Flávia Almeida, currently vice president of MASP (the São Paulo Museum of Art), is to become the Brazilian institution’s president. She takes over from Heitor Martins who, after 12 years at the helm, will depart in September.
Almeida comes from a business and management background. She holds a business administration degree from Fundação Getúlio Vargas and an MBA from Harvard University. Formerly she was the director of Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, where she still sits on the board, and chair of the board at São Paulo’s Instituto Tomie Ohtake. She has served as the president and board member of an array of publicly traded and privately held companies, including until 2003 at McKinsey & Company (where Martins is also a partner).
Almeida joins a MASP revamped under Martins’s lead. In 2014 the institution was facing bankruptcy with r$75 million in debt, as well as serious issues ranging from power outages to theft of artworks from its collection. Martins raised r$1.5 billion worth of investment, and built a r$30 million reserve. A further r$275 million was raised to build the 14-story extension, Edifício Pietro Maria Bardi, which opened in March last year.
In 2014 Adriano Pedrosa was appointed artistic director of the museum. Speaking to Folha de S.Paulo, Martins said Pedrosa’s future ‘will depend on whoever succeeds me. At the same time… I don’t see any pressing need for a change of artistic director.’
