Walker Art Center Appoints David M. Steglich Chief Operating Officer

The Walker Art Center announced today the appointment of David M. Steglich as Chief Operating Officer effective March 27. He succeeds Ann Bitter who left the Walker August 31, 2005. Steglich is former Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company, Minneapolis, a leading management consulting firm advising major companies on issues of strategy, organization, technology, and operations. In his new position, he will oversee the Walker’s business affairs and operations while leading strategic efforts to achieve the Walker’s financial goals as well as its artistic and educational mission. He will report to director Kathy Halbreich.

“Dave is something of a Renaissance man: a McKinsey consultant with extraordinary strategic and financial skills, a distinguished lawyer, the lead singer in a Ska band, and a design maven,” said Halbreich. “After an extensive national search, it’s wonderful to find such talent in our own backyard. I know Dave will be instrumental in shaping the Walker’s future as well as in helping us learn to maximize the wonderful opportunities our new facility offers. The Board, staff, and I know Dave will help us make the Walker an even more robust leader in the cultural world.”

“I am tremendously excited to join the Walker as COO,” said Steglich. “I have long been a fan of the Walker and am delighted to have the chance to contribute to the mission of such an important institution.”

At McKinsey & Company since 2000, Steglich worked with national financial institutions, counseling senior management on key strategic and performance improvement issues. He was also able to provide pro bono service to the Minneapolis Public Schools, including helping to develop a strategy and implementation plan to transform large high school programs into small learning communities. As an attorney in the Corporate Law Department at Dorsey & Whitney, Minneapolis, from 1997–2000, he practiced law in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, federal securities law reporting and compliance, public and private offerings of debt and equity securities, and general corporate law. From 1995–1997 he served as Law Clerk for then-Chief Judge Paul A. Magnuson of the U.S. District Court in St. Paul.

Steglich was born in Wisconsin and received a B.A. in mathematics and philosophy in 1989 from Saint Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota. After being awarded a Rotary Scholarship in 1990 he studied economics and political theory at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. He received his JD from Yale Law School in 1995.