Vernon has been based in Massachusetts for the past decade, working as CFO for the state Department of Revenue and the trial court system and then the University of New Hampshire, before joining Bay Cove in mid-2023. The local connections helped give Vernon an edge. “The upward hill of learning the area, the ins and outs of the state, is the one negative against [Kaboli],” said board member Cindy Brown, chief executive of Boston Duck Tours. “Marcel checks the box [in] that respect.”
The board last week narrowed the pool of finalists for the executive director job down to two: Vernon, currently the chief financial officer at Bay Cove Health Services in Boston, and Hootan Kaboli, a senior vice president at Events DC, the MCCA’s counterpart in Washington. In the end, the vote on Monday was unanimous for Vernon, the local candidate.
The board of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority on Monday picked a local finance executive, Marcel Vernon Sr., to lead the quasi-public agency, with a goal of moving beyond controversies around its diversity practices and a scuttled deal to redevelop land next to its flagship facility in South Boston.
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Vernon’s supporters on the board also noted his work in the hospitality sector as a casino-industry executive in the early 2000s, and they generally viewed him as a more seasoned executive, with a broader range of experiences and financial acumen.
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MCCA board member Sheena Collier, who led the executive search committee and worked with headhunting firm Koya Partners to vet candidates, cited Vernon’s “overall leadership qualities he would bring in really helping to move the MCCA forward in instilling, frankly, trust back into the folks who work here.”
Collier was alluding to the clouds that hung over the MCCA when the previous executive director, David Gibbons, who had been appointed under Governor Charlie Baker’s administration, left abruptly nearly a year ago. Governor Maura Healey had already swept out a majority of the board members and replaced them with her own appointees earlier in the year. Gibbons, a seasoned hotel executive, departed amid two controversies in his final year: concerns about how he handled the bidding to redevelop six-plus acres in the shadow of the MCCA’s flagship Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, as well as an outside audit by law firm Prince Lobel Tye that showed the MCCA fell short with its diversity practices for hiring, promotions, and contracting with vendors.
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The Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. Matthew J. Lee
After Gibbons left, former Bentley University president Gloria Larson came back to the authority to serve as interim executive director while the board conducted its search; Larson had chaired the board from 1999 until 2010, a period that included the BCEC’s construction and 2004 opening.
As interim executive director, Larson earned an annualized compensation package of nearly $300,000 including a potential bonus, similar to Gibbons. On Monday, the board voted to enter into compensation negotiations with Vernon.
Aside from the flagship convention center in South Boston, the MCCA also runs the Hynes Convention Center in the Back Bay, the MassMutual Center in Springfield, and the parking garage under the Boston Common. Vernon would lead a staff of more than 400 people and a nearly $100 million budget. He currently manages a budget that’s nearly twice that size as Bay Cove’s CFO.
During board interviews on Monday, both Vernon and Kaboli were asked about their vision for the future of the MCCA. Vernon said he would engage private sector leaders to find ways to get more hotels built in Boston and would try to generate additional revenue by coming up with new uses for the BCEC at times it would otherwise be idle.
Vernon recounted how he attended business school at Syracuse University, with the goal of graduating with an MBA and then finding a CEO job. He said it didn’t pan out the way he thought it would.
But with the board vote on Monday, he did eventually land that chief executive job he dreamed about as an ambitious business school student. “At the age of 24, I thought I would be CEO,” Vernon said. “Here I am at 54.”
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Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.
Massachusetts Convention Center Authority names Marcel Vernon executive director
