About Doug Woodham

My professional life has spanned three worlds that rarely meet: economics, technology-driven business, and the art world. I have been a Partner at McKinsey & Company, President of Christie’s Americas, and the author of two books about art and the art market. Today, I bring those experiences together in my work as an adviser, author, and speaker.

I am the Managing Partner of Art Fiduciary Advisors, where I advise collectors on the financial, strategic, and practical decisions that come with owning valuable art.

Before founding Art Fiduciary Advisors, I served as President of Christie’s Americas. Working at the center of the international art market gave me firsthand experience of how art is valued, bought, sold, promoted, and preserved across generations. It also taught me that artistic importance, reputation, and financial value influence one another, but are not the same thing.

Earlier in my career, I was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, where I advised companies on strategy, organizational performance, and technology. I also helped co-found McKinsey’s Business Technology Office, which helped companies close the gap between their strategic ambitions and their technological capabilities.

I began my professional life as an economist. I earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan, where my work included econometrics and the study of how ideas spread, how firms grow, and why some innovations reshape entire markets while others quietly disappear. That training continues to shape how I think about art, creativity, and value.

My books grew out of many of the same questions. Art Collecting Today: Market Insights for Everyone Passionate about Art examines how the art market works and how collectors can make better decisions within it. Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Making of an Icon, published by Thames & Hudson in 2025, explores not only Basquiat’s life and art but also how artists gain recognition, how reputations are built, and why some endure.

Those questions now extend into my writing and speaking about creative work in the age of generative AI. New technologies are making competent creative work easier and less expensive to produce. As creative output becomes more abundant, attention, judgment, trust, and reputation are likely to matter even more in determining which ideas and creators succeed.

Across these different parts of my career, the underlying questions have remained remarkably consistent: how value is created, how reputations take hold, and why some ideas, artists, and institutions endure while others do not.