If, at first glance, you think the new director of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 59-year-old Matthew Teitelbaum, director of Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario, is a chip off the old block, then you are correct — somewhat.

1. As was the case 20 years ago with the choice of Malcolm Rogers, from London’s National Portrait Gallery, the MFA trustees bypassed the usual suspects in the U.S. art-commodities market and went international. Teitelbaum is likewise from the Anglosphere (Canadian division). Before Boston provincials start with the wisecracks, be advised that Toronto is a city with considerable chic and global elán. Boston can learn much from it.

2. It may be hard to imagine today, but Rogers’ appointment was something of a dice throw, especially for the allegedly hidebound MFA. Rogers was a mere deputy director, and — to art snobs — the National Portrait Gallery was not quite pukka. Rogers, of course, did just fine, becoming a local legend and a worldwide brand. Teitelbaum arrives from the top draw, having orchestrated a significant renovation and expansion of the AGO that featured a new wing designed by Frank Gehry (Shades of Roger’s Foster + Partners expansion).

3. Teitelbaum, like Rogers, has the sheen of an establishmentarian. But don’t be fooled by either man’s subfusc wardrobe, their vitally low-key manner, or diction that could charm a jewel thief out of Cartier. When it comes to thinking about art and society and art and the individual experience, both men range from free thinkers to radicals.

4. Teitelbaum’s iconoclasm has family roots. His father, a painter, used to regularly picket the AGO on Saturdays protesting the then-somewhat-stuffy institution’s snub of Canadian talent (Point: on Teitelbaum’s watch, an exhibition of Alex Colville became the most widely attended show by a native Canadian artist. Counterpoint: Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now’s The Time is the AGO’s current, critically acclaimed, headline-grabbing show. It is Canada’s first Basquiat retrospective).

5. Rogers started as a librarian at NPG; Teitelbaum began at AGO as a tour guide.