Joanne has been at the heart of organizations in transformative moments for many years. Her roles have varied, encompassing strategic leadership, change management, organizational learning, communication and marketing, and as a member and leader of boards of directors. 

She has enjoyed many consulting engagements, including in public service business transformation for the Province of Nova Scotia, as well as planning and managing many projects and events for organizations in various sectors. She has guided learning in multiple environments, including post-secondary classroom and multi-week online professional cohorts. 

In 2018 Joanne left consulting to join the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre as it underwent significant transformation, supporting change in multiple roles including Interim Executive Director. She went on to lead Women in Film and Television Atlantic through board renewal and organizational restructuring as their first Executive Director, before joining Big Waves as Co-Waver in 2024.

At Big Waves she brings new and different approaches to building strategic clarity, protecting organizational priorities, and analysing confusing conditions in relationships or workflows (organizational structure, expectations, process or project design, decision-making, roles). Joanne helps support and structure your thinking as well as any systems or practices that turn the thinking into doing. She especially loves if she can refresh perspectives, outlooks, and energies in a group.

(Full disclosure: online search will reveal another whole life in time-based media. Ask if curious!)

Justice, inclusion and healing drive all of her engagement, reflection, and intention. Joanne is drawn to dynamic governance, adaptive planning, emergence, human systems dynamics, asset based inquiry approaches, relational systems thinking and awareness-based systems change.

Core sources of joy infusing all of her time, including work time, are mixing vinyl, being in nature with friends, her dogs Rexy and Gala (The Galaxy!), and life partner Brook, and disappearing into divination with the I Ching and her tarot decks.

“There are so many wise, talented and wonderful people that groups can call on when support or collaboration is needed. What are the main reasons I’m contacted? The subject matter expertise and the particular areas of focus are part of it, but what’s especially cool is the feedback about “how” I work, rather than just what kind of work I do. The strategic focus and inquiry-driven curiosity. The toolsy resourcefulness (hat tip: patience). The always-on possibilities engine. I truly love this kind of feedback, because these are ways of working that I’ve intentionally cultivated.”

Connect to talk about your:

• adaptive prioritization
• multi-party engagement 
• internal communication 
• strategic planning 
• decision making and input
• fair expectations
• project design 
• group roles and structures

Key trainings and certifications:

Agile Leadership: Introduction to Change | University of Colorado System

Analyzing Growth Drivers & Business Risks | Corporate Finance Institute® (CFI)

Bachelor of Public Relations | Mount Saint Vincent University

Cafe At The Edge of the World | Wolf Willow Institute for Systems Learning

Cynefin Basecamp | The Cynefin Company 

Foundations of Complexity: Strategy | Complexity University

Fundamentals of Bridging | Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley

Organization and Relationship Systems Coaching (ORSC)™ Fundamentals | CRR Global

Organization Planning and Development for 6 σ | University System of Georgia

ORSC Fundamentals

Planning for Uncertainty: How to Create an Agile Strategy | Inspiring Communities

Six Sigma Yellow Belt | Six Sigma Racial Equity Institute

Strategic and Operational Planning | IONS (Impact Organizations of Nova Scotia)

Systematic Inventive Thinking Innovations

Waterline Deep Democracy

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