Leadership

Darren Walker, President
Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, a $13-billion international social justice philanthropy. He is cofounder and chair of the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance and cochair of the President's Council on Disability Inclusion in Philanthropy. Before joining Ford, Darren was vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation, overseeing global and domestic programs. In the 1990s he was COO of the Abyssinian Development Corporation, Harlem's largest community development organization. He joined the National Gallery’s Board of Trustees in 2019 and now serves as the president of the National Gallery.

David M. Rubenstein, Chairman
David M. Rubenstein is a Washington, DC philanthropist and Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of The Carlyle Group, a global alternative asset manager, which he cofounded in 1987. He has been involved with the National Gallery of Art since 1999 when he was a patron member of the National Gallery of Art Circle through 2003. In 2005 Rubenstein made a substantial gift toward scholarly publications and curatorial fellowships. Rubenstein has been on the National Gallery of Art Board of Trustees since 2015 and served as a member of the Trustees' Council from 2005 to 2010. In 2012 Rubenstein generously donated $10 million towards the expansion of the National Gallery's East Building.

Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen
Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen is the founder and chairman emeritus of the Silicon Valley Social Ventures (SV2), founder and board chairman of the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS), founder and president of the Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen Foundation (LAAF), and co-founder and president of the Marc and Laura Andreessen Foundation. She is also the co-president of the Arrillaga Foundation and co-founder of the Guild Theatre. A lecturer in Business Strategy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (Stanford GSB) for more than 20 years, Arrillaga-Andreessen has created and teaches courses on Strategic Philanthropy and Philanthropic Institutions and Justice. She has also developed and teaches Power of You: Women in Leadership to prepare students to meet the challenges that currently exist for women leaders in the workplace, as well as promote inclusivity and advance impact with Arrillaga-Andreessen’s “accessible leadership” model. Arrillaga-Andreessen is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Giving 2.0: Transform Your Giving and Our World (Wiley, 2011) and a contributing author to Frontiers in Social Innovation (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022). She has written for The Washington Post, Worth Magazine, T Magazine – The New York Times, the Huffington Post, and SSIR. She holds an MBA from the Stanford GSB, as well as an MA in Education, and a BA and MA in Art History, all from Stanford University.

Indra Nooyi
Indra Nooyi was chairman and CEO of PepsiCo from 2006 to 2019. Nooyi was the architect of Performance with Purpose, PepsiCo’s pledge to make more nutritious products, limit its environmental footprint, and empower its associates and the people in the communities it serves. Nooyi is now a member of the board of Amazon and the supervisory board of Philips. She is also a member of the International Advisory Council of Temasek; an independent director of the International Cricket Council; and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is on the dean’s advisory council at the MIT School of Engineering and a member of the MIT Corporation. She serves on the boards of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Partnership for Public Service. She is also the Class of 1951 Chair for the Study of Leadership at West Point. Nooyi has received 15 honorary degrees, and the government of India awarded her the Padma Bhushan, the country’s third-highest civilian honor, in 2007. That same year, the US State Department named her an Outstanding American by Choice. In 2019, her portrait was inducted into the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Nooyi is the author of the 2021 book My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future. She joined the National Gallery of Art Board of Trustees in 2021.

Mitchell P. Rales
Mitchell P. Rales is co-founder and chairman of the executive committee of Danaher Corporation and has been an active supporter of the National Gallery of Art for more than two decades. A trustee of the National Gallery since 2006, he has served the institution in a number of capacities, including as a member of the Collectors Committee (1999–present), the Trustee’s Council (2001–2006), and the National Gallery of Art Board of Trustees (2006–present). In addition to his work with the National Gallery of Art, Rales is cofounder of Glenstone, a foundation and museum that seamlessly integrates art, architecture, and nature on a nearly 300-acre property in Potomac, Md. The museum opened in 2006 and houses an extensive collection of postwar and contemporary art. Admission to Glenstone is always free.

Director: Kaywin Feldman
Appointed in 2019, Kaywin Feldman is the National Gallery’s fifth director and the first woman to lead the museum. Her vision for the National Gallery focuses on expanding the museum’s service to the nation. Dedicated to connecting people to art through the power of wonder, Feldman has initiated new programs and exhibitions, expanded the National Gallery’s audience, and increased the national collection through acquisitions that reflect a wider spectrum of art history.

