Alliance Advisory Services and Speakers Bureau

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Advisors and Speakers

 

Headshots of Elizabeth Merritt on the left, Laura L. Lott in the center, and Julie Hart on the right.

A woman standing outside with trees in the background smiles at the camera with short red hair wearing a patterned white and black collared shirt.Julie Hart is the Senior Director for Museum Standards and Excellence at the American Alliance of Museums. She has been engaged with AAM’s Accreditation and Museum Assessment programs, and other efforts to nurture institutional excellence throughout her 20+ year tenure at AAM—providing her with insight into the best practices and challenges faced by museums of all sizes and types.  She is an internationally sought-after expert to speak, train, and advise on the US models of museum and non-profit standards and accreditation. She holds an M.A. and B.A in Art History and a B.A. in International Affairs. Her public presentations and advisory work focuses on:

    • Accreditation: AAM’s model, its history and evolution, and comparisons to other programs globally; assessing and consulting on creating or evaluating and accreditation programs
    • Standards and Ethics: the approach used by museums in the United States; their role in creating a culture of excellence and accountability in the field at large and at individual institutions; and top-level standards and ethics issues, including deaccessioning
    • Operational Infrastructure: Foundational documents (policies/plans), structures, and practices for operational success and institutional excellence, both for new and existing museums


Laura Lott, President and CEO, American Alliance of Museums

Laura L. Lott began her tenure as president and CEO of the American Alliance of Museums in June 2015. A results-oriented, entrepreneurial, strategic leader with a track record of setting and achieving aggressive programmatic and financial goals, Laura served as the Alliance’s chief operating officer since 2010. Prior to her work at the Alliance, Laura guided the evolution and growth of several nonprofit education organizations. After graduating from American University in Washington, D.C., Laura gained public accounting experience at PricewaterhouseCoopers, with a focus on nonprofit clients. Her public presentations and work with individual museums focus on:

  • Nonprofit governance: exploring the implications and applications of the Alliance’s landmark report Museum Board Leadership 2017
  • Strategic planning: how museum leadership can steer their organizations to successful performance
  • Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion: insights from the Alliance’s work on DEAI


Elizabeth Merritt,

Elizabeth Merritt is the Alliance’s Vice President for Strategic Foresight, and founding director of the Center for the Future of Museums – a think-tank and research & development lab for the museum field. She is the author of the Alliance’s annual TrendsWatch report, and writes and speaks prolifically on the trends shaping the future of nonprofit organizations. (M.A. Duke University, B.S. Yale University, Museum Management Institute.) Her current lectures, workshops and consulting focuses on:

  • Strategic foresight: futures studies and trends analysis as applied to museum planning and operations
  • Financial sustainability: fostering new mission-based income streams
  • Social justice: museums as a force for social and economic equity

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