LOS ANGELES.- The Board of Trustees of the J. Paul Getty Trust today announced it has elected Louise H. Bryson as board chair, replacing John Biggs, who announced earlier that he planned to step down and retire from the board by the end of October. Ms. Bryson will assume the role of chair immediately.

Ms. Bryson, who is currently one of the board’s three vice chairs, has been a Getty Trustee since April 1998. She currently heads the ad hoc Search Committee, charged with identifying a new president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust; she served as chair of the Investment and Finance Committee from 2000 to 2003, and since then as chair of the External Affairs Committee.

"I am honored to be selected to chair the Getty at this critical time. Over the past two years, the board has had to deal with fundamental and important issues of governance and leadership. Essential changes in leadership and in board controls and processes have been made, but we as a board should have dug into these issues deeper and acted sooner. I speak for the entire board in committing that we will not allow that to happen again,” said Ms. Bryson.

She continued, “There is more to do, but we are on the right path. The board and I have three principal priorities: first, to appoint the best leader to be the Getty’s new president and CEO; second, deal decisively with any remaining issues growing out of the board and the Attorney General’s investigations and above all, in every way to reaffirm and strengthen the Getty as an internationally preeminent arts institution.”

Ms. Bryson said she and the board also are committed to identifying additional trustees with both arts and financial backgrounds and insuring that the Getty’s four programs receive strong board support that strengthens their ability to advance the understanding and preservation of visual arts in Los Angeles, and around the world.

Ms. Bryson said, “The Getty is a unique institution and I’m proud it is here in Los Angeles, but its reach and reputation stretch far beyond our community. Visitors come from around the world to visit the Getty Center and Villa to see and use the collections of the Museum and Research Institute. In addition, the work of the Getty Conservation Institute and the Getty Foundation truly has a global impact. People all around the world appreciate the collaborative way in which the Getty reaches out to all who are interested in the visual arts. That’s a big responsibility and the board takes it seriously.”

Louise Bryson is the president of distribution, Lifetime Entertainment Services, and general manager, Lifetime Movie Network. In addition to her Getty board service, Ms. Bryson currently serves on the boards of Pomona College and Southern California Public Radio (KPCC), as well as the advisory councils for the Stanford Graduate School of Business and USC’s Annenberg School for Communications.

She was chairman of KCET, the local PBS station in Los Angeles, and a former member of the PBS National Board, which honored her with the 1998 Award for Excellence in Public Television Leadership. She has also received awards for her work in cable television and, earlier in her career, for documentary film production. Bryson holds both an M.B.A and M.A.T. from Stanford University and received her B.A. from the University of Washington.