The Vancouver Art Gallery has made its experiment in shared leadership permanent, confirming Eva Respini and Sirish Rao as its ongoing co-chief executives. The board's decision, taken on September 28, 2026, ends a period of interim dual leadership that began in March 2025 following the departure of Anthony Kiendl, who went on to lead the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. The move is a vote of confidence in a model born of turbulence. The gallery has been navigating a difficult stretch that included the abandonment of a long-planned expansion under former director Kathleen Bartels — a project on which roughly C$60 million had already been spent — and the elimination of around 30 staff positions. The co-leadership arrangement was initially presented as a stabilizing measure while the institution regrouped. Respini, who also serves as chief curator, joined the gallery in August 2023 from the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, where she was deputy director and chief curator; before that she spent years in the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Rao, the gallery's executive director, arrived in January 2023 after a career in publishing — he was associated with Tara Books in Chennai — and co-founded the Indian Summer Festival in Vancouver. Board chair Jon Stovell praised the pair's complementary strengths, arguing that the combination of curatorial vision and operational leadership has steadied the institution. The announcement was reported on September 30, framing the confirmation as a turning point for one of Canada's leading art museums. The decision places Vancouver among a small but growing number of major museums trying shared chief-executive models, an arrangement still rare in North America. Whether the dual structure endures will be watched closely across the sector, particularly as the gallery continues to define its ambitions for a future building.