Stephan Jost is an art museum director who is currently the Michael and Sonja Koerner Director, and CEO of the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto. Previously, he served as Director of the Honolulu Museum of Art in Hawaii, the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont, and the Mills College Art Museum in Oakland, California. He also held curatorial positions at the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College.
Jost serves as Past President and Nominating Chair on the Board of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and is also on the Board of the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation. He previously served as Vice Chair on the Board of Hampshire College, where he was Board member from 2018-2022, as well as 2008-2016. He holds a BA from Hampshire College and an MA from the University of Texas at Austin in Art History. He is originally from East Lansing, Michigan and is a citizen of Canada, the USA, and Switzerland.
He and Zuckerman discuss original intention, cultural urgency, having a young and diverse museum audience, when people fall in love with culture, why people care about art, being in the presence of great works of art, the optimism of the extraordinary, the innovation of decorative arts, the maintenance of power, keeping our humanity, how museums can build social cohesion, and the power of inconsistency!