TOC Arts Partners Welcomes Eric Gershman as VP of Strategy & Business Development

TOC Arts Partners has added Eric Gershman as VP of Strategy & Business Development, expanding the firm's organizational strategy practice to include financial sustainability planning, business and revenue modeling, and comprehensive organizational assessment.

TOC Arts Partners (formerly Tom O’Connor Consulting Group) has served more than 150 arts and culture organizations across 25 states since its founding in 2015 — including Carnegie Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Jacob's Pillow, the Metropolitan Opera, Pioneer Theatre Company, Ballet Hispánico, Texas Performing Arts, the National Black Theatre, and Williamstown Theatre Festival, among many others. The firm's integrated practice spans executive search, organizational strategy, and interim and fractional leadership, with more than 90 national searches for arts and culture leaders to date.

Eric Gershman specializes in strategic planning, business planning, financial modeling, and organizational design and development for the arts, culture, and media fields. He has supported organizations in their work creating and implementing new programing, planning for an uncertain future, ensuring organizational cultures are more accessible and equitable, and building financial capacity for growth.

Gershman brings more than two decades of experience, including interim executive positions at Newport Classical, Long Wharf Theatre, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival, consulting engagements at McCarter Theatre Center, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, the Brown Arts Institute, Netflix, and Paramount, and internal strategy positions at Disney Theatrical Group and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. As a team member of AEA Consulting he helped to lead feasibility studies and operating plans for The National Black Theatre, The Rhode Island School of Design, the Museum of Modern Art, the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, the University of Arizona Museum of Art, ProPublica and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He is an Adjunct Lecturer at Brown University and was previously on faculty at the University of Rhode Island, Winthrop University, and Columbia University, the latter of which named an annual teaching adjunct award in his honor. 

"The organizations we work with are navigating some of the most complex financial and structural questions our sector has ever faced," said Tom O'Connor, Founder & CEO of TOC Arts Partners. "It is our duty to remain responsive to the needs of our arts and culture community and this expansion is a direct manifestation of that commitment. Eric's expertise, his relationships across the field, and his genuine care for the organizations he works with make him an extraordinary addition to our team."

"I have deep respect for what Tom and the TOC Arts Partners team have built — a practice that combines sharp strategic thinking with a real heart for the field,” said Eric Gershman. “Partnering with this team feels like a natural next step in my own commitment to increasing the impact, vibrance, and sustainability of arts and culture organizations, and I couldn't be more excited about what we'll accomplish together. The sector deserves partners who are fully invested in its future, and I'm proud to join with a firm that embodies that every day."

This expansion reflects TOC Arts Partners' ongoing commitment to meeting arts organizations where they are and growing their capacity to serve their communities and realize their missions. The firm's organizational strategy practice now encompasses financial modeling and analysis, multi-scenario financial planning, revenue diversification strategy, comprehensive organizational assessment, and the firm's longstanding offerings in strategic planning, change management, and structural consultation. Gershman joins a team that spans the US and includes O’Connor, Dr. Edie Demas, Cynthia Fuhrman, Brenna Thomas, Jordan Sanford, Tomi Douglas, and more.