Cultural attraction chief executive officer job description
A cultural attraction CEO leads a nonprofit or public zoo, aquarium, museum or garden for its board. The CEO sets the plan with the board, asks major donors for gifts, hires the senior team, and speaks for the site when something goes wrong.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Median pay, museums, zoos and gardens · BLS, May 2025
We're looking for a CEO to lead our [zoo, aquarium, museum, or garden] for its board of directors. You set the strategic plan with the board, raise money with the development team, and answer to the public for how we care for the collection and serve the community. You hire and lead the senior team and keep the budget balanced.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Build the strategic plan with the board and turn it into yearly goals and a balanced budget.
Report to the board at each meeting on attendance, finances, fundraising, and risks, and support its committees.
Hire, coach, and review the COO, CFO, Director of Development, Curator, Marketing and Communications Manager, and [Veterinarian, at a zoo or aquarium].
Cultivate and ask major donors, foundations, and sponsors with the Director of Development, and lead any capital campaign.
Take the collection plan and major acquisitions, deaccessions, or transfers to the board, as your collections policy requires.
Represent the organization with city and county officials, community groups, and reporters, including during a crisis.
Lead accreditation reviews with your accreditation body and keep board-approved policies current.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Meet with the senior team on attendance, revenue, and anything that affects guests, staff, or the collection.
Review weekly cash, attendance, and fundraising reports with the CFO and Director of Development.
Meet donors, sponsors, or board members, often on a walk through the site.
Walk the [grounds, galleries, or gardens] to see what guests see and talk with staff and volunteers.
Prepare board and committee agendas, reports, and the decisions the board needs to make.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Annual attendance: [your target].
Operating results against the board-approved budget: [your target].
Total earned and contributed revenue: [your target].
Strategic plan milestones met: [your target].
Senior team retention: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
Bachelor's degree; [master's degree in nonprofit management, museum studies, business, or a related field].
[10+] years of senior leadership, including [5+] years leading a nonprofit or cultural organization.
A record of raising money from individual donors, foundations, and public sources.
Experience working with a nonprofit board, building budgets, and reading audited financial statements.
Clear public speaker and writer who can explain the mission to donors, officials, and reporters.
6. Preferred Experience
Experience leading an accredited zoo, aquarium, museum, or public garden.
Has led a capital campaign for new exhibits or buildings.
Experience with a city or county operating agreement or other public funding partner.
Background in the site's subject: [animal science, art, history, science, or horticulture].
7. Physical Requirements
Office and site work, including long walks across the grounds or galleries.
Stand and speak at events, tours, and public meetings.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Full-time salaried role with board meetings, donor events, and evening or weekend functions.
Works on site, with travel for donor visits, conferences, and [accreditation or peer reviews].
On call for emergencies such as severe weather, a serious guest injury, or [an animal escape or collection damage].
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new chief executive officer gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
What makes leading a cultural attraction different
Most CEOs answer to owners or investors. Here the boss is a volunteer board, the CEO's pay and the board's policies show up on a public tax return, and live animals or a city partner bring a second set of rules.
The board hires you and sets your pay
The board hires, reviews and pays the CEO, and the IRS cares how. When board members with no conflict approve the pay in advance, rely on pay data for similar jobs, and write down their reasons at the time, the IRS presumes the pay is reasonable. Form 990 asks whether the board followed those steps and lists officer pay, and the return is open to the public. Source: IRS: Rebuttable presumption, intermediate sanctions.
Board policies show up on the public return
Form 990 asks about your rules. Do you have a written conflict of interest policy? Must officers, directors and key employees report their interests each year? Do you have a whistleblower policy and a record retention policy? The IRS counts a yes only if the board, or a board committee it authorized, adopted the policy by the end of the tax year. A new CEO should check that each one is real and in use. Source: IRS: Instructions for Form 990.
New animals can mean a new license
A zoo or aquarium that shows regulated animals to the public needs a USDA exhibitor license, whether a state, a county, a city or a nonprofit owns it. The license lasts three years. A new owner or a new site needs a new license. So does adding big cats, bears, great apes, elephants or giraffes not already on it. Each of those changes needs written notice to USDA at least 90 days ahead. Source: USDA APHIS: Licensing and Registration Under the Animal Welfare Act.
Ask officials for support, never back a candidate
A 501(c)(3) can do some lobbying. It can ask council members or state lawmakers to back a bill, but too much puts its tax exemption at risk. Backing or opposing a candidate for office is banned outright, and that includes campaign gifts and public statements made for the group. A CEO who spends time with elected officials has to keep that line clear, most of all in an election year. Source: IRS: The restriction of political campaign intervention by section 501(c)(3) organizations.
