foundation and YoungArts, as well as honorary trustee of Independent Curators International and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland.
A civic leader and staunch supporter of education, environmental concerns and social justice, Ms. Gund served on the boards of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, the Andy Warhol Foundation, Chess in the Schools, the Frick Collection, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the New York City Mayor’s Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission, and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, among others. In June 2017, she launched the Art for Justice Fund in partnership with the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors to support criminal justice reform in the U.S.
Ms. Gund earned an M.A. in Art History from Harvard University and a B.A. in History from Connecticut College. She held honorary doctorates from University of the Arts (2021), Bowdoin College (2012), the CUNY Graduate Center (2007), and Brown University (1996), among others, and was elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts (2016). Ms. Gund received the National Medal of the Arts from President Clinton (1997), the J. Paul Getty Medal (2018), the inaugural Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award (2020), the French Legion of Honour (2021) and the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal from Harvard University (2022).
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Ed Henry
Chair
Former President and CEO, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; Chair, United States Artists; Secretary, PAC-NYC
Ed Henry
Chair
Former President and CEO, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; Chair, United States Artists; Secretary, PAC-NYCEd Henry served as president and CEO of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation from 2009 to 2021. The foundation, with an endowment of approximately $1.8 billion, supports the performing arts, the environment, and medical research among other issues, through its various grant programs. He also served as president of several operating foundations, including the Duke Farms Foundation, which is focused on environmental stewardship, and the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, which operates a center for scholarship in the Islamic arts and culture as well as “Building Bridges,” a related grants program. Previously, Mr. Henry was an associate dean at Columbia Business School, where he continues to work as an adjunct faculty member.
Previously, Mr. Henry was an associate dean at Columbia Business School and has held senior administrative positions with a number of nonprofit institutions. Much earlier in life he was a dancer with the New York City-based companies of Dan Wagoner and Viola Farber, had the opportunity to perform throughout the United States and abroad, served in the Artists-in-Schools program, created work for a number of venues, and participated as a peer reviewer for federal, state and local funding organizations.
Mr. Henry earned a degree in economics from the University of Michigan and business from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He was a David Rockefeller fellow with the Partnership for New York City and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. He currently serves as Chair of United States Artists, Chair of the Center for Curatorial Leadership, and Secretary of PAC-NYC, the performing arts center at the World Trade Center.
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Kimerly Rorschach
Secretary
Former Illsley Ball Nordstrom Director and CEO, Seattle Art Museum; President, American Federation of Arts
Kimerly Rorschach
Secretary
Former Illsley Ball Nordstrom Director and CEO, Seattle Art Museum; President, American Federation of ArtsKimerly Rorschach served as the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Director and CEO of the Seattle Art Museum from 2012 until her retirement in 2019. Previously, she was director of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University (2004-2012) and the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago (1994-2004).
At the Seattle Art Museum, Ms. Rorschach built and diversified the collection and exhibition program, presenting groundbreaking exhibitions including Disguise: Masks and Global African Art (2015), Chiho Aoshima: Rebirth of the World (2015), and Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, and Mickalene Thomas (2018), among many others. She also established an increased focus on local and regional artists within the context of global collections and programs, and built wide-ranging partnerships in Seattle’s fast-growing and increasingly diverse communities. Under her leadership, the museum centered and elevated its work around equity and inclusion, a top priority in the museum’s strategic planning and board and staff recruitment. She led a $150M campaign to strengthen the museum’s endowment and to fund a major renovation and expansion of the historic Seattle Asian Art Museum, one of SAM’s three sites.
At Duke and the University of Chicago, Ms. Rorschach provided transformational leadership, raising the profile of these university museums and advocating for the unique value of the arts in higher education. She was the founding director of the Nasher Museum at Duke, quickly establishing it as a top university art museum with a distinctive program and supporting the creation of a groundbreaking contemporary collection focusing on artists of color. Throughout her career, she has made it a priority to mentor students and first-time museum directors.
