photo by: John Young

New Lawrence Arts Center CEO Kimberly Williams, left, and outgoing CEO Susan Tate greet visitors during a reception honoring the two at the center, 940 New Hampshire St, on Wednesday evening.

Dozens of Lawrence Arts Center staffers, students and community members streamed in and out of the Arts Center’s main gallery Wednesday evening to send off departing CEO Susan Tate in style.

But the event was just as much a welcoming party as it was a farewell. That evening, Joan Golden, chair of the Arts Center’s board of directors, introduced Kimberly Williams, the Lawrence native and former Chicagoan who as of this week replaced Tate as CEO.

Golden led the search for the Arts Center’s new leader earlier this year, ultimately selecting Williams, a KU alumna with experience in the arts and financial management, as Tate’s successor.

“Susan, over the last seven years, has brought the Lawrence Arts Center to a whole different plane,” Golden said Wednesday. “With her retirement and the hiring of Kimberly coming back to her own community with such a broad background in various areas, I think the board is very excited to see what the next chapter is for the Lawrence Arts Center.”

photo by: John Young

New Lawrence Arts Center CEO Kimberly Williams, left, and outgoing CEO Susan Tate greet visitors during a reception honoring the two at the center, 940 New Hampshire St, on Wednesday evening.

Tate, who joined the Lawrence Arts Center as CEO in 2009, is retiring from the role to focus on her family’s business interests. She plans to remain involved with the Arts Center as a consultant, working with major donors and on outside ventures such as the Free State Festival and the East Ninth Project.

It’s been “an exhilarating seven years” at the Arts Center, said Tate, who in her time there has overseen the development of the nationally recognized STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) program as well as the expansion of the Arts Center’s artist-in-residence and visiting artists programs.

Under her leadership, the Arts Center has won prestigious grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, ArtPlace America, the William T. Kemper Foundation and the William Randolph Hearst Foundations.

“This event is filled with people who have supported the Arts Center for decades and especially in the last seven years,” Tate remarked in between visits with well-wishers. “They are my friends, friends of the Arts Center and students.”

She also expressed her approval — “thrilled” was the exact word — of Williams, who arrived at the Arts Center this week after most recently serving as managing director of the Solar Fuels Institute, a nonprofit science research institute at Northwestern University.

Before shifting her focus to the nonprofit world, Williams managed investment funds for partners GE Capital, Whitehall/Goldman Sachs and J.E. Robert Companies. She holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and a Master’s of Business Administration from KU. Williams grew up in Lawrence, and is the daughter of Odd and Jonell Williams, who were founders of the Williams Education Fund at KU.

photo by: John Young

New Lawrence Arts Center CEO Kimberly Williams, left, shares a laugh as she greets Sidney Sutton, center, and Vicki Douglas during a reception at the center, 940 New Hampshire St, on Wednesday evening honoring Williams and outgoing CEO Susan Tate.

Williams’ ties to the art world include her current role as president of the board of the Colorado-based Telluride Mountainfilm, an annual festival and worldwide tour that “uses the power of film, art and ideas to inspire audiences to create a better world.”

Now in her first week at the Arts Center, Williams hopes to gain a better understanding of the strengths of her staff, ideally finding ways to leverage those strengths for the betterment of the Lawrence community.

Stepping into Tate’s role “feels like I’m on a high diving board, and I just watched her do a triple backflip,” Williams said Wednesday.

“She has set a vision and strategy in motion that’s unmistakably Susan,” she said of her predecessor. “But it’s a wonderful place to start.”