Changes have been coming to the Philadelphia Art Museum (PhAM) as quickly as the leaves have fallen this month, most recently with the appointment of Daniel H. Weiss as new director and CEO today, November 21. Weiss, who served as president and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan until 2023, will start his three-year contract at PhAM on December 1, less than a month after the museum board’s highly publicized ouster of former PhAM Director and CEO Alexandra “Sasha” Suda.
Weiss’s appointment concludes PhAM’s search for a new museum leader, following its dismissal of Suda for “cause” in an emailed notice on November 4. Suda, who was three years into a five-year contract, has since filed a lawsuit against the museum alleging multiple violations of her employment agreement after it was revealed that PhAM trustees commissioned an external investigation that recommended her resignation. In the suit, Suda also accused multiple museum officers of disparaging her to the press.
At the time, a PhAM representative declined to provide information about the reason for Suda’s dismissal and said its board was “focused on fulfilling the museum’s mission as we enter our 150th year.”
Weiss also joins the institution on the heels of its controversial rebrand, steered by Suda, from the Philadelphia Museum of Art to the Philadelphia Art Museum. He noted in a press statement that he “look[s] forward to working with the Board, staff, and stakeholders to ensure the art museum continues its vital mission and advances its strategic priorities.”
Weiss was appointed as The Met’s president in 2015, and became the museum’s interim and then tenured CEO in 2017 upon the sudden resignation of predecessor Thomas P. Campbell amid a multimillion-dollar deficit and staff cuts.
Soon into his leadership, Weiss was credited with reducing the operating budget deficit and, in 2018, implemented a controversial change to the museum’s admission policies that obligated out-of-towners to pay $25. The Met announced record attendance numbers for that year.
He also steered the museum through the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and during New York City’s stringent quarantine restrictions in 2020. The Met credited him with “reengineering its budget … to retain staff” during the museum’s five-month closure to the public, though 81 employees were laid off one month into the quarantine shutdown while Weiss and Hollein took 20% salary cuts, and then another 79 were laid off, 181 were furloughed, and 93 accepted voluntary retirement three weeks before the museum reopened in late August 2o2o.
Weiss also coordinated the end of unpaid internships at the museum through a $5 million gift in 2020, and reportedly pulled in $1.5 billion in private donations over his tenure. However, the city-based labor union Local 2110 UAW said in a press release this week that “initial conversations about unionizing started in 2020, with staff sharing concerns generated by the pandemic,” and that staff at The Met contacted the union in 2022. Museum workers cited “long-term pay inequities” and “lack of job protection” in an announcement about petitioning the National Labor Relations Board for a union election on Monday, November 17.
Prior to helming The Met, Weiss served as the president and a professor of art history at Haverford College from 2013 to 2015, and at Lafayette College from 2005 to 2013. Since stepping down, Weiss returned to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, as a professor of humanities for the past two years.
