SPO is excited to announce that Helen Nestor will be joining the SPO team as our Executive Director. This appointment comes as the conclusion to a succession-planning and search process that was a part of SPO’S two-year Ontario Trillium Foundation capacity-building process. Helen will be joining our team at the conclusion of the current season and as we gear up to Season 2025-2026.
Helen has a double Bachelor of Arts Degree in Drama and English from the University of Toronto. She studied piano for several years under pianists Boris and Inna Zarankin as well as 15 years of piano studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music. Her education includes training in radio broadcast. She hosted a music and an interview programme through CIUT. After university, Helen acted in several productions in Toronto before deciding to move her attention away from performing, and into arts management.
Having worked professionally in the live performance field for over 35 years, Helen has managed, produced, publicized and promoted hundreds of live theatre, dance and music events. She has held a variety of positions within the arts sector. These include Executive Director of Pax Christi Chorale; Administrator of Common Thread Chorus; Administrative Manager with Cathedral Bluffs Orchestra and Executive Director of Orchestra Toronto.
She was the Canadian publicist on the world premiere of Ragtime which premiered at the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts produced by theatre impresario Garth Drabinsky and Livent Inc. before the musical headed to Los Angeles and Broadway. She was the first in-house Public Relations and Promotions Manager at the Sony Centre. She was lead on many Canadian premieres including the PR Director and Promoter of the Rockettes in their Canadian premiere where she organized and garnered a Guinness World Record for the longest kick-line in the world.
She has been the founder of several organizations including Black Crow Theatre and Firefly Theatre. Although Helen has held many positions and owned companies outside of the arts, it is within the arts arena that she has spent most of her time and where she feels most at home.
