Laura T. Gorham
Vice President
Laura T. Gorham has been Vice-President of The Development Consulting Group LLC (formerly Jenks Group) since 2010. Laura provides hands-on leadership experience and expertise to help non-profit cultural organizations grow and manage in today’s challenging economy. Laura has over 30 years of professional work experience in the nonprofit and international art worlds.
From 1991 through 2008 Laura was the Director of the Bermuda National Gallery in Hamilton, Bermuda. Laura was a member of its founding committee, its first Director, and retired in 2009 after a successful succession transition. In her 17-year tenure, Laura and her Board developed the Museum from a $350,000 startup with one employee to a $1,000,000+ operation with seven employees, over 100 working volunteers and an active calendar of community programs and local and international exhibitions. The operating budget was raised annually from private and corporate memberships and donations.
Laura’s strategic challenge was to successfully engage Bermuda’s 65% black, 10% Portuguese and 25% white population. Under Laura, The Museum became a major multicultural community center for meeting, working and appreciating each other, as well as culture and art. Board, committee, staff, and volunteer make-up reflected the community’s. Programs, exhibitions, and social events were as much about appreciating the difference in your neighbor, as they were about understanding and appreciating art and culture.
Laura hosted Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, colleagues and artists as well as local schools and organizations. Under her leadership the BNG won Bermuda’s National Association for Reconciliation award to an organization improving race relations. She was awarded The Queen’s Honors in 2009 of a Queen’s Certificate and Badge of Honor and the 2011 Bermuda Arts Council Patron's Award for Visual Arts. For additional membership value, Laura initiated and hosted member adventures to The Amazon, Macchu Picchu, and cultural tours to Chicago, Toronto and Philadelphia.
Laura earned a B.A. in Art History and Theatrical Arts from The University of Delaware. She completed The J. Paul Getty Trust’s Leadership Institute for Museum Management for Professionals. She completed the Sotheby’s, “Works of Art”, yearlong graduate course and other art and architecture courses in London and Paris. Laura worked at Knoedler Gallery in New York and then directed the Heritage House Gallery in Bermuda before her Directorship at the BNG.
She serves on the Newport Art Museum Board of Trustees since 2014 and is Chairman of their Governance Committee. She served on the board of The Art Museum Partnership that hosted The Directors’ Forum, a conference for CEO’s of medium and small museums, and was a former Trustee of the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute. Laura grew up in Philadelphia and moved to Bermuda in 1986. She now divides her time between Bermuda and Jamestown, Rhode Island where she lives with her husband, John Horton. She sings with the Salve Regina University Chorus in Newport, plays tennis, and has served as President of The Walking Club of Bermuda for over 20 years. She is very proud of her daughter who is pursuing her PhD in Marine Science specializing in research on sharks at Dalhousie University’s School of Oceanography in Halifax.