Board Announces International Search for Successor
Mountain View, CA—June 12, 2024 —The Computer History Museum (CHM), the leading institution decoding computing’s ongoing impact on our world, announced today that President and CEO Dan’l Lewin has decided to retire from his role, and that the Museum’s Board of Trustees is launching an international search for a successor. Lewin will continue to lead the Museum until the search is complete and will work with the new CEO during the transition period.
“CHM’s Trustees are incredibly grateful for Dan’l’s inspired leadership and key contributions during his six-year tenure,” said Steve Smith, CHM’s board chair. “He brought a bold, clear vision, guided the Museum through the pandemic, recruited and managed a talented leadership team, and laid a solid foundation for the Museum's future.
“CHM’s momentum and location at the epicenter of computing make it a compelling opportunity for CEO candidates,” Smith added. “The Museum is guided by a strong strategy focused on reaching audiences around the world to build a global community. The next decade will be transformational for CHM, and we’ll be looking for a committed leader with a record of innovation and execution.”
Since Lewin joined CHM in 2018, the institution has made tremendous strides, reimagining its mission and vision to decode technology—its computing past, digital present, and future impact on humanity—to shape a better future.
Lewin has stewarded and strengthened relationships with dozens of corporate, individual, and foundation supporters, and under his leadership the Museum has raised approximately $75 million in gifts to support its mission. This work helped ensure CHM’s success during the pandemic, when it was forced to close its doors.
Among Lewin’s key accomplishments is the development of a new global digital strategy. With generous support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the “OpenCHM” platform will make the Museum’s collection, exhibits, and programs widely accessible worldwide. In recent years, the Museum has also launched games on the Minecraft: Education Edition and Roblox platforms, collaborated with Audible to create the podcast Recoding History, and dramatically expanded its reach on social media to tens of millions of people, all with the goal of meeting audiences where they are with stories and insights from CHM’s collection.
Guided by the Museum’s new Strategy to 2030, CHM remains focused in the coming year on the launch of an exhibit on the history and impact of chatbots, regular pop-up exhibits, in-person events, and in-depth digital storytelling that supports its mission and the impact it wants to make in the world.
“A key reason I came to CHM was to build a foundation for the future, and now that we have launched our Strategy to 2030, I feel the time is right to pass the baton,” Lewin said. “It has been my pleasure to serve as CHM’s CEO during this time of change, and I’ll be honored to support the next CEO in whatever way I can.”
CHM’s board has chosen a firm with whom to partner and has begun the search for Lewin’s successor.
About the Computer History Museum
CHM is the leading museum decoding computing’s ongoing impact on our world. We are uniquely positioned to cull the key lessons of the past and—through our research, exhibits, events, and incomparable collection of computing artifacts—create informed digital citizens empowered to make the choices that will shape a better future.
Press contact: Carina Sweet, csweet@computerhistory.org, 650.810.1059
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