Eva Respini and Sirish Rao appointed Co-CEOs

The Vancouver Art Gallery Association Board of Trustees has announced the permanent appointment of Eva Respini and Sirish Rao as Co-CEOs, confirming a dual leadership model designed to advance the Gallery’s artistic ambition, operational resilience and global reach. The decision reflects the Board's confidence in Respini and Rao's leadership over the past year, during which they strengthened the Gallery's financial position, deepened its commitment to art, artists and community, and established a renewed vision for the institution's future. In addition to assessing organizational performance, the Governance and People Committee of the Board sought extensive input from staff, donors, artists, community leaders and trusted advisors.

“Eva and Sirish have demonstrated exceptional leadership distinguished by shared purpose,” says Jon Stovell, Chair of the Board of Trustees. “They bring different but deeply complementary perspectives to the Gallery, and together, they are expanding our sense of what the Vancouver Art Gallery can be and the role it can play in the twenty-first century.”

Respini will serve as Co-CEO & Chief Curator, leading the Gallery’s artistic vision, including exhibition strategy, collection development, curatorial partnerships and the new building project. Rao will serve as Co-CEO & Executive Director, leading operations, earned revenue and finance as well as community outreach, institutional partnerships and interdisciplinary programming, including the Gallery’s Art of Wellbeing Lab and the Centre for Global Asias. Both will bring their extensive expertise to bear on the programmatic direction of the future Vancouver Art Gallery.

As Interim Co-CEOs since March 2025, they have:

–Reignited audience momentum, with admissions and membership reaching their highest levels since before the pandemic. 
–Reimagined the curatorial program on the Gallery’s collection of over 13,000 artworks, including opening its first dedicated collection floor in more than two decades.
–Expanded the Gallery’s local community engagement and international reach through new partnerships, programs and public-facing initiatives.
–Charted a renewed vision for the future Vancouver Art Gallery, including leading the national architect selection process that commissioned Formline Architecture + Urbanism and KPMB Architects to design its new home.

Since joining the Gallery in 2023, Eva Respini has shaped a renewed artistic direction and energy for the institution, placing its distinguished permanent collection at the heart of the Gallery while expanding its international profile. She has strengthened the collection through major acquisitions and gifts, including works by Nan Goldin and Stephen Shore and 122 artworks from the Brigitte and Henning Freybe collection, the most significant donation of international contemporary art in the Gallery’s history. Respini has also created new opportunities to build the collection for the future, including leading significant co-acquisitions with institutions in Canada and the US, and establishing the Curator’s Council to support the acquisition of works by emerging and established women artists. Her exhibition program has brought major artistic voices to Vancouver and positioned the Gallery within urgent global conversations, including through Future Geographies: Art in the Century of Climate Change, which served as a testing ground for how museums can work more sustainably.

Sirish Rao joined the Gallery in January 2023, and has strengthened the Gallery’s institutional capacity, audience engagement and civic impact, building new partnerships and expanding access to art across communities. Under his leadership, Rao has positioned the Gallery at the forefront of new thinking about the role cultural institutions can play in society, including through the award-winning Art of Wellbeing Lab and the launch of a globally unique partnership with the BC Parks Foundation’s PaRx prescription program, which enables healthcare professionals to prescribe free Gallery admission to patients. He has advanced the Centre for Global Asias as a national platform for exhibitions, research and public programming, repositioning Vancouver and Canada's place within local and global conversations on art and ideas.

As the Co-CEOs take up their permanent roles, they are focused on developing dynamic new exhibitions and programmatic initiatives for local and international stages, cultivating support from Vancouver’s business and philanthropic communities, and realizing the new Vancouver Art Gallery.