Former Museum of Fine Arts CEO launches consulting firm

The six years she spent as Executive Director and CEO of the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, Kristen A. Shepherd believes, put her in a unique position to advise other leaders in the field.

Shepherd’s tenure at the St. Pete museum followed lengthy stints at other nationally prominent art museums and institutions, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum and Sotheby’s Auction House.

Her new company, Shepherd Lane + Associates, provides consulting, project management facilitation and training, media and public speaking training and interim leadership services.

For Shepherd, now residing in Bend, Oregon, all roads led to this. “I think every career is a journey,” she said. “I think change is the only constant, and I’ve been so fortunate in my career to continue to work with great people. And continue to develop and grow, personally and professionally.

“And now I guess I’m at a stage in my career where I’m able to really share that expertise in a way that helps and makes a difference. And that’s incredibly satisfying for me.”

The new company already has several high-profile clients including the Honolulu Museum of Art, San Antonio Museum of Art, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art and others.

Her business partner is Tampa-based Veronica Lane, whose specialty is project management. Lane spent 19 years at HSBC, where she served as Assistant Vice President of Project Management, and launched her own consulting firm in 2015.

Lane and Shepherd have been friends since the 1980s; they met as students at Clearwater’s Countryside High School.

“Veronica,” Shepherd said, “can offer project management training, to make all kinds of activities in the museum more effective and transparent. Which makes all of it better. Good project management is actually about organization and communication, and transparency. So that can help in lots of different ways.”

During her time at St. Pete’s MFA (2016-2022), Shepherd reflected, she’d sometimes call another CEO, someone from her vast collection of contacts and resources, and ask a pointed question.

“A great piece of advice I got from a very well respected senior museum director was ‘Use your network; call us. I guarantee you somebody has seen what you’re dealing with.’”

That open line of communication and willingness to help became the blueprint for her consulting business. “I think the challenges that museums are facing right now are myriad,” Shepherd said. “They’re countless. The external challenges are social and political, and complex. The current climate does not seem to support the kind of communication and thoughtful discourse that addressing complex issues requires.

“When you layer that environment into the museum ecosystem, museums need leaders who are business-minded and practical to keep the operation healthy, but they also need leaders who are good communicators, and who reject divisive behavior as counter-productive. And instead encourage empathy and connection.”

Then there’s the other side of the coin. “With Shepherd Lane, we’re going to try to tackle some of the internal challenges. In our consulting practice, we can’t necessarily address social and political complex changes that may be impacting the museum. But some of the internal challenges, like providing interim leadership and training, where there are gaps in talent due to attrition and transition. That’s something we can do.”

From left Shepherd, Lane and Hogan.

There is a third color to this particular palette: Atlanta actress, voice artist, public speaker and “media presentation coach” Kathleen Hogan. She and Shepherd met in 1999, while Shepherd was at Sotheby’s.

“Public speaking training,” Shepherd explained, “is going to aid in getting messages across both internally – with staff, trustees and donors – and externally in a positive way.”

Shepherd Lane + Associates had an organic beginning. Shepherd was studying, at Johns Hopkins University, for her second Masters degree (her first, from George Washington University, is in Art History; this one will be a Master of Science in Organizational Leadership).

Then she got a full-on consulting call.

“Once I stared consulting, it just sort of snowballed,” she said. “I know a lot of museum directors, and a lot of curators and others in this industry, and once the word got out that I was helping out, suddenly I had more work than I knew what to do with.”

Building the right team, she knows, is crucial. For anything. “We can’t boil the ocean; we can’t fix all of society’s ills, but there are some internal challenges that museums are facing that I think our collective experience, and our approach, can really make a difference. And help.”

Shepherd reiterates her gratitude for the “career evolution” that delivered her to this important point on her timeline. “I guess it is a natural progression, to learn a lot and have experience across a lot of different verticals. I was very fortunate to have a practical, very business-minded foundation in my arts career. So that business, practical side matched with my passion for art and my passion for the work museums can do.

“As a former CEO, and former executive director of a museum, I really have a holistic view of the operation now. In a way that maybe I wouldn’t have 15 years ago.”

In another 15 years, after Shepherd Lane + Associates has changed the museum world, who knows?

“Never say never. I might go back and be a director again because I love that work as well. But this is pretty great.”