About the Founder & Lead Consultant

Claire Ruud is a dynamic museum executive with over two decades of leadership experience. Most recently, she was Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2019 – 2025), where she led the MCA’s 2020 – 2025 strategic plan and oversaw planning for two of the museum’s highest-grossing exhibitions, Takashi Murakami (2017) and Virgil Abloh (2019). She has also held positions as Deputy Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Founding Director of Cook & Ruud, and Associate Director of Fluent~Collaborative. She holds an MA in Art History from The University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from The Yale School of Management.