ALEXANDRA BADZAK is the Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Ottawa Art Gallery where she has been leading the charge on a major gallery expansion project in the downtown core. During her two-years at the OAG she has taken the gallery through a major profile-building campaign that resulted in a 600% growth in outreach and a 900% increase in social media participation.
Prior to joining the OAG as Director, Alexandra Badzak worked for ten years at the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon in various positions including Collections Manager, Curator and Head of Public and Professional Programs. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree and a Masters of Adult and Continuing Education with a focus on informal leaning in a gallery context. She was Editorial Chair and a Board Member of Blackflash Magazine for many years and sat on the Board of the Saskatchewan Arts Alliance as well.
More recently, during her tenure as the Diefenbunker, Canada’s Cold War Museum’s first Executive Director, the Diefenbunker significantly increased self-generated and grant revenue, launched a series of bilingual programs and also developed a following through social networking. She also played a pivotal role in raising almost $1.7 million in less than 2 years for a fire retrofit project of the Diefenbunker Museum. She recently sat as Chair of the Ottawa Museum Network Board of Directors and was a member of the National Historic Sites Alliance of Ontario Steering Committee.
She is currently a member of CAMDO (the Canadian Art Museum Directors’ Organization) and was one of the 13 member Arts and Heritage Steering Committee charged with renewing the City of Ottawa’s 20/20 cultural plan. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa.