McMillan has a range of experience in the art market. Most recently, she founded her itinerant gallery and consultancy company, Saint George Projects, which has staged exhibitions for artists like Alvaro Barrington and Henri Paul Broyard in New York, Los Angeles, Johannesburg, Berlin, and elsewhere.

Prior to that, she was a director at David Zwirner for a year, and worked at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise for four years, where she was also a director. She has also worked at Alexander Gray Associates and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

“I am honored to join The Armory Show at this important moment in the fair’s history,” said McMillan said in statement. “My goal is to empower collectors and emphasize the fair’s role as a platform for artists, galleries and art enthusiasts. The Armory Show has long been celebrated as a foundational fair for New York and the US art market. I look forward to building on The Armory Show’s achievements, while also championing new voices and creating opportunities for diverse perspectives in contemporary art.”

McMillan’s appointment is the first major leadership change at the fair since it was acquired by Frieze in 2023. The fair’s next edition is scheduled to run in early September. Marking its 30th anniversary this year, the upcoming edition announced its exhibitor list last month. Frieze’s director of fairs, Kristell Chadé, and its Americas director, Christine Messineo, were in charge during the application process.

In a statement, Chadé said, “We are thrilled to welcome Kyla McMillan as Director of The Armory Show. Her wide-ranging experience and creative drive will undoubtedly take the fair to new heights, fostering an inclusive and dynamic environment. Her past projects have demonstrated a talent for reaching new audiences and forging meaningful connections with art.”

Most recently, McMillan was a director at New York’s Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, which was long known for its showings of cutting-edge, new art. While at Gavin Brown, McMillan organized the gallery’s first solo show with Cy Gavin, and worked with artists such as LaToya Ruby Frazier, Laura Owens, Uri Aran, Frida Orupabo, Rachel Rose, Thomas Bayrle, and Jonathan Horowitz. She also organized Rob Pruitt’s exhibition of “The Obama Paintings” at the Rebuild Foundation in Chicago in 2019.

“At Gavin Brown’s Enterprise I worked with so many artists who will forever inform how I think,” McMillan told ARTnews in an email. “I learned commitment to one’s work and determination from Alex Katz. Younger artists like Cy Gavin, Rachel Rose and Frida Orupabo have all taught me fearlessness. Rob Pruitt reminded me that care and kindness are rare, but admirable traits.”

She continued, “In my conversations with the David Zwirner team, we talked so much about what it means to truly be a gallery that puts artists first. To me, that means creating a gallery that supports and enables artists to grow and do their best work.”

In July, Gavin Brown shocked the art world when he announced that he would be shutting down his well-regarded gallery, which opened in 1994, and join Gladstone Gallery, which has three locations in New York and one in Brussels, as a partner. McMillan is the first major Gavin Brown alumna to make a significant move following that gallery’s closure, but there is a precedent for it—last year, her colleague, Thor Shannon, was hired as a director at Zwirner.

Prior to her time at Gavin Brown, McMillan had worked as an art communications consultant in Johannesburg, South Africa, where her clients included the Joburg Art Fair, the art publication Between 10 and 5, the BMW Group, and Night of 1,000 Drawings, an annual event in Johannesburg that brought together established and emerging artists and everyday people to create work to benefit nonprofits in the city. She also held positions at the communications firm Resnicow and Associates and Alexander Gray Associates in New York.

McMillan said her appointment comes at a time when much of the art world—and the world at large—has been going through a much-needed reckoning, particularly when it comes to race and class.

“This past year has demonstrated that shifts in our industry are not just inevitable, they’re necessary,” McMillan said. “I believe I’m evidence that change is good. I don’t fit the typical gallery-director mold: I’m a first-generation, Black woman who has spent the majority of my career working outside of New York galleries. I consider all of these things assets because it informs my questioning of why things are done the way they are and if there’s a better way to do them.”