Ms. Rorschach holds a bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University and a PhD in art history from Yale. She is a past president of the Association of Art Museum Directors. Ms. Rorschach serves on the board of the Center for Curatorial Leadership, the advisory board of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, and is the current Board President of the American Federation of Arts in New York. She is the author of “Know Before You Go” (2017) and “Now What” (2022), a series of handbooks for new art museum directors published by CCL.
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Theo Melas-Kyriazi
Treasurer
CFO, Levitronix Technologies Inc.; Advisory Partner, Flagship Pioneering
Theo Melas-Kyriazi
Treasurer
CFO, Levitronix Technologies Inc.; Advisory Partner, Flagship PioneeringTheodose (Theo) Melas-Kyriazi is the Chief Financial Officer of Levitronix Technologies Inc, the world leader in magnetically levitated pumps used to manufacture semiconductor chips and pharmaceuticals. He is also an Advisory Partner at Flagship Pioneering, a life science innovation firm that has created more than 100 companies in the biotechnology and sustainability fields. He spent two decades at Thermo Fisher Scientific in a variety of management roles.
Over the last twenty years, Mr. Melas-Kyriazi has served on the board of directors of numerous companies in the health care field. In addition, he has devoted significant time and energy to philanthropic organizations. For 25 years, he has served on the board of directors of the International Institute of New England, an organization that serves thousands of refugees and immigrants every year and helps them succeed through resettlement, education, career advancement and pathways to citizenship. For a decade, Mr. Melas-Kyriazi has served as a Trustee of the American School for Classical Studies at Athens, the preeminent center for the study of the Greek world from antiquity to the present day, where he also chairs the audit committee. He is also a Trustee of the Center for Curatorial Leadership, a Trustee of College Year in Athens, a study abroad program that focuses upon the history and civilization of Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean, and a Trustee of the Colebrook Land Conservancy, whose mission is to conserve and preserve land in Colebrook in Northwestern Connecticut.
The son of esteemed collectors of nineteenth-century Impressionist and Post-Impressionist French art, Mr. Melas-Kyriazi has had strong connections to the art world throughout his life. He holds a B.A. in Economics and an M.B.A. from Harvard University, and lives with his wife Lisa, a painter, between their homes in Brookline, Massachusetts, and New York City.
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David Breslin
Trustee
Leonard A. Lauder Curator in Charge, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art
David Breslin
Trustee
Leonard A. Lauder Curator in Charge, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, Metropolitan Museum of ArtDavid Breslin is the Leonard A. Lauder Curator in Charge of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He joined the Met in 2022 at a pivotal moment as it began planning and implementing the renovation of the Oscar L. and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing for Modern and Contemporary Art. Prior to the Met, Mr. Breslin served as the DeMartini Family Curator and Director of Curatorial Initiatives at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He has also previously held positions at the Menil Drawing Institute and the Clark Art Institute.
Mr. Breslin earned an BA from Amherst College, his MA from Williams College, and a Ph.D. in the History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University. At the Whitney, Mr. Breslin curated Where We Are: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1900-1960; An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1940-2017; David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night; and the Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet As It’s Kept. He organized exhibitions including El Anatsui and Raw Color: The Circles of David Smith at the Clark, and The Precarious and The Condition of Being Here: The Drawings of Jasper Johns at the Menil Collection. He has written essays on the work of Felix Gonzalez- Torres, Valentin Carron, Jenny Holzer, Cady Noland, Pablo Picasso, and Paul Thek, among others. He is a trustee of the Center for Curatorial Leadership.
Mr. Breslin was a member of the 2019 Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellowship cohort.
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Anita Contini
Trustee
Former Arts Program Lead, Bloomberg Philanthropies
Anita Contini
Trustee
Former Arts Program Lead, Bloomberg PhilanthropiesIn the Fall of 2025 and 2026, Anita Contini participated the Visiting Artists and Scholars Program at the American Academy in Rome where she embarked on an independent initiative engaging with artists to explore and document the impact that a seminal public art project had on their creative practice, the communities involved, and the boundaries of public art.
