The Met’s president and CEO Daniel Weiss (Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art).

Pac Pobric, In an organisational shift, Met president Daniel Weiss takes over as chief executive, The Art Newspaper, 14 June 2017

The change comes as the museum starts the search for a new director to focus on the “core mission”

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s board of trustees has named Daniel Weiss as chief executive and has launched the search for a new director to replace Thomas Campbell, who left this month.

Weiss, who has been the museum’s president since 2015, will now serve in both roles, an organisational shift for the museum. Previously, it was the museum’s director who held the joint position of chief executive.

Asked about the reason for the change, Weiss says: “My sense is that this is a particular moment at the Met, and I have a particular background that allows me to contribute meaningfully to all sides of the institution.”

As chief executive and president, Weiss will oversee the administrative operation of the museum, leaving the director to look over the museum’s “core mission”: its curatorial focus, publishing programme, conservation efforts and library.

The organisational change is the result of a three-month study of comparable institutions and an internal review that included 60 Met board and staff members.

The search committee to replace Campbell, who announced his resignation in February, has also been formed. It includes the collectors J. Tomlinson Hill, Dasha Zhukova and Daniel Brodsky, the chairman of the board of trustees, among others. There is no timeline on the appointment of a new director.