Marion Ackermann has been named the president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz or SPK), which oversees Berlin’s state museums. She is the first woman ever to hold this leadership role.
As the largest cultural employer in Germany, SPK has around 2,000 employees and oversees 4.7 million objects across 15 museums in Berlin, in addition to managing libraries, research institutes, and archive facilities. The current president, Hermann Parzinger, will retire at the end of next May after serving 17 years in the role.
Marion Ackermann, currently serving as director general of the Dresden State Museums, will oversee a “major overhaul” of the state-funded organization after a two-year, 278-page study published in 2020 concluded that the SPK was “too large to function effectively.”
Ackermann was unanimously selected by a search committee, which included Germany’s culture minister, Claudia Roth, and will officially begin her role on June 1 next year. She has also been a member of the foundation’s advisory board for several years.
In a press statement, Roth praised Ackermann as “an excellent museum manager, art expert, and strategist who is well connected both nationally and internationally.”
“One of the important factors in her appointment was her proven track record in successfully shaping transformation processes,” Roth said. “I am confident that she will bring the comprehensive reform of the SPK to an excellent conclusion and lead the foundation into a sustainable and successful future with extraordinary expertise, new ideas, and much energy.”
Ackermann’s previous experience includes managing the Stuttgart Art Museum in 2003 at the age of 38, making her the youngest director of a major museum in Germany at that time. She became the director of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf in 2009 and was appointed general director of the Dresden State Museums in 2016, where the 15 institutions attract more than 2 million visitors annually.
In addition to her roles as a curator and museum director, Ackermann co-chaired the Bizot Group until 2023 and served on the executive board of the Goethe Institute until earlier this year. She is also the jury chairman of the Kaiserring Goslar art prize for international artists in modern and contemporary art.
