BRANCHING OUT 

The Chicago Botanic Garden says goodbye to President and CEO Jean M. Franczyk.

Back in the ’80s, a young Jean Franczyk hopped on her bike, headed up the North Branch Trail, and experienced the Chicago Botanic Garden for the first time. Years later, she’d return, walking through the front gate as its president and CEO. Like the trail she took that day, Franczyk’s path to leadership was laid over time, beginning, she suggests, when she went to work as a cub reporter at the Miami Herald after earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “Journalism was a first great career, because the skills I learned—telling a story—set the foundation for everything else,” she observes.

After a few years in Florida, Franczyk strapped on a backpack and set off to see as much of the world as she could. “I didn’t have much money, but I was determined to travel until I ran out of it, and I succeeded at that,” she laughs. She ventured through Europe and a bit of the Middle East before heading home “to get serious.” She wasted no time in doing just that. After earning a master’s degree in public policy studies from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, she joined the administration of Mayor Richard M. Daley as policy advisor and chief of staff for the Chicago Board of Education. “During my time with the board of ed, I had the opportunity to work with all the big museums in Chicago, helping them become a part of what we were trying to achieve with our public-school kids.”

Franczyk had fond childhood memories of visiting the city’s museums with her family, and her experience of getting to know these institutions more deeply led her to join the Museum of Science and Industry as vice president of education and guest services. “I loved that job,” she shares. “It was storytelling, it was about learning outside of a school environment, building relationships within families and across social groups. I firmly believe these cultural institutions are a hugely important part of the fabric that holds our community together.”

In 2005, Franczyk relocated with her husband to London. “We met in Chicago, and when we married, we agreed we would try to live in each other’s country. He had been in the States for quite a while at that point and needed to spend some time back in his home country.” Franczyk didn’t have a job lined up in the UK, but, after networking with people in the museum world there, she joined the Science Museum Group, first as its director of learning, then as director of its Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, and then as deputy director of the group’s flagship Science Museum in London. “We thought we’d be in England two years,” says Franczyk. “We were there 11. I loved it, but I had always hoped to return to the States when the right opportunity came along. I got recruited by the Chicago Botanic Garden, and it was an amazing opportunity to return to my home city.”

A decade after assuming leadership of the Botanic Garden, Franczyk is stepping aside. Under her watch, the Garden has maintained a robust attendance (hitting a record 1.3 million visitors in 2024), completed such capital projects as The Welcome Plaza, the Stone Family Picnic Glade, and the Regenstein Learning Campus. In addition, she amplified the operation of the Garden’s urban agriculture program, Windy City Harvest, and greatly expanded its plant science conservation work. With programming such as Lightscape, the popular winter attraction, the Garden has realized its ambition to be a year-round destination. When a branch of the Chicago Public Library opens at The Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park this year, the Garden will oversee the fruit and vegetable garden atop the building.

Reflecting on her years at the helm, Franczyk takes special satisfaction in having been an effective storyteller, especially through the shift in narrative epitomized by the brand refresh. Quick to credit a creative and committed staff, she says, “I’m really proud of how we have developed a stronger narrative around the experience of what happens at the Garden and strongly articulated our purpose, the why-we-exist, the breadth of our work. I believe that access to the experience of nature, whether that’s a plant on your back porch or a walk in the woods, is essential to our well-being. In my time at the Garden, my motivation has always been, how can this experience be accessible to as many people as possible?”