Le Monte G. Booker has been hired as the new president and CEO of Newfields, Indiana’s largest cultural organization, according to a press announcement released today.
Booker, who previously served as the chief financial officer of the Field Museum in Chicago, will start his new role in October. He will oversee Newfields’ 152-acre campus, which includes the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA), the Lilly House and the Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park.
Booker was hired following a six-month search led by a committee of seven members of the Newfields Board of Trustees. He will join Newfields just less than a year after the previous CEO, Colette Pierce Burnette, abruptly left her position.
“I look forward to working with the board, staff and Central Indiana community to continue to meet the mission of enriching lives through exceptional experiences with art and nature at this special institution,” Booker said in the press release.
In the press release, the chair of the Newfields Board of Trustees, Darrianne Christian, praised Booker’s “mindset, temperament, aptitude and leadership skills” and “fresh perspectives.”
“His extensive museum experience gives him a comprehensive understanding of how institutions like Newfields need to operate to thrive,” Christian said. “He has a solid track record of strategically maximizing value for all stakeholders in a thoughtful and inclusive manner.”
In January 2023, Chicago news station WTTW reported that Booker successfully made a case before the Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners for the first increase in admission prices at the Field Museum since 2018.
Under his proposal, prices increased by $1 for non-residents and $3 for all Chicagoans, including children and seniors, in an effort, he said, to “standardize (pricing) tiers.” The proposal was approved, but criticized by a board member who argued that the increase wasn’t fair to Chicago residents whose tax dollars already supported the Field Museum.
Michael Kaufmann, a cultural entrepreneur who has served on several local boards, said that at first glance, he believes Booker’s CFO experience will serve the financial stability of Newfields. In the CEO role, though, he will need to decide what he wants the organization to be so it can effectively work with both donors and the local community.
“The problem is that we have, historically, built our cultural landscape on the idea of the cultural tourist and have neglected our residents,” Kaufmann said. “I think there’s an opportunity to change that … and understand that if you make a great city for residents, people will come to visit.”
Booker is Newfields’ third CEO since 2012
Booker, who also served as interim president and CEO of the Field Museum for two months in 2020, is the third person to hold the full-time president and CEO role at Newfields since 2012. That’s the year Charles Venable was hired.
Venable, who led Newfields for nine years, resigned in February 2021 following a public outcry over a job posting calling for an IMA director who could “attract a broader and more diverse audience while maintaining the Museum’s traditional, core, white art audience.” Venable now works as a management consultant in Miami.
Burnette, formerly the president of Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas, was hired to replace Venable in August 2022. She left Newfields abruptly in November 2023, after 15 months on the job.
She has not publicly spoken about why she left her role, and Newfields has not specified if she resigned or was fired. Burnette now serves on the Board of Trustees at Martin University and is a curator for the 2024 Butter Art Fair.
Last November, about 50 protestors gathered near the large Newfields sign at 38th Street and North Michigan Road, during Winterlights, to demand Burnette’s reinstatement and an explanation from the board. Her exit was followed by the resignation of five members of the Newfields Board of Trustees and four members of the associate Board of Governors.
After Venable resigned in 2021, the Board of Trustees and Board of Governors posted a letter on the Newfields website, saying, “We are ashamed of Newfields’ leadership and of ourselves.”
They gave an overview of a 30-day action plan that said, “We will engage an independent committee to conduct a thorough review of Newfields’ leadership, culture and our own Board of Trustees and Board of Governors, with the goal of inclusively representing our community and its full diversity.”
One month later, they released details of the plan that included organization-wide DEIA training; more free and discounted tickets for community members; new appointments to the Board of Trustees that would increase diverse representation from 8% to 25%; the hiring of a senior-level diversity executive; and the establishment of a new community advisory committee, led by Sean L. Huddleston, president of Martin University and also a Newfields Board of Trustees member. Huddleston was one of the trustees who resigned shortly after Burnette’s departure.
Search committee reviewed 200 applications
Last February, when Newfields announced its search for a new CEO, some community members expressed concerns over what they believed was a lack of grassroots representation in the process to hire Booker. No one outside of Newfields served on the search committee, unlike the committee that led the process to hire Burnette.
[What role will the public play in choosing Newfields’ new CEO?]
The current search committee was chaired by Anne Sellers, a tech entrepreneur who is the vice chair of the Newfields Board of Trustees, and also included the interim president and CEO of Newfields, Michael Kubacki. Kubacki is the retired chairman of Lake City Bank and its holding company, Lakeland Financial Corporation.
The committee, along with Philadelphia-based search firm Koya Partners, reviewed more than 200 applications before interviewing finalists. They sought input from Newfields staff, docents, volunteers and members, the press release said.
The public was invited to submit email comments about the CEO search to Koya. A Newfields spokesperson could not confirm how many comments Koya received.
Beyond his experience at the Field Museum, Booker was chief financial officer for the Easter Seals national office and the American Academy of Pediatrics and has served on the Board of Directors of the CPA Endowment Fund and Asian Human Services.
Newfields’ press release added that, “In his spare time, Booker enjoys mentoring underprivileged youths and young adults, hiking in Starved Rock State Park in Illinois, weightlifting, basketball and reading.”
Part of Booker’s leadership team will include Belinda Tate, who became the Melvin & Bren Simon Director of the IMA last November. She was previously the executive director of the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Mirror Indy reporter Breanna Cooper covers arts and culture. Email her at breanna.cooper@mirrorindy.org. Follow her on X @BreannaNCooper.
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