Previously, Ms. Contini was at Bloomberg Philanthropies, which she joined in 2012. Most recently serving as Senior Liaison for Arts and Culture, she oversaw special projects and identified emerging trends and opportunities. Drawing on her extensive management experience across the cultural, business, and public sectors, Ms. Contini provided critical insight and guidance to projects in which artists and arts organizations played a central role in strengthening the social and economic vitality of communities. Among her other accomplishments at Bloomberg Philanthropies, Ms. Contini launched and managed its Public Art Challenge, a program that has partnered with mayors, local leaders, and artists in more than nineteen cities across the United States–from Anchorage, Alaska to Coral Springs, Florida. These temporary public art projects address urgent local issues including gun violence, food equity, climate change, and city blight.
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Ms. Contini was appointed Vice President and Director of the 9/11 Memorial and Cultural Programs at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, where she defined and led the design selection process for the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Her leadership in navigating the complex and emotionally charged landscape of competing interests has been widely recognized as pivotal to the successful realization of this highly acclaimed memorial.
Ms. Contini has also held senior leadership roles in the private sector, including Senior Vice President of Marketing, Public Affairs and Global Philanthropy at financial services firm CIT; First Vice President of Global Sponsorships and Client Relationships at Merrill Lynch; and Vice President at Brookfield Properties, where she implemented and oversaw the Arts and Events Programs at the World Financial Center in New York and Canary Wharf in London.
In 1974, Ms. Contini founded the award winning, non-profit arts organization Creative Time, where she served as President and Director until 1986. Among the many notable public art projects produced during her tenure were Red Groom’s Ruckus Manhattan, the Custom and Culture program series at the U.S. Custom House, Art on the Beach, and Masstransiscope – the first National Endowment for the Arts-funded project in a transit system.
Ms. Contini has received numerous awards for distinguished public service from organizations including ArtTable NY, the Downtown Lower Manhattan Business Association, the Municipal Arts Society, Hofstra University, and the AIA New York Chapter.
Her current board affiliations include the Center for Curatorial Leadership and the Brooklyn Rail. She is also a member of The Trust for Governor’s Island Arts Committee, and serves as an informal advisor to The Memorial for Fallen Journalists in Washington, D.C., and The Mother Emanuel Foundation for the Emanuel Nine Memorial in Charleston, South Carolina. Her past board affiliations include ArtPlace America, ArtTable NY, Grantmakers in the Arts, Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, Publicolor, SMU DataArts, and, during the Bloomberg Administration, The Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City.
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Courtney J. Martin
Trustee
Executive Director, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
Courtney J. Martin
Trustee
Executive Director, Robert Rauschenberg FoundationCourtney J. Martin is the Executive Director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Previously, she was the sixth Paul Mellon Director of the Yale Center for British Art (2019-2024). At the YCBA, Ms. Martin navigated the museum through the pandemic and its reopening, establishing the at home: Artists in Conversation and Architects in Conversation: To Build for Art series in the process. She oversaw several exhibitions including Bridget Riley: Perceptual Abstraction, Marc Quinn: History Painting +, and The Hilton Als Series: Njideka Akunyili Crosby which toured to the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Her tenure at the YCBA also saw the establishment of a Henry Moore Foundation Artist in Residence program for a Yale School of Art student as well as a new joint postdoctoral fellowship with the National Gallery of Art’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.
Prior to her directorships, Ms. Martin served as the Deputy Director and Chief Curator at Dia Art Foundation, where she oversaw a complex operation that includes acquisitions, exhibitions of works by Dan Flavin, Sam Gilliam, Blinky Palermo, Dorothea Rockburne, Keith Sonnier, and Andy Warhol, programming, research, and publications. Her prior roles include Assistant Professorships in the History of Art and Architecture Department at Brown University, and in the History of Art Department at Vanderbilt University. Before pursuing her Ph.D., Ms. Martin worked in the media, arts, and culture unit of the Ford Foundation in New York City.
