NON-PROFIT PLATFORM
Museum Leadership House
A platform and a think tank convening museum leaders with futurists, scientists, artists and sociologists to explore the role of museums in society — and to turn foresight into actionable strategy in times of change.
A MUSEUM BOOSTER initiative
WHY IT EXISTS
The models museums were built on are reaching their limits.
The decade ahead is more turbulent than anything this generation of cultural leaders has navigated before. Rising cost-of-living pressures, geopolitical tension, the rapid and unbounded advancement of technology, and the escalating impact of climate change are converging — and museums are reaching the limits of the models on which they were built.
New operating strategies, new revenue models, and new ways of creating public value are no longer optional. They need to be designed — deliberately, collectively, and with a view beyond the next budget cycle.
WHAT IT IS
A selected group who share a concern for the future of museums — and the determination to make a difference.
No stages. No panels. No audience.
The Museum Leadership House brings together notable museum directors and senior executives, policymakers, academics, and cross-disciplinary experts from every corner of the globe.
The format is deliberately intimate. We meet in different homes around the world — a living room in Vienna, a house in the south of France, a villa in Dubai — because candid strategic conversation needs a setting that conventional conferences cannot provide.
30
leaders per gathering
3
editions since 2022
4
continents in the room
Free
reports, open to the sector
THE GATHERINGS
Three houses.
One conversation, carried forward.
2023
Nice
Reimagining the Value of Museums
Museum professionals from 11 countries convened in southern France alongside experts from politics and technology. Working from the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2023, the group focused on practical, usable actions museums can take today to achieve longer-term stability in the face of crisis and disruption — from collective advocacy and non-competitive alliances to shared infrastructure for capacity building.
2025
Entering 2030: Museums in the Age of Quantum Change
Held alongside the ICOM Triennial 2025, directors and senior executives from four continents worked with the Dubai Future Foundation's Global 50 foresight framework, opened by a keynote from Dr Patrick Noack. The gathering mapped five challenge fields for the decade ahead — funding and politics, neutrality and polarisation, access and inequality, climate pressure, and the weight of leadership complexity.
It translated them into opportunity fields and the Museum Leadership 2030 Framework: a compass of mindsets, skills, and knowledge for boards, ministries, funders, and leadership programmes.
2022
Dubai
Vienna
Meanings, Formats, Structures
Participants explored the shifting meaning of museums in the digital context — from places for objects to platforms for experience, stories, and networks — and defined guiding principles for museums as value-led digital content producers, including the proposal of a shared "Digital Technology Leadership Academy" for the sector.
WHAT COMES OUT OF IT
Open, published knowledge for the whole sector — not just those in the room.
01
Reports & frameworks
Strategic reports and frameworks — including the Museum Leadership 2030 Framework — freely published to the sector.
02
Ideas into practice
Insights that travel into practice through Museum Booster's research and Academy programmes.
03
A peer
network
A growing international network of leaders who continue the conversation between editions.
Keys in the bowl!
Get in touch.
Maybe you are curious to hear more. Or you want to partner or sponsor the event. Or possibly you have a stunning house in the middle of nowhere to host a group of bold museum directors?
