Mara Manus Steps Down as CEO of Pioneer Works

Mara Manus Steps Down as CEO of Pioneer Works

Mara Manus, who since September 2023 has served as theinaugural CEOof Brooklyn, New York’sPioneer Works, has left the role,Artnewsreports. Before arriving at the arts and culture nonprofit, Manus had spent seven years as executive director of the New York State Council on the Arts, where she secured $100 million in funding and supported some three thousand organizations. Following her departure from Pioneer Works, the nonprofit has reverted to the artist- and scientist-led model under which it had operated since its 2012 founding by artist Dustin Yellin. Yellin’s second cousin Gabriel Florenz, the organization’s founding artistic director, became executive director in March and is tasked with fundraising and donor development.

Florenz toldArtnewsthat Manus had helped Pioneer Works achieve its $30 million fundraising goal, set back in 2019, months earlier than expected.“The plan was for Mara to come in, build the infrastructure, and finish the campaign,” he said. “We don’t want to be a single-point institution. We like collectivity; we want to be an artist-scientist-led organization. She helped us get through a lot of intense institutional frameworks that we built in a short amount of time.”

Manus came to Pioneer Works—which currently has a $9.1 million operating budget and a staff of forty-three—as it was in the midst of a multiphase plan that saw it purchase its home, a repurposed 1866 ironworks in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, replace its roof, add an HVAC system and bathrooms, and, most recently, expand programming and accessibility, most notably through the addition of an elevator. A rooftop observatory, the first in New York City to be built specifically for public use, is underway. The organization offers 90 percent of its programming for free and is said to welcome some 50,000 visitors annually.