City hall may be a partner
Some attractions sit on land or in buildings a city or county owns, and a nonprofit runs them under an operating agreement. The agreement sets what the city pays for, who fixes the buildings and what reports go to city staff. The CEO answers for all of it. If the city runs the site itself, it usually files no Form 990, since government units don't have to file one. Source: IRS: Instructions for Form 990.
How much cultural attraction chief executive officers make
The closest BLS group for cultural attraction chief executive officers is chief executives. Chief executives who work for museums, zoos, gardens, and historic sites earned a median of $164,070 a year ($78.88 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below the $213,990 median for chief executives in all industries. About 850 of the 204,350 chief executives in that survey work for museums, zoos and gardens.
The board sets the CEO's salary and reviews it every year. Some boards add a bonus for fundraising or attendance goals, agreed before the year starts.
Museums, zoos and gardens
$164,070$164,070 median Middle half $109,470–$280,000 10th–90th $84,990–$400,460
All industries
$213,990$213,990 median Middle half $129,540–$356,200 10th–90th $75,700–$507,730
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Museums, zoos and gardens
$84,990
$109,470
$164,070
$280,000
$400,460
All industries
$75,700
$129,540
$213,990
$356,200
$507,730
BLS groups museums, zoos, botanical gardens and historic sites together. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Has closed major gifts face to face, often with the board chair in the room
Has worked for a nonprofit board: set agendas, took hard questions and kept members informed between meetings
Can walk a donor through the audited statements and show where a restricted gift went
Stays steady with reporters when an animal dies, a guest is hurt or an exhibit draws protest
Hires and keeps senior experts, such as curators and veterinarians, who know their fields better than the CEO does
Teach these on the job
The history of your collection and the stories your donors care about
The terms of your city or county operating agreement
Your accreditation body's standards and review dates
Your ticketing, membership and donor reports
Which board members can open which doors in your town
Expect a board portal such as BoardEffect or Diligent for meeting packets and votes, plus dashboards from the ticketing and donor systems, often Tessitura, Altru or Raiser's Edge. Ask finalists how those numbers changed a decision they made, not just whether they know the software.
Cultural attraction chief executive officer interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
Each target in the template is blank on purpose. Fill it in with the board at budget time, and score it at the CEO's yearly evaluation.
Annual attendance
Paid, member, school and free visits from the ticketing system, counted the same way every year. Note the weather and any big exhibit openings, so one rainy summer doesn't decide the review.
Operating results against the board-approved budget
Operating revenue minus operating expenses, compared with the budget the board approved, from the CFO's monthly report. Leave capital campaign gifts out so one large pledge can't hide a deficit.
Total earned and contributed revenue
Admissions, membership, shop, food and rentals, plus gifts and grants, each as its own line. Watch the mix too: a year that leans on one donor is weaker than its total looks.
Strategic plan milestones met
Milestones from the board's plan finished on time, taken from a short status list the CEO brings to each board meeting.
Senior team retention
Senior leaders who stayed through the year, and the reasons any of them left. An exit talk run by a board member often tells you more than the count.
Is a museum CEO the same as an executive director?
Usually, yes. Nonprofits call the top staff job executive director, president, director or CEO, and many join two, as in president and CEO. The IRS treats them alike: Form 990 asks about the CEO, executive director or other top management official. Use the title your bylaws use, so the job ad, the contract and the tax return all match.
How much does a cultural attraction chief executive officer make?
Chief executives who work for museums, zoos, gardens, and historic sites earned a median of $164,070 a year ($78.88 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $109,470 and $280,000 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and bonus terms.
Can one person be both CEO and chief curator?
At a small museum the director often curates too. Once a site grows to this size, the jobs pull apart: the CEO's week fills with donors, the board and the city, and the collection needs a full-time expert. If a CEO keeps a curatorial title, write down who has the last word on acquisitions and loans, and who speaks for the collection when the CEO is raising money.
How should the board review the CEO?
Once a year, against the five goals in the template: attendance, the budget, money raised, plan milestones and senior staff retention. The board chair or the executive committee gathers input from each board member and the senior team. Base any bonus on those same goals, and record the vote in the minutes.
Should the CEO sit on the board?
Bylaws differ. Many nonprofits give the CEO a seat as an ex officio member, with or without a vote. A seat without a vote keeps the CEO in every discussion without voting on their own review. Either way, the CEO should leave the room when the board sets the CEO's pay, since the IRS steps above expect people without a conflict to decide it.
Who leads the site when the CEO is away or leaves?
Put a short emergency succession plan in front of the board before you need it. Name who steps in, often the COO, what that person can approve alone, and who speaks to reporters. For a planned departure, the board can also name an interim leader while it runs the search.
