The leader of the Louisville area’s Fund for the Arts says she’ll retire from the post later this year.Barbara Sexton Smith announced today that she’ll leave the job of president and CEO after the 2014 Fund for the Arts campaign. Sexton Smith has been with the organization for 16 years and was appointed three years ago to replace Allen Cowan as CEO. She says she put off retirement plans to take the job then, and new leadership is part of the Fund’s overall strategic plan.Sexton Smith told WFPL she plans to stay active in the arts."I have been positioning myself in the past few years to be able to be a part of, if not lead, a national conversation on the role of the importance arts in economic development and specifically the role of arts in education," she said. The Fund’s board of directors has begun a national search for a new CEO, and Sexton Smith says she’ll be involved in the process.The organization raises money for hundreds of arts programs in communities and schools across the region.
