A week into a job creating exhibitions and museums for English Heritage, 27-year old Jack Lohman had to test out his powers of persuasion on the Queen Mother. At the time, the Queen Mother was constable of Dover Castle; Lohman needed her permission to produce a regimental museum there.
How did the presentation go?
"Oh, she fell asleep as soon as I started and woke up as soon as I finished," quipped Lohman, now 54, a long-time veteran of museum management and the new CEO of the Royal BC Museum(RBCM). But Lohman nonetheless secured the Queen Mother's endorsement for the project – an early indication of his ability to secure key backers for his projects.
Lohman, his desk stacked high with reading material about B.C. history as he immerses himself in his new job, recalled honing those key persuasive skills during his decade-long project managing exhibitions of England's historic buildings for English Heritage.
"One learns fundraising because one wanted to do a better project, a more ambitious project," he said. "I didn't realize those skills would be useful later on in proper fundraising."
While at English Heritage, besides learning to raise money, Lohman tried his hand at – and enjoyed – making films about museums. That career twist would pave the way to a new job with TVC Ltd., afilm and audio-visual production company – again, courtesy of his persuasive powers.
"I persuaded [TVC's investors] to open up a branch of a film company that specialized in doing films for museums."
In that role, Lohman said he would direct, produce and "pull together everything but script."
And again, he'd use his powers of persuasion to secure project financing.
But Lohman discovered that he didn't want a career in filmmaking per se. He instead used that career stretch to hone his business and management skills. Lohman eventually took over the running of TVC and then merged it with Met Studio, an international museum design company.
And it was through Met Studio, working on a Los Angeles museum for famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, that Lohman scored his next career coup: Wiesenthal recommended him to Desmond Tutu, the former archbishop of Cape Town, to work on a peace centre in Cape Town. Tutu later recommended Lohman to the South African government to run 15 national museums.
Lohman said taking that job in 1999 – as the first chief executive of the Iziko Museums of Cape Town – was a no-brainer.
"It was an extraordinary step up to be chief executive of such a big organization," he said. "From having run businesses, essentially, to start running museums."
But if the opportunity was large, so, too, were the challenges.
Lohman was tasked with bringing together 15 museums that had never worked together under one structure, building computer and other infrastructure links and consolidating management jobs.
Perhaps more significantly, he worked to transform an apartheid organization run by white South Africans into a racially reprofiled organization that "looked like South Africa."
Lohman said he faced significant resistance from white employees as jobs were reallocated to include black South Africans.
"I had to move house on two occasions because of death threats."
But Lohman said in his three years in South Africa, he gained significant new career skills.
"Having to completely deconstruct [the organization] and then construct it, I learned a lot about running organizations, structuring organizations," he said.
While in South Africa, Lohman was also taught design and communication at the Bergen National Academy of the Arts in Norway, travelling back and forth between the two countries.
However, Lohman's next significant career move took him back to the U.K. to run the Museum of London – and to his persuasive fundraising skills.
At the time, he said, the museum told the history of London until 1914 – and then stopped. It didn't talk about London's experience hosting two Olympic Games or rebuilding the city after the Second World War or "transcendental" events like the death of the Princess of Wales.
"It was very clear what one needed to do: one needed to bring the story up to date."
And that, in turn, required £20 million. Which Lohman set about raising.
"We got a patrons club together, and we advocated and talked up what we were going to do with philanthropists and so on," he said. "And there was a great spirit of generosity and wanting to see London have its museum [be] a proper museum."
The updated museum opened in May 2010.
And now, having just left the Museum of London after a decade leading it, Lohman is facing some similar challenges at the RMBC. There, too, he said, history stops short – missing key parts of local First Nations history, for example.
"It's telling a story which is now 47 years old," he said. "You wouldn't teach your children with textbooks that your grandmother had used, and yet that's what we're doing in terms of the museum at the moment."
Besides tackling the challenge of better telling B.C. stories, Lohman said he plans to work on a master plan that will set the museum's course into the future.
And he plans to bolster the museum's revenue by building out its philanthropy stream – again, using those powers of persuasion.
"With a compelling story and a compelling vision … to ignite people's passion around their own story, their own heritage."
What fuels Lohman's work and his success?
Lohman chalks it up to his passion – and ability to spread that passion.
"I think that the energy that one creates gives other people energy and an ability to look at the very obvious, giving people the confidence to look at their own collection and say, 'Hey, Canada, these collections are really good.'"
Rob Gialloreto, president and CEO of Tourism Victoria, said having the right leadership at the RBCM is key for Victoria's tourism success.
He added that Lohman has "big shoes to fill" after the departure of former CEO Pauline Rafferty. But he added Lohman's passion for his work has quickly become evident and bodes well for the RBCM's future.
"As he ingrains himself into this community, we look forward to some great things," Gialloreto said. •