Ms. Martin’s numerous exhibitions include Drop, Roll, Slide, Drip… Frank Bowling’s Poured Paintings 1973-1978 at Tate Britain (2012) and Minimal Baroque: Post-Minimalism and Contemporary Art at Rønnebæksholm in Denmark (co-curated 2014). From 2008- 2015, she co-led a research project on critic Lawrence Alloway at the Getty Research Institute and is co-editor of Lawrence Alloway: Critic and Curator (Getty Publications, 2015). In 2015, she curated Robert Ryman at Dia Art Foundation. She is the editor of Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art (Gregory R. Miller & Co., 2016), surveying an important collection of modern and contemporary work by artists of African descent, and is the author of essays on Rasheed Araeen, Kader Attia, Rina Banerjee, Frank Bowling, Lara Favaretto, Sam Gilliam, Leslie Hewitt, Asger Jorn, Wangechi Mutu, Ed Ruscha, and Yinka Shonibare CBE (RA).
Ms. Martin earned her Ph.D. in the history of art from Yale University for her research on 20th century British art, and her B.A. from Oberlin College. She was a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Art at the University of California, Berkeley, a fellow at the Getty Research Institute, and a Henry Moore Institute Research Fellow. In 2015, she received an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. She is a trustee of the Center for Curatorial Leadership.
Ms. Martin was a member of the 2019 Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellowship cohort.
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Humberto Moro
Trustee
Deputy Director of Program and Chief Curator, Dia Art Foundation
Humberto Moro
Trustee
Deputy Director of Program and Chief Curator, Dia Art FoundationHumberto Moro is Deputy Director of Program and Chief Curator at Dia Art Foundation where he oversees the curatorial, exhibitions, publications and learning and engagement departments. At Dia, he has curated exhibitions with Liliana Porter, Hélio Oiticica, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Tehching Hsieh, David Lamelas among others. He was previously Deputy Director and Senior Curator at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, where he curated OTRXS MUNDXS, a large-scale survey of artists working in the city, and solo shows by Erick Meyenberg, Tania Pérez Córdova and Ugo Rondinone. He was Curator of the 2021 Exposure section at EXPO Chicago; and from 2016-22, Adjunct Curator at the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia, where he co-organized Frederick Douglass: Embers of Freedom and Points of Contact by Elizabeth Catlett, and solo exhibitions by Kenturah Davis, Glen Fogel, Alex Gardner, Oliver Laric, Cynthia Gutiérrez, Pia Camil, Mariana Castillo Deball, Tom Burr, Yang Fudong, FOS, AES+F, Mark Wallinger, Isaac Julien, and Anna Maria Maiolino, among others.
Mr. Moro has previously held curatorial positions at the Park Avenue Armory in New York and Museo Jumex in Mexico City. He curated Other Situations, a project by Liliana Porter which included THEM, a theater play at The Kitchen, the reopening exhibition at El Museo del Barrio, and a publication. He was the recipient of the 2016 Estancias Tabacalera Research Award for Latin-American curators, Madrid, Spain, and was part of the 7th Gwangju Biennale International Curator Course, in Gwangju, South Korea. Moro holds a BFA in painting from the Universidad de Guanajuato, Guanajuato; and a MA in curatorial studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS), Bard College, New York. He is a trustee of the Center for Curatorial Leadership.
Mr. Moro was a member of the 2021 Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellowship cohort.
