The Met’s New Pres

By Emily Kernan Rafferty, Contributor
December / January 2005

Irish-American Emily Kernan Rafferty will become the next president of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. A 28-year employee of the Metropolitan, Rafferty will take over on the retirement of David E. McKinney on January 15, 2005.

A native of New York City, Kernan Rafferty earned her B.A. degree cum laude from Boston University in 1971 and began her professional career that year as an arts and philanthropy assistant to David Rockefeller, Jr., in Boston. During her 20 years in charge of the Metropolitan’s vast national and international fundraising operations, she has helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the Museum, and has worked to build individual, family, and corporate memberships to nearly 120,000.

Kernan Rafferty is married to John Rafferty, an audit partner at Ernst &Young. The couple has a son, Nicholas, a recent graduate of Trinity College, and a daughter, Sara, a student at New York University. Among her many voluntary activities, Kernan Raferty is a lifetime honorary trustee of the Convent of the Sacred Heart. ♦

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