Recent Key Departures at Phillips Point to a Pivot in Strategy

Last week, ARTnews reported on a number of recent departures at Phillips auction house, including those of chairman of private sales Miety Heiden and chairman for Asia Jonathan Crockett, key members of the executive leadership. We can now additionally report that Joseph Prindle, chief technology officer, and Katherine Thorpe Kerr, global director of client strategy, have also left.

In conversations with several people with intimate knowledge of Phillips, past and present, it appears Phillips has decided it doesn’t want to be the same company it spent the last decade trying to become.

For years, Phillips tried to turn itself into a genuine third player alongside Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Under Ed Dolman, CEO from 2014 to 2025, the house made a serious run at competing with Christie’s and Sotheby’s in 20th-century and contemporary art. They hired expensive specialists and business getters, chased major consignments and put money behind guarantees. It worked, at least in the sense that Phillips got bigger and became a much more credible competitor. But it was expensive.

Now its owners appear to have decided they don’t want to spend what it takes to keep playing that game. A remarkable number of the people who built that version of Phillips have responded by leaving.

What do Phillips’ owners want the house to be now? There are some clues. Watches are doing extremely well. Prints and multiples are strong. Its e-commerce platform Dropshop just collaborated with Cj Hendry on a third collection of a deck of 52 trading cards. Photography is another established Phillips business. Those departments don’t require the same kind of guarantees as going after a $30 million painting.

ARTnews spoke with current and former employees of Phillips, all of whom asked to remain anonymous. One source said that in the future, Phillips could focus on areas where it already has an edge, keep costs down, and stop trying to fight Christie’s and Sotheby’s for every trophy consignment.

Another source said that since Dolman stepped down, there has been great change at Phillips and how it was run. “Some senior people really started leaving or considering leaving after Dolman left and Bernd Runge came to be the main adviser at the top to the shareholders. Ed was a leader and knew what an auction house needed, and unfortunately, the Russia-Ukraine war has not been helpful either,” said one well-placed source. Phillips is owned by the Russian luxury retailer Mercury Group. “Phillips now operates how it did 20 years ago, and there’s a temporary lack of leadership as far as strategy goes.” Runge joined Phillips in February 2025 as COO; he was previously CEO of the auction house from 2009 to 2013. The source added that the mass exodus could also be linked to the fact that Runge doesn’t value specialists and hasn’t been supportive of them for the past couple years. (A Phillips spokesperson did not respond to request for comment on this.)

On her Appraisal Substack, Julie Brener Davich reported this week that she had been told by multiple unnamed sources that “Wilson’s tenure has been marked by extreme cost-cutting.” Wilson joined Phillips in 2018 as chief general counsel and was then given the big job as chief executive officer during the company’s difficult period grappling with declining sales and its relationship with Russia.

The internal shuffle at Phillips could be an opportunity for growth on the back of its marquee May sales in New York, which totaled $145.6 million, an increase year over year of 90 percent by lot. The auction house’s modern and contemporary evening sale alone made $115.2 million, achieving a rare white-glove result. The auction houses are experiencing soaring activities in the luxury category and according to an ArtTactic report, collectibles such as watches, design and memorabilia grew by 25 percent in the first half of 2026. “Businesses should in my opinion combine fresh perspectives with seasoned leadership. It’s that balance of innovation and experience that ultimately inspires confidence amongst clients,” Nazy Vassegh, international art adviser and founder of Eye of the Collector told ARTnews.

The departures of Crockett and Meiling Lee leave something of a vacuum in Asia, although Phillips says it has elevated Cherry Lam to general manager of Asia.

Mia Miseong Jung, a director at MARKT, an art advisory within Hana Bank in Seoul, told ARTnews that for Phillips to fill the void left by key rainmakers, it must “swiftly institutionalize client relationships rather than relying on a few star executives.” She believes that the auction house should decentralize authority and give more autonomy to local directors in key markets like Hong Kong, Seoul, and Tokyo to maintain trust and tight-knit networks.

In the next four months, Phillips is only hosting three live auctions in Hong Kong, while its competitors Sotheby’s and Christie’s respectively have 11 and 12 planned. In 2025, Phillips had nine live auctions, while the total for 2026 has dropped to eight. “VIPs want to trade 365 days a year, not just during auction seasons. To sustain the strong private sales pipeline built by Heiden, Phillips needs to evolve this division from simple art brokerage into a highly sophisticated, year-round ‘wealth management’ and advisory service for its top-tier clients,” said Jung.

Asian collectors, including the youngest generation, “want to curate a holistic lifestyle, seamlessly mixing ultra-contemporary art with high-end watches and vintage design and craft collectibles,” said Jung.

Beyond senior leadership changes, Jung contends that Phillips should position itself as a cultural club rather than just a salesroom to keep momentum and not to always rely on internal star players. “By hosting year-round pop-ups, talk programs, and private viewing rooms in key Asian cities, they can build constant, meaningful touchpoints with their clients,” said Jung.

The Asian market “wants exclusive, community-driven physical spaces rather than just online bidding. A perfect example of this is Frieze House in Seoul next, which successfully provides an intimate, localized networking hub and an immersive cultural experience for VIPs to connect,” Jung explained, adding that Phillips should continue to push forward-thinking initiatives like its “priority bidding” system, which offers genuine transparency and tangible financial incentives like reduced buyer’s premiums. “Phillips needs to leverage data more actively, for example, naturally introducing a young luxury watch buyer to complementary contemporary art or design pieces that fit their taste,” said Jung.

In this current climate, understanding Asia and the Middle East is non-negotiable for auction houses. “Modern Asian buyers, including those across South Asia, do not collect in strict silos. They buy contemporary art, luxury watches, and modern masters simultaneously. New hires must be cross-category operators who understand this holistic lifestyle approach to collecting,” Tarun Sharma, director of the art advisory and gallery Tarun Art Gallery in New Delhi, told ARTnews. “Rather than poaching the same familiar names from competitor houses, [Phillips] would benefit from looking at top boutique gallery directors and private advisers. These experts bring fresh client bases and access to uncirculated private collections that have not been repeatedly shopped around public auction circuits.”

The departures at Phillips are untimely and create short-term continuity risk for a relationship-driven business, especially on the heel of its modern and contemporary art evening sale that kicks off in October as part of Frieze Week. Market watchers will be tracking whether Phillips can pull off a reset.

“High-level shakeups look dramatic from the outside, but they also clear space for an auction house to redefine its identity,” said Sharma. “If Phillips doubles down as an agile, culture-focused house for the next generation of collectors, they will navigate this transition effectively.”

Still, Sharma added, “you cannot strip personal relationships out of this business. Collectors buy from individuals they trust, not corporate logos. The key is building institutional depth around star hires so client relationships are held by a broader team rather than walking out the door with a single expert.”

Lucy-Anne Garnett, director of Garnett Art Advisory agrees, adding that there are more alternative career paths available than there were a decade ago. “I would like to add that the senior industry leaders who have recently left Phillips are highly respected figures within the industry and have each contributed significantly to the company’s success over many years. Their departures should not diminish the impact they have had on building Phillips’ global reputation, strengthening client relationships and driving growth across key areas of the business,” said Garnett.