Holly has developed a straightforward, pragmatic approach to nonprofit consulting rooted in decades of executive management experience. She and her team work closely with your organization to clarify your goals, priorities and develop a successful, sustainable business model.   

Holly Hotchner Profile

Holly Hotchner is a strategic not-for-profit leader, with four decades of experience and repeated success as an institution builder, particularly in the arts community. In both senior executive and external advisory roles, she has created and executed transformational long-range plans that ensure growth, stability, and lasting community impact. Holly specializes in institutional transition and change brought on by interior and exterior forces.  

Holly was the founding Director of the Museum of Arts & Design, leading it through turnaround and transformation, including a name change, a new location, expanded mission, major fundraising, staff and board development and the establishment of new and recurring sources of income. 

During her seventeen-year tenure there, she increased the MAD’s operating funds and endowment, while expanding its exhibition programming and outreach. She co-organized a number of critically acclaimed exhibitions at the Museum with accompanying catalogues adding greatly to scholarship in the field. Under her direction MAD became a premiere destination for creative innovation and one of the most visited cultural institutions in the city.  

Prior to holding this position, she served as the first director of the New-York Historical Society’s Museum. There her initiatives included directing the structuring, staffing and professionalization of the Museum and Education Divisions, and ultimately guiding the organization to a higher stage of institutional development. The vast collections were catalogued, cared for and many exhibited for the first time greatly enhancing the impact of the museum worldwide.

Currently her work and passion has extended to broadening cultural communities where she has joined the board of the Arts Committee of the Fairfield community foundation and has sat for many years on the board of the Landmarks Conservancy, in line with her passion for preservation. She serves as an advisor to the Bard Graduate Center for Decorative Arts, Design and Material Culture, the Young Concert Artists and the Stamford Ballet Company.

She has worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art , the Tate Gallery, The Hirshhorn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.  

She holds an M.A. in Art History and a certificate of conservation from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, and a B.A. in Art History and Studio Art from Trinity College. She has had additional training at the Museum Management Institute and Harvard Business School Executive Education. 

She has lectured extensively on the dynamics between the board and board members, and the board and staff. She has also presented on Best Practices to CEO’s of Not-for-Profits.