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Marnie Pillsbury
Trustee
Philanthropic Advisor; Former Executive Director, David Rockefeller Fund
Marnie Pillsbury
Trustee
Philanthropic Advisor; Former Executive Director, David Rockefeller FundMarnie S. Pillsbury was the Executive Director of The David Rockefeller Fund from 1990 until 2014. She served as chief philanthropic advisor to David Rockefeller from 1990 until his death in 2017, and then as an advisor to his estate. Working closely with Mr. Rockefeller, she helped guide his philanthropy to have maximum impact at the myriad organizations he supported, substantially amplifying the effectiveness of his charitable giving.
Ms. Pillsbury is a Trustee Emerita and former Vice Chair of The Rockefeller University. She is a trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the International Women’s Health Coalition, and the Center for Curatorial Leadership. She is secretary of The Pinkerton Foundation, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Council at The Museum of Modern Art. A graduate of Wellesley College, Mrs. Pillsbury received an M.B.A. from the New York University Stern School of Business.
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Susan S. Sawyers
Trustee
Multimedia Artist; Former Reporter and Curator
Susan S. Sawyers
Trustee
Multimedia Artist; Former Reporter and CuratorSusan S. Sawyers is a multimedia artist, former reporter and curator, early-stage investor in women-led technology companies, and strategist whose experience spans the arts, education, and journalism. Across her professional and philanthropic work, she advocates for moral leadership, creativity, and the role of both in shaping business and everyday life.
Ms. Sawyers holds a master’s degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is a graduate of the International Center of Photography and Grinnell College. She began her career as a legislative aide and French teacher in Washington, D.C., before serving as a Fulbright-Hays Teaching Assistant in Paimpol, France, where she taught English and wrote for a local newspaper. Following graduate school, she produced Bloomberg EDU, Bloomberg Radio’s award-winning weekly program on education. Her journalism and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, The Huffington Post, The Hechinger Report, and New York Social Diary, where she covered education, philanthropy, and the role of women in society.
She later served as Assistant Vice President at Christie’s and as Director and Curator of the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation, experiences that deepened her commitment to supporting the work of living artists. A multimedia artist herself, she has exhibited her work at ICP Museum and TEDWomen. Her current work traces the lives of flower farmers and their blooms. Her previous work, the #LetterProject, explores identity and partnerships through the lives of five generations of women. She received the International Center of Photography’s Rita K. Hillman Award for Excellence in 2016.
Ms. Sawyers is a founding donor of The 19th News, a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom covering gender, politics, and policy. She is a trustee of the Center for Curatorial Leadership, Studio in a School, and The New York Women’s Foundation. Ms. Sawyers is an active supporter of Determined to Succeed and For Freedoms, as well as a member of Solidaire. She also serves as an advisor to The Hechinger Report. A former teaching assistant at the International Center of Photography, she has supported young people through coaching with Do Something and The Future Project and also coaches first-generation college and graduate students in New York City.
Susan lives in New York City with her husband, Charles Sawyers, M.D. Dr. Sawyers is Chair of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program and Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Chair at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
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John Silberman
Trustee
Partner, Silberman Zaretsky PC; President, The Willem de Kooning Foundation; President, Teiger Foundation
John Silberman
Trustee
Partner, Silberman Zaretsky PC; President, The Willem de Kooning Foundation; President, Teiger FoundationJohn Silberman is a partner in Silberman Zaretsky PC, a New York City law firm. His practice encompasses virtually all areas of the visual arts business, as well as personal representation of high-net-worth individuals. His clients are primarily individual artists, collectors and creators, and their estates, families, trusts and foundations.
Mr. Silberman began his legal career at the New York City law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, where he was an associate from 1976 to 1984 in the Trusts & Estates and Entertainment Departments, and a partner in the firm’s Entertainment Department from 1985 to 1996. At the end of 1996 he left Paul Weiss to open his own practice, which has grown to a law firm with six attorneys focused on art-related matters and the personal representation of high-net-worth individuals and their families.
He has written and lectured on art-related subjects ranging from estate planning for artists and art collectors, blockage discounts for large art collections, and tax planning for charitable gifts of art, to collecting art on a budget, starting an art collection and practicing art law.
