“Our goal is to bring together a team of professionals with whom we love to spend time and enjoy working. We share a passion for museums, we care about the sector and about each other. ”

— Sofia Widmann, Founder & CEO

Meet the team

Sofia Widmann

Founder & CEO

  • Sofia is the founder & CEO of MUSEUM BOOSTER. She oversees operations & company strategy and steers its development. Having an economical background, she gained experiences working in both non-profit and for-profit cultural organisations in the fields of event organisation, marketing and PR. The special focus of Sofia is in new media technology and its influence on success of museums. From 2014 to 2016, she was studying this correlation as part of her MBA studies at Modul University Vienna. She is a regular speaker at international conferences on the topics of visitor experience, digital strategies, new revenue models and innovation for the museum sector.

    sofia.widmann@museumbooster.com

Olga Tykhonova

Head of Strategic Development

  • Olga Tykhonova, is the Head of Strategic Development & Public Projects of MUSEUM BOOSTER. Her work largely deals with designing and running long-term institutional and multi-constituent programmes. She is also working on DOORS: Digital Incubator for Museums, supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, development of the Museum Leadership House and currently re-designing the Museum Innovation Barometer.

    Trained as an art-historian (CUNY, NYC), her long-term research focuses on art institutions as a medium and artistic forms of knowledge production. Former Fulbright and Edmund S.Muskie scholar.

    olga.tykhonova@museumbooster.com

Arturo Melo

Head of Community

  • Arturo is Head of Community at MUSEUM BOOSTER and in charge of coordinating and managing the Future Museum project. He has an international relations and business studies background and has worked on wide-ranging international projects both at governmental and private level. Arturo’s areas of focus are diverse and include research on sustainability, tourism, data management, and technology. Arturo is also involved in other future related projects such as Future Living, which allows him to combine expertise and experience from different sectors.

    arturo.melo@museumbooster.com

Monika M. Alcántara

Head of Operations

Elisabetta Ros

Research Assistant

  • Elisabetta Ros joined MUSEUM BOOSTER in March 2024 as Research Assistant, while completing her Master’s at the University of Bologna on Innovation and Organisation of Culture & The Arts. Following her Erasmus experience at the Copenhagen Business School, she’s now writing her master thesis on Business Models Innovation, focusing mainly on the Museum Innovation Barometer project. With a background in cultural tourism and some work experience in museums, her interests focus mainly on museum management and audience engagement.

    elisabetta.ros@museumbooster.com

Olga Kucheruk

Research Manager

  • Olga is the Research Manager at MUSEUM BOOSTER. Her work focuses on supporting the organisation with research into digital transformation and innovative practices across cultural institutions. Having an academic background in English Philology, Literature and Cultural Studies, acquired at the Freie Universität Berlin, Olga is interested in the topic of storytelling in museums. At the same time, her previous experience of working as a museum educator expands her areas of expertise to include interpretive strategies and audience development.

    olga.kucheruk@museumbooster.com

Akira

The Team Builder

  • A museum enthusiast since childhood, Monika Marina Alcántara has been supporting MUSEUM BOOSTER as project coordinator since the very start of the company. Prior to that, she worked in a variety of cultural projects ranging from film production to cultural festivals and as museum educator. Her academic background includes studies of European History, Spanish Philology and Exhibition Design and Development. Currently, she is writing her master thesis on gamification in museum education at the University of Murcia, Spain. Her focus of interests at work lies on data management, revenue enhancement and engaging museum education formats.

    monika.marina@museumbooster.com

Nicolai Rigler

Project Manager

  • The trained architect and art historian is responsible for project management, calculations and technical implementation.

    He has experience in interior design, is a trained carpenter and has been working as a project manager in the museum, cultural and exhibition sector for more than 15 years. Previously he worked for PARTNER Consulting+Projects, museom service and Artex Art Services.

    nicolai.rigler@museumbooster.com

Cooperation Partners

Eva Fischer

  • Eva Fischer is an independent curator, cultural manager, and lecturer based in Vienna. From 2021 – 2023 she led the media art festival CIVA as artistic director. In 2007, she initiated the sound:frame festival and founded the eponymous agency for immersive art. She curates and realizes interdisciplinary formats and teaches and consults in the fields of digital and media art, immersive media at the interfaces of art, technology and society.

    eva.fischer@museumbooster.com

Lauren Vargas

  • By day, Dr. Lauren 'L' Vargas is a digital dragon wrangler with 20 years’ experience assisting organizations with their community, communication, and collaboration strategies. Vargas is the principal of Your Digital Tattoo and operates at the intersection of community and technology. She uses her research and consulting practice to further meaningful connection, purposeful inclusion, and digital civility.

Employment.

Working at MUSEUM BOOSTER is not for the faint hearted. If you love museums and want to make a change, reach out now.

monika.marina@museumbooster.com

Partnerships.

Let’s talk partnerships and business collaboration opportunities. We love collabs outside of the cultural sector as well.

sofia.widmann@museumbooster.com