Following the delay in opening two arts venues, five key executives will leave the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA), the South China Morning Post has announced. The departures reflect growing concern that continued delays to the opening of M+ Museum (which was due to open in 2017, but has now been rescheduled for 2021) and The Box at Freespace (a black box theatre that failed to open in April) will result in more people leaving.
It has been confirmed that between now and autumn 2019, the five executives who will not be renewing their contracts are: chief technology officer Emily Chan, development director Julian Marland, commercial director Christian Wright, head of technical development Paul Hennig and the executive director in charge of performance arts, Louis Yu Kwok-lit.
Despite these departures, WKCDA remain optimistic that they will be able to fill the roles.
In 1998 Tung Chee-hwa, the head of the first Hong Kong administration under Chinese rule, announced that West Kowloon would become a harbourfront cultural district, but in the decades since, there have been ‘multiple delays, changes of management and numerous controversies over its funding and components’.
13 May 2019
