At age 25, Emily Rafferty landed a fundraising job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the largest and most recognized museums in the world. That was 1976, and today she is the president of the museum, the first woman in that top position in its 135-year history. If, as a previous Met director once observed, the museum is the “midwife of democracy,” then Rafferty may be her one true assistant.

Its collections of more than 2 million works of art spanning 5,000 years of world culture—from the glass-walled Temple of Dendur of Egypt and major Islamic art galleries to blockbuster modern and contemporary art exhibitions—draw millions of visitors each year and require a staff of 3,000 employees and volunteers. It’s no small task, and Rafferty’s had to make difficult decisions in recent years. In 2009, at the height of the recession, she was forced to cut 14% of her staff to make up for lost funding.

Rafferty sat down with Moira Forbes to discuss her life and career in the heart of New York’s art world. She’s accomplished much in her three decades at the museum but says she’s still “learning every day.”

Moira Forbes: As a native New Yorker, what’s it like to help run one of the city’s most iconic institutions?

Emily Rafferty: I think I do “get” it, in terms of the culture of New York City, and it’s easier for me to go into an institution like that knowing the culture. All the steps of my life have gone on to inform what I do. I’m learning every day. I don’t for one minute think that I’ve done everything that can be done, and I’ll give it what I’ve got while I’m there. But it’s a very, very large place. If I can do my bit, that will be what I’ve strived to accomplish in it.

Moira: You’re the first female president of the Met, and the first “homegrown president,” having spent almost your entire career there. What are the challenges you face going into this position as “the first?”

Emily: I face challenges because of the job itself. And, certainly, I was honored to be the first. I don’t think being a woman was at the top of my concern bill. It was more a question of which parts of the museum I was less familiar with. I had been in development and external affairs in the public face of the institution for many, many years. But getting into the intricacies of running human resources and some of those areas really consumed my mind in terms of the challenge factor.

Moira: The Met has almost 2,000 employees and close to 1,000 volunteers. In such a large organization how do you stay close to the front line?

Emily: You do your very best. You can’t be in touch with people every single day, but overall communication is the important thing. Being responsible for buildings and facilities, I’m in the building all the time. I walk the building. I try to communicate as much as I can with the staff and with the public. It’s not a job where you can live at your desk. You need to be engaged at events and with members and donors around the city. I spend a lot of time at that.

Also, I spend a lot of time with our staff strategizing how we can stay in touch with people on a regular basis and be cognizant of people’s needs, illnesses, friendships and life changes. We do sincerely care, and I think communicating our care is what that’s really all about.

Moira: How do you continue to remain relevant in an institution like that?

Emily: Listening to our audiences and being very, very sure of our demographics—of our facts. So doing our research well is key. Listening and watching what the world is doing informs us and helps us to design our decisions and create our strategies for the future.

Moira: There is a painting in your office you once described as similar to yourself: “someone who looks at you directly and believes in what she’s doing, but someone who is not altogether comfortable in her skin.” Do you think one can ever get comfortable in their skin?

Emily: I sometimes think back on that quote because it came out quite spontaneously. And maybe “comfortable in my skin” is the wrong way to describe it—or not the way I would describe it now. The curator who oversees that area of the museum describes the woman in that painting as coming from a very turbulent point of view. I think that turbulence, which is always a part of our lives, is perhaps more appropriate. So within the turbulence of forces that we can control and forces that we can’t control, having a sense of one’s self and focus, as I think that woman does, is closer to the core of my center.

Video of The Met’s Passionate Fundraiser: [video.forbes.com]