Project Manager II, Exhibitions

National Museum of Wildlife Art; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

National Museum of Wildlife Art in San Francisco seeks a Project Manager II, Exhibitions to oversee exhibition and display workflows and drive cross-functional projects for the CED Division. You will collaborate with Collections, Exhibitions, Design, Marketing, and Education to realize integrated programs and dynamic displays.

This high-volume role requires strong leadership, strategic thinking, and the ability to balance priorities.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in museum studies, collections management, art history, or studio art, preferred.
• Minimum of five (5) years of success working in museum exhibitions project management capacity managing the work of creative or multidisciplinary teams, preferably in Exhibitions.
• Demonstrated experience coordinating and/or managing projects and staff.
• Experience managing domestic and international touring exhibitions and working with partnering institutions.

Responsibilities

• Directs project management for exhibition and display activities in close partnership with multiple stakeholders across the museum.
• Maintains the strategic calendar integrating collections and exhibitions programs, fiscal year, and multiyear planning objectives.
• Develops and maintains visualization and communication of timelines, schedules, milestones, and dependencies.
• Produces, negotiates, manages, and reconciles exhibition agreements and budgets.

Skills

Leadership

Stakeholder management

Communication

Project management

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in museum studies or related field

Tools

Asana

Microsoft Office

Job description

Schedule: Full Time, 35 hours/week, at least three days working onsite

Reporting to the Director of Exhibitions and Program Management (EPM), the Project Manager II, Exhibitions oversees and drives workflows for exhibition and display activity. This position requires strong critical thinking and leadership skills and the ability to evaluate and make independent decisions about competing priorities that support the Museum and the Collections, Exhibitions, and Design (CED) Division’s overall strategic objectives and plan.
The Project Manager II, Exhibitions is responsible for managing the integration and flow of all cross-functional and strategic projects for the CED Division, and specifically Exhibition and Gallery programs. The Project Manager II, Exhibitions works directly with multiple departments and external partners to realize the museum’s display programs.The position is a vital partner to colleagues in Collections, Exhibitions and Program Planning, Design, Digital Experience, Marketing and Communications, Curatorial, and Education and Community Engagement in realizing integrated collections stewardship, collaborative collections research, and dynamic programming.

This is a high-volume, highly collaborative role that manages multiple concurrent initiatives with competing deadlines. The successful candidate is skilled at prioritizing work, adapting to evolving priorities, and maintaining accuracy and attention to detail while balancing a substantial and dynamic workload. This role requires on-site participation during assigned installations and, although rare, may also include occasional evenings and weekends during critical times.
At 30 days, incumbent will gain a general understanding of their role within the structure of the Museum. Within the first quarter, incumbent will have a more comprehensive grasp of the systems and processes critical to their position in the organization and will be managing some projects/processes independently; and by the end of the first year, incumbent will be managing assigned projects with minimal supervisory oversight.

Responsibilities & Duties

Team Leadership

• Delivers and implements new solutions and procedures to facilitate art stewardship and human and environmental sustainability to engage, inspire and reward audiences so that visitors feel compelled to return and recommend the museum to their family and friends.
• Encourages an inclusive, rewarding, and inspiring workplace, where innovation, discovery, and constant learning cultivate a deep sense of belonging and shared responsibility within the Exhibitions Project Management team.
• Builds and fosters a culture of safety, inclusivity, and equity.
• Supports employee personal and professional growth.
• Works in a healthy and flexible management style that understands and adjusts to staff needs and complex projects and supports strategic pursuits and sustainable workloads.
• Nurtures collaboration and partnerships across teams with fluid communication and respect for diverse expertise essential to an art museum.
• Supports effective and efficient communication and workflows, prioritizes activities, and ensures that teams have the resources they need to do their jobs.
• Models empathy and understanding, communicates clearly, and explains the benefits of changing practices and behavior.
• Works with managers to lead and support teams through healthy conflict resolution.
• Promotes a culture of excellence by being a solid source of positivity and motivation for the team.
• Supervises the Project Manager I, Exhibitions position when assigned, and is responsible for clearly defining the museum’s policies and performance expectations.

