Charlotte Mecklenburg Library CEO left a year ago. No timeline for new one
Mecklenburg County’s library system remains without a permanent leader more than a year after its previous CEO resigned.
The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Board of Trustees is still interviewing candidates for the top job, library spokeswoman Ajonelle Poole told The Charlotte Observer. There is no timeline for when a hire will be announced, Poole said.
Whoever gets the job will replace Marcellus “MT” Turner, who left the library after about four years in May 2025 due to “family reasons.” Angie Myers, the library’s chief financial and administrative officer, was named interim CEO when Turner departed.
The library is paying the recruiting firm Coleman Lew Canny Bowen, which has offices in Charlotte and New York, $55,000 to lead the search for a new CEO, Poole said.
The library is looking for someone with at least a decade of “senior leadership experience, preferably in public libraries” as well as experience with finance, human resources and administrative job responsibilities, according to the firm’s job posting. The listing does not include a salary range but says the CEO will receive “a competitive base salary, bonus opportunity, and competitive benefits package.”
In its statement announcing Turner’s departure, the library Board of Trustees said it would “immediately” work on deciding what it’s looking for in a new CEO “and begin a search to identify top leadership candidates.”
The process has trickled along since. Board Chairwoman Amy Hawn Nelson told county commissioners at their Nov. 5 meeting the search for a new CEO was “ongoing.” Hawn Nelson told her own board at its April meeting the CEO search “is still underway” and the search committee “has collected some good information and will be using it to create meaningful work toward the search,” according to meeting minutes.
The library board held an “emergency” meeting in late June to hold a closed session under the part of state law that allows officials to talk privately about personnel issues, according to the board’s website.
Charlotte Mecklenburg Library operates 21 branches across the county.
The library system launched a rebranding in the spring, and construction is underway on a new Main Library in uptown slated to open in 2027.