Prior to joining the National Gallery, Feldman served as the Nivin and Duncan MacMillan Director and President at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) for 11 years. She is a member of the board of directors of the Terra Foundation for American Art, a trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the White House Historical Association, a member of the leadership board of the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and an ex-officio member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. She is a past president of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and a past chair of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). Feldman received an MA in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London; an MA from the Institute of Archaeology at the University of London; and a BA, summa cum laude, in classical archaeology from the University of Michigan, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 2021, Forbes magazine named Feldman one of the “50 Over 50” most visionary women making an impact on society today.

Read more about Kaywin

Administrator and COO: Laura L. Lott
Laura L. Lott is the administrator and chief operating officer of the National Gallery of Art. Lott leads the National Gallery’s operational, architecture, and sustainability strategies, overseeing nearly half of the museum’s staff. She was most recently president and chief executive officer, and previously COO and CFO, of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). While at AAM, Lott established the organization’s first department of diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion; launched Facing Change: Advancing Museum Board Diversity and Inclusion; and led an expansive advocacy effort to secure unprecedented federal relief funding for museums during the pandemic. Prior to her time at AAM, she served as chief operating officer for National Geographic Society’s The JASON Project, director of programs and operations at the MarcoPolo Education Foundation and MCI Foundation, and senior associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Lott is a certified public accountant and holds a BS in business from American University in Washington, DC.

Dean, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts: Steven Nelson
Steven Nelson is the dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), responsible for its fellowships, meetings, research, and publications. Nelson has published widely on the arts, architecture, and urbanism of Africa and its diasporas and on queer studies. Nelson is professor emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he served as director of the African Studies Center and advised the university on its diversity and inclusion strategic planning. Before assuming the role of dean, he was the Center’s Andrew W. Mellon Professor. Nelson earned a BA in studio art from Yale University and an AM and a PhD in art history from Harvard University.

Deputy Director: Eric L. Motley
Eric L. Motley is the deputy director of the National Gallery of Art. In this role, Motley is responsible for developing and deploying a national strategy for the museum through civic, cultural, and philanthropic partnerships, in addition to advancing the National Gallery's mission in tandem with its operating and revenue-generating plans. He oversees congressional relations as well as the museum’s departments of development and membership, communications, special events, visitor experience and evaluation, and content strategy, publishing, and branding. Prior to joining the National Gallery, Motley worked for the Aspen Institute, a global, non-partisan public policy organization based in Washington, DC. There he served most recently as an executive vice president and the corporate secretary. Motley’s other notable experiences include director of the US Department of State’s Office of International Visitors within the Bureau of Public Diplomacy and special assistant for presidential personnel to President George W. Bush. Motley holds a PhD in political philosophy from St. Andrew's University (Scotland) and a BA in political theory and philosophy from Samford University.

Executive Officer, Programs, Exhibitions, and Audience Engagement: Kate Haw
Kate Haw supervises exhibitions, exhibition design, registration, and art preparation and installation, as well as the National Gallery’s library and educational, music, and film programs. Prior to joining the National Gallery, Haw was director of the Archives of American Art, where she implemented strategic planning; realigned departmental priorities, including initiatives to build resources on historically underrepresented groups; modernized productivity; and increased worldwide accessibility of the collection. She started her career at the National Gallery as a curatorial assistant. Haw holds an MA in art history from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a BA in art history and religion from Sweet Briar College.

Secretary and General Counsel: Luis Baquedano
Luis Baquedano is secretary and general counsel of the National Gallery and oversees the in-house legal division, all outside counsel relationships, and the National Gallery of Art Archives, and serves both as secretary to the Board of Trustees and as the museum’s ethics officer. Baquedano is the National Gallery’s 11th secretary and general counsel since the museum was founded in 1937. Since 2015, Baquedano has served as deputy personnel officer and attorney advisor at the National Gallery of Art. He previously served as the museum’s head of labor and employee relations as an attorney advisor. Before joining the National Gallery in 1994, Baquedano worked in the Office of the City Attorney, Alexandria, VA. He holds a JD from American University, Washington College of Law, and received his BA from New York University.

Treasurer: William W. McClure
Bill McClure is the Treasurer of the National Gallery and oversees all financial operations, management of the invested endowment portfolio, and retail operations. McClure also directs the strategy and management of the National Gallery’s information technology and digital programs. Before joining the National Gallery, McClure worked for more than a decade in financial manage­ment at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and investment management at the Episcopal Church Pension Fund in New York City. He holds a BA in architecture from Princeton and an MBA in finance and manage­ment of organizations from Columbia Business School.