Mr. Silberman has served on the Boards of Directors of numerous arts organizations and artist-endowed foundations, including the Center for Curatorial Leadership, The Willem de Kooning Foundation, The Ralph and Fanny Ellison Charitable Trust, the Teiger Foundation, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts; and as a member of the Collections Committee of the Harvard Art Museums and the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts at the John F. Kennedy Center under President Clinton.
He received his B.A. from Northwestern University in 1973 and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1976.
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Alice Tisch
Trustee
Trustee, MoMA
Alice Tisch
Trustee
Trustee, MoMAAlice Tisch is a prominent philanthropist, art collector, and trustee, engaging in a variety of volunteer activities with a special focus on the arts, health and social services, and education. She serves on the Board and Executive Department of the Museum of Modern Art, where she also chairs the museum’s Acquisitions Department of Architecture & Design.
Ms. Tisch is President Emerita of the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, New York State’s largest social service agency. She is a trustee of the NYU Langone Medical Center, where she has headed the health system’s pediatrics initiative, KiDS of NYU, for over twenty years. She is a former trustee of the Brearley School.
An active art collector, Ms. Tisch’s private collection features works spanning from the 1950s through today by artists such as Agnes Martin, Ruth Asawa, Richard Pousette-Dart, and Luciano Fabro. She is an alumna of Wellesley College and Columbia University Business School. Ms. Tisch and her husband, Thomas J. Tisch, have four children and live in New York City.
Program partners
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Joel Brockner
Faculty Advisor
Phillip Hettleman Professor of Business, Columbia Business School
Joel Brockner
Faculty Advisor
Phillip Hettleman Professor of Business, Columbia Business SchoolProfessor Brockner earned a B.A. in psychology from SUNY-Stony Brook and a Ph.D. in social/personality psychology from Tufts University. Since that time, he has taught at Middlebury College, SUNY College at Brockport, Tufts University, and the University of Arizona prior to joining the faculty at Columbia Business School in 1984.
Professor Brockner is a leading authority on a variety of psychological issues in the workplace. He has published four books including the award-winner, “The Process Matters.” In addition, he has published nearly 150 articles and book chapters in a variety of prestigious outlets and his article in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) was selected to appear in HBR’s, “Ten Must Reads in Emotional Intelligence.”
He was the 2020 recipient of a Lifetime Career Achievement award by the Academy of Management entitled, “Distinguished Scholarly Contributions to Management.” He also is the 2023 recipient of a similar award from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (a division of the American Psychological Association), entitled, “Distinguished Scientific Contributions.”
He also has served on the Editorial Board of numerous journals in the fields of management and psychology. Joel was the Chairman of the Management Division at Columbia Business School from 2005-2011, and he also is the Faculty Director of several highly regarded executive education program at Columbia Business School. In addition, he is an executive coach, has served as an expert witness, and has consulted to a variety of private, public, and non-profit organizations.
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Columbia Business School
Academic Partner
Columbia Business School
Academic Partner
CCL partners with The Tamer Institute to design custom curricula and provide core instructional components for all programs. The Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change at Columbia Business School (CBS) educates leaders to use business knowledge, entrepreneurial skills, and management tools to address social and environmental challenges.
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Mellon Foundation
Program Partner
Mellon Foundation
Program Partner
Explore the programIn 2014, supported by a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation, CCL launched the CCL/Mellon Foundation Seminar in Curatorial Practice. The CCL/Mellon Seminar provides doctoral students of art history and related disciplines from across the United States with an in-depth introduction to museums. For many students, despite years of advanced schooling, this is their first substantive introduction to curatorial practice, as well as management and leadership principles.
In collaboration with the Mellon Foundation’s continued research to better understand the reality and the impacts of art museum staff diversity – most notably the the Art Museum Staff Demographic surveys completed in 2015, 2018, and 2022 – CCL is deeply committed to expanding the curatorial leadership track at cultural institutions. In the last five years, participants in the CCL/Mellon Seminar have self-reported as members of a historically underrepresented demographic at forty percentage points higher than the 27% representation in museum leadership reported by the Mellon Foundation’s most recent study (2022).
