Walter Staveloz

Walter Staveloz is an experienced director of international relations and the founder and president of MuseumExperts.org, a community for museum professionals who are seeking fulfilment in their careers.

By supporting the sector’s highly skilled people in their work lives, the organisation seeks to foster a lifetime of achievement and contribution and thereby advance the museum industry.

The free, volunteer-driven community platform was established in 2020 to help the community navigate the rapidly changing pandemic environment. Initially, it concentrated on connecting jobseekers with organisations needing help.

Now, it also offers career development webinars and online programmes that encourage critical conversations about the future of the museum workforce. Topics such as workforce equity, DEI, post-pandemic organisational resilience, and the future of museum careers engage leaders from institutions worldwide.

In addition to his work with MuseumExperts.org, Staveloz has served as the inaugural executive director of Ecsite (European network of science centers/museums), director of international relations at the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC), and as a consultant for science centres and museums globally with YesYouCanConsulting.

He also coordinated the International Science Center and Science Museum Day in collaboration with UNESCO, and designed the concept for the Kuwait Science Festival for the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS).

He was recently named a Fulbright Specialist covering capacity building and strategic planning for science centres and museums.

“Walter Staveloz has spent a career doing something most people in the museum field talk about but rarely act on: building the infrastructure to support the people who make museums run,” says one person who nominated Staveloz.

With MuseumExpert.org, they say that he “has helped shape the museum field at an international level across three decades and then chose to spend the latest chapter of his career supporting the people within the industry, beyond the institutions themselves.

“[...] By making professional development free, accessible, and genuinely community-driven, he has lowered barriers that have historically kept talented people from the chance to thrive.”