LEVEN ANN R. LEVEN Ann R. Leven, a pioneer woman at the intersection of art and institutional finance, died on June 26, 2019 after a long illness. One of the first women to be awarded an MBA by Harvard Business School, she was an accomplished artist-turned-executive who blended a painter's understanding of the artistic process with an uncommonly savvy business acumen. She was also a role model for women seeking equality in the workplace and her unique gifts resulted in a thirty-year career governing the finances of three of the most prestigious artistic institutions in the country as well as a task force for the National Endowment for the Arts. Born in Canton, Ohio in 1940, Ms. Leven arrived in New York City at age 23 and for the rest of her life called the city "home," maintaining her permanent residence there even when her career took her to Washington, D.C. Having considered being an artist and even after selling a few of her paintings as an undergraduate student, she decided to pursue a career in business. She took her first executive position at the Colgate-Palmolive Company in 1964 because at the time it was one of the rare companies that offered equal starting salaries to women and men of equivalent credentials. The first of her governing roles came in 1972, when Ms. Leven became Treasurer of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an appointment that was significant both because she was the first woman to be named to the post and because she was only 32 years-old at the time. Glamour magazine selected her as one of the Outstanding Working Women of 1975 representing "successful young women throughout the nation who have excelled in pursuit of their specific vocational goals." Before Ms. Leven left the Met in 1979, she quietly and successfully arranged the complex financing for the expansions and upgrades that were hallmarks of Museum Director Thomas Hoving's legacy. She was also instrumental in planning and facilitating the Temple of Dendur exhibit and in bringing the famed Treasures of Tutankhamun to the United States for the first time. After a brief tenure as Vice President at Chase Manhattan Bank, she was summoned to Washington, D.C. in 1981 to become Staff Director for the Arts on Ronald Reagan's Presidential Task Force for the Arts and Humanities. In 1984, Ms. Leven segued to the Smithsonian Institution, where she became Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer. Under her leadership, the Smithsonian's endowment fund nearly doubled in value as she oversaw numerous exhibitions across the Institution's collection of museums. In 1990, legendary museum director J. Carter Brown and CFO Daniel Herrick created the role of Deputy Treasurer of The National Gallery of Art for Ms. Leven, and in 1994, she became Treasurer. During her time there, she financially engineered dozens of famed exhibitions, including the unprecedented Johannes Vermeer exhibition. For the bulk of her career, Ms. Leven also served as an adjunct professor at the Columbia University School of Business, where she taught courses in business strategy and administration from 1975 to 1993. Never one to rest on her laurels, even after retiring from full-time work by 2000 she continued to serve institutions she believed in. In the academic world, she was a Trustee of the Corporation of Brown University, a member of the Board of Overseers and twice an Executive-in-Residence at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, and a member of the Visiting Committee at Harvard Business School. In the non-profit world, she served on the boards of the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Red Cross Endowment Fund, the American Arts Alliance, the Artist Choice Museum, the Twyla Tharp Dance Foundation, the Music Advisory Panel of the New York State Council of the Arts, and the New Leadership Division of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies. She was also on the corporate boards of Alliance Capital Reserve, Inc., Short Term Asset Reserve, Oregon Tax Free Trust, Churchill Tax Free-Fund of Kentucky, Churchill Cash Reserve Trust, Cascades Cash Fund, Aquila Cascadia Equity Fund, the Delaware Group, and the Governor Investment Company Institute. The daughter of Dr. Joseph J. and Bessie (Scharff) Leven of Canton, Ohio, Ms. Leven attended the Hathaway Brown School in Cleveland and received an AB in Art from Brown University, where she was awarded the Minnie Helen Hicks Prize in Art. Ms. Leven is survived by her brother Harris Leven and his wife Deborah, nephew Jeffrey Leven and his children Dylan and Laura, and nephew Jonathan Leven, his wife Heather, and their son Owen, and numerous cousins and friends. Services are private.Services are private.