
Kennedy Center President to Step Down After 10-Year Tenure
By David SalazarThe Kennedy Center has announced that Deborah F. Rutter’s tenure is coming to a close at the end of the year.
Rutter was tenured as the President of the Kennedy Center since 2014 and under her leadership, the company broke ground for its first-ever campus expansion REACH. She helped a $250 million capital campaign for the project succeed in the subsequent years and also helped expand the programming to reflect diversity across the nation. Other programs to evolve under her leadership include “Sound Health (Network)” and the “Arts & Wellbeing” series.
“After more than 10 extraordinary years in Washington, D.C., collaborating with some of the most phenomenal artists, cultural leaders, diplomats, philanthropists, volunteers, and administrators, I have come to believe it is time to pass the torch,” said Rutter in an official press release. “It has been a great honor to work with the best in the world. It is time now to hand this truly unique institution to a new leader who will take the power and majesty of the arts to the next level.”
Executive search firm Spencer Stuart has been retained to help find Rutter’s successor.
The news comes a year after board chairman David M. Rubenstein would remain on the board until 2026.
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