Two more Philadelphia Museum of Art senior staffers are departing as the museum continues to plot out its path after a period of institutional turmoil.
Maggie Fairs, who was promoted to chief of staff last year by former director and CEO Sasha Suda, will leave the museum at the end of the month. CFO Valarie McDuffie has also resigned, with her last day this Friday.
Previously, the museum parted ways with its marketing chief Paul Dien as of Feb. 1. Days later, the museum announced that it was reversing course on a renaming while keeping its new logo. Both changes were unveiled four months earlier in a rebranding overseen by Suda and Dien.
No other immediate departures are expected, though the museum is working on an “organizational review,” with more changes possible later, a spokesperson said.
Suda announced the arrival of both Fairs and McDuffie in May 2023, saying that “these two colleagues reflect the future of the institution.” Fairs was hired as vice president of communications after having worked in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. McDuffie had previously held several senior financial posts in secondary education.
Fairs was promoted by Suda to chief of staff in May 2025. A replacement will not be hired, as the museum is restructuring the director’s office without that position.
Suda was dismissed from the museum in November and subsequently filed a lawsuit alleging that her dismissal was “without a valid basis.” The matter is now headed to arbitration.
Director and CEO Daniel H. Weiss, who took over in December, said in January that the staff of the museum was “the heart and soul of the place and they need to be treasured and supported and also held accountable,” and that the museum needed “a senior management team that is available to them and transparent in its processes and also accountable.”
Asked at the time whether there would be a reorganization, he said:
“With our ambition and our mission, and as that evolves a little bit under each new leader, there needs to be careful review of how the organization serves the needs of the moment. So that’s underway.”
The museum on Monday also announced Katherine Anne Paul as new curator of Indian and Himalayan art. Paul was most recently curator of Asian Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art since 2019, and held earlier positions at the Newark Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C. She holds a Ph.D. in languages and cultures of Asia from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Weiss, in Monday’s announcement, singled out Paul’s scholarship and her extensive knowledge of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s collection. She was assistant and associate curator of Indian and Himalayan art at the museum from 2002 to 2008.
The headline has been updated to reflect that the members of staff have resigned.