How ACG Can Help

ACG’s teams across all Practice areas bring together subject matter experts from many disciplines with direct experience of leading arts and culture organizations and government departments successfully through the COVID-19 pandemic. ACG’s Planning & Capacity Building team focuses on helping organizations and municipalities identify evidence-based, innovative, and custom-built solutions that address the many challenges facing the arts and culture sectors, so that they can fulfill their unique roles as builders and sustainers of healthy communities.

Hywel Sims, Senior Vice President – Planning & Capacity Building

Hywel Sims is an accomplished strategist and expert in planning, and organizational capacity building who has been a servant leader of people across a number of industries, causes, and countries. Throughout his prolific career, he has assisted numerous organizations in times of financial challenge, contraction, and growth and responded to community needs in the arts and social service sectors in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. Most recently, Sims served as CEO of Musica Viva Australia, the country’s oldest professional not-for-profit performing arts company and largest employer of individual musicians. In this role, Sims planned extensive national tours and artist development programs, led an artistic director search, guided a comprehensive national brand transformation, and steered the organization through the turbulence of the COVID-19 pandemic, sustaining stable and successful operations and ensuring support for artists and staff. A strong advocate for equity and inclusion, Sims utilized his expertise to make sure that the voices and perspectives of First Nations’ communities were fully represented in all aspects of strategic planning. He partnered with First Nations’ artists and colleagues to devise the organization’s first Reconciliation Plan and created formal protocols for working with First Nations’ peoples. He also designed and oversaw a new music education program in which two First Nations’ ensembles travelled to schools nationally. Under Sims’ leadership, the growth in philanthropic funding achieved unprecedented levels. Previously, Sims served as General Manager at Gondwana Choirs, the Australian national choral organization for youth, where he oversaw strategic restructuring and secured $1 million in corporate support for the National Indigenous Children’s Choir, among other programs. As Chief Executive for the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, he developed a music education program for high school students, engaging government and private funds to launch this initiative. Originally working in healthcare, Sims led numerous HIV/AIDS agencies, and at the height of the epidemic, he developed programs, raised funds, and lobbied governments to provide adequate responses to this public health emergency. Sims currently serves on the Advisory Board for Vox Femina LA.

Menon Dwarka, Senior Vice President – ACG Canada

Menon Dwarka (he/him/his) has held executive director, artistic director, and community arts leadership positions in Canada and the United States over the last 25 years. His innovative approach and focus on equity, diversity, inclusion, and access has always resulted in engaging audiences and developing community. His expertise resides in leveraging technology in service of creating more diverse programming and administrative spaces, as well as applying a post-colonial lens to IDEAS initiatives. A disruptor of stratified ecosystems, Dwarka supports both large and small arts and culture organizations. He has led grassroots organizations like Toronto’s 918 Bathurst Centre and served as a board member of Canadian Opera Company, guiding its equity, diversity, and inclusion taskforce. His cross-sector work to achieve public/private sector partnerships demonstrates his unique ability to work with a variety of stakeholders to ensure the viability of arts spaces and venues across urban and suburban settings. Dwarka has been a peer assessor for the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Council, City of Ottawa, and Toronto Arts Council, where he currently sits on the Music Committee. Organizations that he has led have received support from all three levels of government, as well as the Metcalf and Jackman Foundations, among others. A sought-after public speaker, Dwarka has been featured on CBC Television, WBAI Radio, TVOntario’s The Agenda, and The Walrus Talks. He appears on a regularly occurring segment on Sesame Street. He was part of the inaugural cohort of the Banff/Toronto Arts Council Cultural Leaders Lab as well as the City of Toronto’s Economic Development and Culture’s Strategic Planning Committee, which oversaw the creation of Toronto’s 2018-2022 Culture Plan. In addition, Mr. Dwarka served as Support Lead for the Metcalf Foundation’s Creative Strategies Incubator and as a board member for MusicWorks Magazine, and previously presided as a board member for CanAsian Dance and the Chamber Factory. He is Chair of Humber College’s Program Advisory Committee and Canadian Opera Company’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee. He holds a bachelor of music and master of music in music composition from the University of Toronto.

Nagham Wehbe, Vice President – Research Practice Leader

Researcher, strategist, and award-winning storyteller Nagham Wehbe brings a diverse background professionally, academically, and culturally. Wehbe serves as the Research Practice Leader and supports all ACG practice areas with market research, data analysis, financial modeling, survey and interview design, and translation of data into actionable business recommendations for cultural organizations. She utilizes qualitative and quantitative data (primary and digital) to identify trends and deliver recommendations to clients. Her areas of expertise include audience engagement trends, brand visibility, and program competitiveness. Prior to joining ACG, she operated as a researcher with CBS, 20^th Century Studios, Hallmark Channel, and Freemantle Productions. Wehbe adapted to the stage and directed Confessions of an Arab Woman based on the memoir of journalist and human rights activist Joumana Haddad. Her production won the Encore Producers’ Award at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2017. Selected to join the Women in Cable Telecommunications’ 2021 class of Rising Leaders Program, Wehbe previously led the Los Angeles chapter of the Arab Film Festival and is currently on the Selection Committee of the Asian World Film Festival. She also served on Crown Media’s Diversity Council as the chair of the workforce committee. Wehbe received a bachelor’s degree in radio, television, and film from California State University, Fullerton and a master’s degree in communication management from the University of Southern California. She has earned certificates pertaining to unconscious bias, diversity, and inclusion; Marketing Essentials and Change Management from Harvard Business; and is also a certified coach and workshop facilitator.