Kathleen Soriano, director of Compton Verney, the art museum in Warwickshire run by the Peter Moores Foundation, has been appointed director of exhibitions at the Royal Academy.
The former head of exhibitions and collections management at the National Portrait Gallery, who was one of the first generation of Clore Leadership Programme Fellows, was educated at the University of Leicester and previously worked at the Royal Academy of Arts in the late 1980s.
She joined Compton Verney in spring 2006 and was one of the judges for the first open exhibition staged at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery last year.
The post of director of exhibitions at the RA, one of Britain's most high-profile exhibition venues, is a new creation.
It replaces the former exhibitions secretary post which was held for 31 years by Sir Norman Rosenthal, the sometimes controversial curator who established the RA as one of the most important venues for international exhibitions in London.
Royal Academy secretary and chief executive Charles Saumarez Smith commented: "I'm delighted that the Royal Academy has been able to lure Kathleen Soriano away from her very successful tenure as director of Compton Verney. Since working with her at the National Portrait Gallery, I have had the highest regard for her ability to juggle the complex demands of an international exhibition programme."
