Nicholas Bell will begin his new role as ROM director on July 6.ROM/Supplied
The Royal Ontario Museum has picked a Canadian museum executive with some U.S. experience as its next director and chief executive officer. Nicholas Bell, a Vancouver native and currently CEO at Calgary’s Glenbow Museum, will start the new job July 6, the ROM announced Wednesday.
Before joining the Glenbow, where he has overseen a major renovation, Bell worked as a chief curator at Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut, the leading American maritime museum, and at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, where he helped boost attendance to one million annual visitors from 150,000.
After seven years at the Glenbow, he leaves the Alberta museum at the delicate final stage in its $205-million redevelopment. The complete redo of its aging 1970s building was supposed to reopen this year, after a previous two-year delay, but has been pushed off to 2027.
The Glenbow also announced yesterday that it is appointing chief operating officer Melanie Kjorlien to replace Bell as of June 1, to ensure continuity with the project. Kjorlien has 18 years of experience in executive roles at the Glenbow.
Bell replaces the ROM’s previous CEO, Josh Basseches, after an international search led by the executive recruiting firm Spencer Stuart. Basseches, who left the museum at the end of 2025 after a 10-year tenure, came to Canada from the U.S. to replace British-Australian museum director Janet Carding. Bell will be the first Canadian to head the ROM since William Thorsell retired in 2010.
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Bell will oversee the continuing OpenROM project, which is reconfiguring the museum’s ground floor and providing free admission to that area. On that score, his Glenbow credentials would have caught the eye of the ROM board: When the Glenbow reopens, it will be the first museum in Canada to offer free general admission (for everything except special exhibitions) thanks to a gift from the family foundation of the late communications executive JR Shaw.
“We need museums now, more than ever, to help adapt to our changing world and planet,” Bell said in a release provided by the ROM. “As Canada’s leading field research institute, and a global source for new knowledge, ROM can help answer the question of what will be our common future. I am thrilled to join this dialogue, and to be of service to the people of Ontario.”
In a statement, ROM board chair Andrew MacLeod said, “Nicholas has successfully nurtured broad stakeholder relationships, developed diverse curatorial programs, managed significant capital projects, and driven attendance results.”
He added, “The Board of Trustees is excited to welcome Nicholas to ROM to build on our current momentum.”
As described, the job is to deepen connections with audiences, especially through digital means, as well as further research projects and advance the collection, exhibitions and programs.