The Ernest N. Morial Convention Center’s board on Wednesday tapped finance chief Alita Caparotta to be interim CEO, following the unexpected resignation earlier this month of CEO Michael Sawaya, who will depart in December to head up the Audubon Nature Institute.

The center’s CEO oversees an organization that takes in about $100 million a year from events and its share of city hospitality taxes. The mile-long facility also is in the middle of a $570 million upgrade project, the largest in its 40-year history. The new chief also takes over as the $1 billion-plus River District project, one of the state’s largest public-private enterprises, gets underway, and amid a proposal to build a new $600 million “headquarters hotel.”

The board also heard on Wednesday that its long-serving chief commercial officer, Tim Hemphill, would be retiring in the new year.

Russell Allen, who was appointed by Gov. Jeff Landry in March as chairman of the center’s 13-member board of commissioners, said it will take some time to find permanent replacements for the center’s two top executives.

“I’ll be spending the next period of time reviewing these positions and assessing how best to move forward with filling them,” Allen said at the regular monthly board meeting Wednesday. He didn’t give a timeline but said the process would be thorough.

Sawaya had been in the job for a little over six years, having run the convention center in San Antonio for a decade previously.

Hemphill, 68, joined the convention center almost 17 years ago as head of sales. He started in convention center sales in Fort Worth after college in the early 1980s and had been the top executive at centers in Baton Rouge, Kissimee, Florida and Bakersfield, California during his career.

Long serving

Caparotta has been at Morial Convention Center for 25 years, working her way up through the finance department to her current job as chief administrative officer, which she’s held for nearly 17 years.

Asked if she will be putting herself forward for the permanent CEO position, Caparotta said: “Let’s just take one step at a time.”

At his final board meeting as the convention center’s CEO, Sawaya bid a tearful goodbye. “Together, we have achieved remarkable milestones that I’m immensely proud of and I will cherish forever,” he said.