Strategic Support

• Promotes and demonstrates a commitment to the museum’s strategic focus with processes and guardrails to ensure we move towards the same goals and pivot away from activities that do not support that strategy.
• Recommends key opportunities and strategies for the advancement of project management best practices within the department and aligns practices with project teams across the organization.
• Establishes streamlining opportunities, promoting internal and external synergies.
• Evaluates project risks regularly, proactively identifying and resolving potential project roadblocks.
• Collaborates with other EPM Team members to design a cohesive, broad lens of projects across the Collections, Exhibitions, and Design Division.
• Forecasts, with requesting departments, project requests in advance of each fiscal year and provides high-level planning while strategizing priorities and workflow.
• Delivers policies and procedures that are standardized and sustainable across the team.

Exhibition Management

• Directs project management for exhibition and display activities in close partnership with multiple stakeholders across the museum.
• Makes recommendations for a course of action or a series of options toward project goals while adhering to project schedules, budgets, quality, and safety standards.
• Implements project management frameworks for complex, multi-stakeholder, interdepartmental Exhibitions projects and programs.
• Manages workloads and workflows for all requests - develops schedules, identifies and negotiates resources, tracks progress, budgets, and deadlines, and communicates regularly within projects using project management software.
• Maintains the strategic calendar integrating collections and exhibitions programs, fiscal year, and multiyear planning objectives in collaboration with the Director of Exhibitions + Program Management and the Chief CED Officer.
• Develops and maintains visualization and communication of timelines, schedules, milestones, and dependencies, and deadlines in consultation with the Director of Exhibitions + Program Management.
• Produces, negotiates, manages, and reconciles exhibition agreements and budgets
• Conducts project after-action reviews and creates a recommendation report to identify successful and unsuccessful project elements.

Administration

• Ensures maintenance of clean and consistent archives of final project outcomes and information and files.
• Ensures systems are in place and running to maintain appropriate logs, schedules, and records of projects and programs, including agreements, requests, and authorizations for payments.
• Facilitates effective communication, resolving discrepancies between project components, and assuring compliance with project timelines and budget alignment.
• Tracks data on projects and finds creative ways to share and apply the information for decision-making.

Qualifications & Skills

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent with course work in museum studies, collections management, art history, or studio art, preferred. Working knowledge of nonprofit museum management.
• Minimum of five (5) years of success working in museum exhibitions project management capacity managing the work of creative or multidisciplinary teams, preferably in Exhibitions.
• Demonstrated experience in coordinating and/or managing projects and staff.
• Demonstrated experience managing domestic and international touring exhibitions and working with partnering institutions in co-organization and venue capacities.
• Experience with management principles, and oversight of teams.
• Proven time management skills with the ability to organize work, set priorities, and meet critical deadlines in a high-volume environment.
• Outstanding management and supervisory skills that support, lead, and motivate employees.
• Maintains a professional and positive attitude in a creative, collaborative, team-oriented environment.
• Ability to communicate effective with a diverse constituency
• Works effectively with a broad range of internal and external constituents to build strong relationships based on trust and positive track records.
• High levels of initiative, innovation, creativity, and flexible problem-solving skills.
• Provides a sense of focus and calm under challenging or changing deadlines in a high-volume environment.
• Exceptional judgment, professionalism, and discretion in handling confidential and sensitive situations and matters.
• Strong interpersonal, verbal, and written communication and discrete, diplomatic, and effective professional negotiating skills.
• Excellent proficiency with Microsoft applications (Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.).
• Expertise with Asana or other project management software platforms.
• Ability to quickly master new tools and platforms as technologies evolve.
• Ability to prioritize projects and deadlines; strong organizational and time management skills, including handling frequent interruption and several issues at one time.

This role requires on-site participation during assigned installations and, although rare, may also include occasional evenings and weekends during critical times.