The Smithsonian’s Newest Executive Probably Can’t Talk About Her Previous Job Experience (Because She Led the CIA)

Where do CIA bigwigs go when they retire? They don’t usually end
up overseeing major museums, but these are strange times we’re
living in.

Lonnie G. Bunch III, the Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution, has hired Meroe Park, former executive director and
chief operating officer of the Central Intelligence Agency, as
Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer. (She was also briefly
the agency’s acting director, until Donald Trump’s pick to head the
agency, Mike Pompeo, was confirmed.) It is Bunch’s first major hire
since his appointment this May as Secretary of the
Smithsonian, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and
encompasses 19 museums, nine research centers, and the National
Zoo.

Park, who served in the highest civil-servant position at the
CIA, will now oversee day-to-day activities at the Smithsonian’s
many facilities; her hire is effective January 27.

Park has been in the cloak-and-dagger world of the CIA for some
twenty-seven years, starting out as a junior intelligence analyst
and holding various roles, including chief of human resources,
director of the office of corporate resources, and chief of
payroll. Among the major projects she oversaw was the modernization
of information technology at “The Company.” She was lauded in her
final role; Park received the Presidential Rank Award—the executive
branch’s highest honor for career professionals––in 2013 and 2016,
and won the CIA’s Distinguished Intelligence Medal in 2016. Park is
a graduate of Georgetown University.

Upon leaving the CIA after Trump took office, Park took up her
current position as executive vice president of the nonprofit
Partnership for Public Service in Washington, D.C., a nonpartisan
organization that advocates for effective government. Among other
projects, the group advises presidents-elect on their transitions,
during which they have to hire thousands of civil servants. The
organization’s suggestions are so influential, the New York Times pointed out, that “the
center’s suggested hiring timelines even appear verbatim on Mr.
Trump’s transition website.”

While the nation’s spy agency is certainly a far cry from her
new home, Park tells artnet News that her skills will definitely
transfer.

“The CIA is like any other large organization when it comes to
activities such as strategic planning, managing resources,
developing talent, and leveraging technology,” she said in an
email. “I have spent much of my career strengthening and
streamlining strategic decision-making, as well as making sure that
the people who are carrying out the mission have what they need to
do their work. I look forward to bringing those skills and
experiences to the Secretary and his team.”

The post The Smithsonian’s Newest Executive Probably Can’t
Talk About Her Previous Job Experience (Because She Led the
CIA) appeared first on artnet News.