SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The Board of Directors of the Museum of Craft and Design announced the appointment of Masha Berek as its next Executive Director. With more than two decades of experience building cultural institutions, Berek brings a design-trained perspective to museum leadership. A creative strategist shaped by a background in cultural policy, she is committed to anchoring ecosystems of support and service for artists, makers, and the public. Her leadership will advance MCD’s position at the local and global forefront of creative practice, where design, craft, technology, and material experimentation are continually renegotiated.
“This is a challenging moment for museums, but also a generative one. Creativity often thrives in uncertain places, inviting us to rethink what museums do, whom they serve, and how they connect in a hybrid reality. With its legacy of innovation and its agile scale, MCD is an ideal laboratory for testing what a museum can be. I’m excited to join the team and explore these new possibilities together,” said Masha Berek.
Throughout her career, Berek has held senior executive roles across nonprofit, cultural, and commercial design organizations in the United States and internationally. After relocating from New York to the Bay Area in 2018, she has built strong relationships across the region’s cultural community, with roles at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and, most recently, as Director of Development at The Contemporary Jewish Museum, where she was a senior member of the leadership team guiding fundraising strategy and institutional planning.
In sharing the news, MCD’s Board Chair, Neil O’Donnell, notes, “The Museum of Craft and Design is an essential part of San Francisco’s arts community, a welcoming home for craft and design that fosters excellence and meaningful engagement among artists, makers, designers, and the community. We are thrilled to have Masha join us. She brings an exceptional combination of strategic insight, design fluency, and a nuanced understanding of the Bay Area’s creative community that will build on our foundation and help shape a bold, thoughtful future for the museum and its communities.”
Berek steps into her role in early February as the museum launches an ambitious exhibition season beginning with Video Craft, where artists explore the conceptual and tangible connections between contemporary craft and video, deepening our experience of materiality. Later this summer, MCD will present the highly anticipated OBJECTS: USA, bringing together a landmark roster of the most admired craftspeople of the 20th and 21st centuries in a rare multigenerational dialogue, including several artists with roots in the Bay Area.
Working closely with the museum’s board, staff, and partners, Berek will guide MCD’s next phase, building a platform for makers and cross-disciplinary innovators working in human-centered, material-driven ways, and advancing design and craft as a force that shapes how we imagine and live our shared future.
