HOLARCH / ABOUT
Built between two worlds.
Holarch is a cultural partnership practice co-founded by Dr. Simge Erdogan-O'Connor and Jonathan David O'Connor. We work with cultural organizations, developers, institutions, and leaders who understand that good cultural work needs better structures.
Dr. Simge Erdogan-O'Connor
Simge brings 15+ years of cultural leadership across institutions in Canada and Türkiye: curating, directing, teaching, and watching what makes cultural work last. She is currently serving as the Museum Director at the Canadian Museum of Health Care and has led exhibitions, partnerships, and organizational change across the GLAM sector. She also teaches courses on curatorship at Universidad Panamericana (Mexico City) and Museums & Community at the Ontario Museum Association.
Her work sits at the intersection of cultural strategy, audience development, and institutional resilience. She has seen what happens when cultural organizations are structurally unprepared for the opportunities they chase, and she built Holarch to close that gap.
Jonathan David O’Connor
Jonathan brings more than 25 years of entrepreneurial experience across North America: building and running businesses, building partnerships, and knowing how capital actually moves. He has founded, scaled, and exited companies in construction, real estate development, and technology.
His work sits at the intersection of business strategy, partnership design, and operational execution. He has seen what happens when cultural organizations are structurally unprepared for the partnerships they enter, and he built Holarch to close that gap.
Why Holarch Exists
Holarch sits where those two worlds meet. Culture understands meaning. Business understands structure. Most partnerships fail because nobody is responsible for both. We are.
We work with cultural organizations and their partners to design the structures that let good cultural work last. We make the introduction when it fits. We say so plainly when it doesn't. We take on a small number of engagements each year and hold them to a standard we would want for our own work.
How We Work
We listen before we recommend. We ask hard questions before we offer easy answers. We design structures that serve the work, not the other way around. If what you need isn't something we do well, we'll tell you, and point you toward who does.