Monday
12 AugMeet MAAM’s 2024 Keynote Speaker: Stephanie Hill Wilchfort
MAAM is pleased to introduce this year’s 2024 Keynote Speaker: Stephanie Hill Wilchfort, the Ronay Menschel Director and President Museum of the City of New York.
At MAAM’s Annual Meeting on Wednesday, October 9, attendees will have the unique opportunity to hear from Stephanie Hill Wilchfort during The Stephen Weil Memorial Keynote Address, sponsored by The Science History Institute.
Stephanie Hill Wilchfort was appointed Ronay Menschel Director and President of the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY) in August 2023. Founded in 1923 as the first city museum in the United States, MCNY is New York City’s flagship storyteller, serving roughly 300,000 people annually through exhibitions and programs that celebrate, document, and interpret our city’s past, present, and future.
Previously, Stephanie served as President & CEO of Brooklyn Children’s Museum (BCM), the country’s first and one of its largest children’s museums. During her tenure BCM realized a 30% growth in visitorship, raised $45 million in capital support, and completed four major capital projects, including a ground-breaking partnership with Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) that ensured a permanent home for BPL in Crown Heights. Following pandemic-related closure, Stephanie led BCM’s re-opening in September 2020, bringing over one hundred staff members back to work on the Museum’s floor, safely welcoming thousands of visitors for in-person experiences, and subsequently opening the Museum’s second floor as a vaccination site for children and adults in partnership with the NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene. Nearly 40,000 people in Central Brooklyn received their shots at Brooklyn Children’s Museum.
A Brooklyn native, Stephanie has worked in arts and culture for two decades. She has previously held roles including Vice President of Development for the Lower East Side Tenement Museum; Assistant Vice President and Senior Project Director at Sesame Workshop; and Director of Development for New York Public Radio/WNYC. She began her career at New York Public Media/WNET and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
Stephanie currently serves as the Executive Vice-Chair for the Cultural Institutions Group (CIG) of the City of New York, helping to lead advocacy for a coalition of 34 cultural institutions, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Museum of Natural History, and Brooklyn Museum. She served as Brooklyn Vice-Chair of the CIG from 2017 to 2020. She has been a panelist and speaker for the International Council of Museums; American Alliance of Museums; Association of Children’s Museums; Institute of Museum and Library Services; National Endowment for the Arts; and Lincoln Center Cultural Innovation Fund, among others. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, an MPA in economic policy from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a BA from Binghamton University (SUNY). She and her husband Benjamin live in Brooklyn and are parents to three boys, ages 11, 14, and 17.
During the Keynote Address, she will discuss how hope and optimism are at the core of strong societies. Through storytelling and shared experiences, museums support the psychological building blocks of hope and optimism: a sense of shared purpose; historical perspective that reminds us our actions can improve our circumstances; and moments of awe. Cultural institutions are more than just agents of social and economic development, they are the essential infrastructure our world needs to vision its future during a time of instability and disruption.
We look forward to seeing you at the conference!