ORGANIZATION: Mark Twain House & Museum
POSITION: Executive Director
REPORTS TO: Chairman of the Board
LOCATION: Hartford, CT
WEBSITE: www.MarkTwainHouse.org
CONTACT: Pamela Bol Riess
pbr executive search
212.865.9262
pamela@pbrsearch.com
BACKGROUND
The Mark Twain House & Museum (MTH&M) is an internationally significant National Historic Landmark dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of Mark Twain's enduring legacy. Twain and his family lived there from 1874 to 1891 and while in residence, Twain wrote his most important works, including Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Recently voted the favorite tourism destination in Connecticut by residents and visitors, the organization offers entertaining tours of Twain's restored home and a robust schedule of activities, events, exhibitions, and educational programs designed to illuminate Twain's literary legacy and provide a deeper understanding of his life and times.
With a top-caliber staff of 16 full time and 50 part time employees, a balanced operating budget of $2.8 million, and thriving visitorship of 77,000 annually, the Museum is poised for growth. To that end, the Board of Trustees seeks a visionary leader with an excellent track record of sound budget management, fundraising, strategic planning and staff management to lead the organization to the next level.
THE POSITION
The Executive Director collaborates with the Board to set the vision and strategic direction of the organization. S/he serves as the Museum's public face and spokesperson and must be visible and proactive in a community highly supportive of the arts. S/he is also the organization's primary fundraiser and works closely with the Board of Trustees and the staff to cultivate new and established donors and to continue to grow productive partnerships with business, cultural and academic entities. Finally, the ED has the authority and responsibility for the museum's budget and its physical and human resources. The successful candidate will be a highly energetic leader who will embrace the opportunity to move the Museum to a new era of growth and national recognition.
CRITICAL COMPETENCIES
The ideal candidate will have at least 15 years of work experience with at least 5 years in a senior leadership position with fundraising, financial management, and staff management responsibilities. Specifically, the following critical competencies will be essential to the Executive Director's success:
Fundraising
The MTH&M is dependent on a network of individual, corporate, foundation and government donors who provide the $1.4 million in contributed income that supplements the $1.4 million in earned revenue. The existing donor base is heavily concentrated around the Hartford, Connecticut location of the House. The Executive Director must be a skilled fundraiser who can expand development efforts beyond the local area, build strong relationships with existing donors, and enlarge the donor base across all funding streams with the aim of eventually growing the organization's cash reserves and endowment funds.
Operating Leadership
The MTH&M is a sophisticated facility that includes a priceless historic house filled with museum-grade furnishings and artifacts; a museum center with resident and traveling exhibitions; an education center that hosts numerous seminars and continuing education sessions for primary and secondary teachers; an auditorium that hosts guest speakers from the arts and literary world; a store with on-site and online sales; and a restaurant. The Executive Director must have highly developed operating management, financial management, marketing savvy and leadership skills to ensure responsible and effective management of daily operations and the management, coaching, and development of 16 full-time and 50 part-time employees. The Executive Director must also be able to maintain and nourish an atmosphere where as many as 75 events per year are executed successfully and profitably.
Communication Skills
The Executive Director will be the face, voice, and spokesperson for the MTH&M with the community, the media, and the thousands of people who visit and explore it annually. S/he must have highly developed writing, interpersonal, and public speaking skills, and will be called upon to use them daily. This role requires tact, judgment, gravitas, a comfort level interacting with varied audiences, and the ability to field occasional difficult and sensitive questions from the media and other important stakeholders.
TO APPLY
Please email a cover letter, resume and salary history to resumes@pbrsearch.com with Mark Twain ED Search in the subject line. Please include specific fundraising accomplishments in the resume. Because of the large volume of responses, we regret that we will only be able to contact those candidates we're considering.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Suzanne Scherr <suzanne@pbrsearch.com> Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 2:56 PM
Subject: Opportunity for Public Humanities Alumni
To: "
jenna_legault@brown.edu" <
jenna_legault@brown.edu>
Hi Ms. Legault,
I'd love to make your alumni body aware of our firm's search for an Executive Director at the Mark Twain House and Museum and would very much appreciate it if you'd help circulate the attached position description. Please let me know if you have questions and/or if there are others on your team I should reach out to instead.
Many thanks,
Suzanne Scherr
pbr executive search
www.pbrsearch.com