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Museum of Modern Art
Program Partner
Museum of Modern Art
Program Partner
Explore the programSince 2014, the Center for Curatorial Leadership and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) have partnered to deliver the International Curatorial Institute. A cohort of exceptional modern and contemporary art curators from outside of the United States convene with select MoMA curators for a two-week intensive hosted at the museum. Building upon CCL’s success in training the next generation of museum leaders and expanding on MoMA’s long history of international exchange, the International Curatorial Institute aims to cultivate a global network of collaborative curators and to enrich participants’ capacity to tackle strategic issues facing 21st-century museums.
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Studio Museum in Harlem
Program partner
Studio Museum in Harlem
Program partner
Explore the pilot programFrom 2021-2023, the Center for Curatorial Leadership and the Studio Museum in Harlem partnered to establish the CCL/Studio Museum in Harlem Curators’ Forum, a pilot program founded in recognition of the profound contributions that curators of African descent have made to American art museums. To support the further professional growth of Black curators, the program provided a select cohort of twenty-six individuals with advice, networking opportunities, mentorship, instruction, and personal development at a critical moment in their careers.
This partnership led to the establishment of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Studio Museum Institute – an initiative that reflects the Studio Museum’s commitment to training and mentoring leaders in the art world from historically underrepresented backgrounds.
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Villa Albertine
Program Partner
Villa Albertine
Program Partner
Learn more about the “Museum Series”In 2023, CCL partnered with the Villa Albertine to deliver the “Museum Series,” a series of panels bringing together 24 women museum directors from premier cultural institutions in France and the United States for timely conversations on how museums must reinvent themselves to meet the challenges of the present, fostering dialogue and debate on the future of museums and promoting a new generation of leaders.
A new French institution for arts and ideas in the United States, Villa Albertine builds on the bold and innovative programs that have been the hallmark of the French cultural network abroad for more than a century. Created by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, and supported by the French Ministry of Culture, Villa Albertine actively supports the endeavors of French cultural actors across the country through a bold and nimble program, in close collaboration with leading American cultural organizations.
Administrative support
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Lili Rusing
Development Consultant & Grant Specialist
Lili Rusing
Development Consultant & Grant Specialist
Learn more about Lili RusingLili Rusing is a development consultant who helps nonprofit organizations raise critical funds to support their missions, specializing in fundraising for the arts, humanities, education, libraries, and archives with particular expertise in grant strategy and writing.
She has more than 15 years of experience fundraising for the country’s leading art and culture organizations, where she has secured well over $50 million in funding from foundations, government agencies, corporations, and individuals. Current and recent clients include Tate, the Guggenheim Museum, the Center for Curatorial Leadership, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, the International Center of Photography, and Creative Time, among others.
Ms. Rusing holds an M.S. in Nonprofit Management from Columbia University and a B.A. in Art History from Northern Arizona University. She serves on the Advisory Board of The Paseo Project, a Taos, New Mexico-based public art organization.
In collaboration with CCL’s Director of Development, Ms. Rusing manages all aspects of CCL’s grant strategy.
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ArtsPool
Administrative Partner
ArtsPool
Administrative Partner
Learn more about ArtsPoolCCL is a member of ArtsPool, a New York City based member-owned cooperative that provides innovative, high-quality financial management and workforce administration services to meet the needs of the nonprofit arts field.
ArtsPool’s shared standards and practices and collaborative approach equip organizations to become more financially and operationally stable, particularly in times of growth, change, and uncertainty. By addressing a field-wide gap in financial infrastructure and expanding access to historically under-resourced groups, ArtsPool not only empowers nonprofits to excel in their missions but also improves the health of the cultural ecosystem as a whole.
