Taking the Lead

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Management at the Smithsonian Institution has been shaky since the March 2007 departure of its secretary, Lawrence M. Small, and the ensuing scandal over his lavish business spending. It took almost a year, but Georgia Institute of Technology‘s president G. Wayne Clough (pronounced “Cluff”) has been named Small’s successor. He was appointed by the Smithsonian board of regents, comprising Chief Justice John Roberts, Vice President Dick Cheney, members of Congress and nine private citizens, including heavyweight collectors Eli Broad and Robert Kogod.

When Clough, 66, takes up the post on July 1, he will be in charge of 6,300 employees, 159 affiliated museums in 39 states and a $1 billion budget, 70 percent of which comes from the federal government. He’ll also head up the Smithsonian’s first major private fund-raising campaign, aimed at supporting exhibitions and programming, for which the member institutions are usually responsible. According to the Smithsonian, his annual salary will be $490,000, well below Small’s $900,000.

Clough’s financial experience surely contributed to his selection. In his 14 years at the Atlanta university, he increased research funds by more than $200 million and raised $1.5 billion in private gifts. He is upbeat about the Smithsonian’s prospects. “We need to be transparent, we need to be open, we need to have a plan,” he said at a press conference, “and we need to reinvigorate the excitement about the Smithsonian that should be here.”

"Taking the Lead" originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's June 2008 Table of Contents.