Lindsey Fair– Building Strong Businesses, Strong Brands & Strong Communities

Economic development is a phrase we hear almost every day—but what does it actually mean, and how does it affect the communities where we live and work?

In this episode, host Dave Cunningham sits down with Lindsey Fair, whose career has spanned entrepreneurship, marketing, communications, community partnerships, and economic development. Lindsey discusses how organizations can grow by combining strategic thinking with authentic community engagement.

The conversation explores Lindsey's career journey, how she transitioned from small business into leadership roles, and what she has learned about helping municipalities, educational institutions, entrepreneurs and organizations achieve sustainable growth.

Dave and Lindsey also discuss the changing world of marketing, including the growing importance of social media, digital communications and brand strategy, while examining how traditional media continues to play an important role.

The interview also takes a personal turn as Lindsey reflects on the impact that Junior Chamber International (Jaycees) had on her leadership development, the inspiration behind the book Trucker Management: Driving Small Business to Success, co-written with Matt Hutcheon, and her current work with Invest Ottawa supporting innovation, entrepreneurship and business growth.

Hashtags:  #The KingstonianPodcast, #EconomicDevelopment, #Entrepreneurship, #Marketing Strategy, #BusinessGrowth, #InvestOttawa, #BrandStrategy, #Communications

Our theme music is “Stasis Oasis”,  by Tim Aylesworth

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Episodes also air weekly on CJAI at 101.3fm (Tue. at 4pm) 

Transcript

Steve 0:08

Welcome to the Extending Podcast profile of people who are passionate about what they do for a living, an organization that belongs to or the community they are. Here is your host, Dave.

Dave 0:24

Hey Steve, hello everyone, and welcome. Today's guest is Lindsay Fair, someone who has built her career around helping people, businesses, and communities reach their full potential. Whether she's working with entrepreneurs, municipalities, or community organizations, Lindsay has a passion for bringing people together, building partnerships, and turning good ideas into meaningful ones. Her career has taken her through entrepreneurship, marketing, communications, and economic development. But the comic thread has always been designed to help others succeed. In our conversation, Lady Shares, the experiences of leadership, explains how the importance of community, discusses in marketing and economic development, and explains how those experiences have later to work with. I think you'll come away with a better understanding of not only of what Lindsay does, but why she is so passionate about doing it. Here's my conversation with Lindsay Fair, recorded in July 2026. Lindsay, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Thanks for having me, Dave. Nice to be here.

Dave 1:32

Now, uh I want to start with this. I was reading your website, and right at the top, you describe your work as a blend of economic development, placemaking, partnerships, brand strategy, communications, revenue growth, and community building. Now, in very general terms, if all of that clicks for the group you're working with, what actually changes for them?

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Ideally, and that is a mouthful for sure. When you read it back to me, I'm like, wow, that's a lot of things. Um, but hopefully, what is created is a sense of community. That uh to move an economy forward, uh, you need people that are cohesive and interested in moving something forward. To build an economy, you need community. To build a community, you need an economy that is successful. And so that there's a symbiotic relationship between the two. And hopefully what I'm doing is ensuring that uh relationship is strong and working in that cohesive way.

Dave 2:29

How did you get into this kind of line of work?

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Oh, well, it's definitely not been a linear journey for sure. I think um, you know, drawing out what was the connections between all of my work experiences and my volunteering experiences um really was nonlinear. And uh and it really is I'm driven by people and a curiosity about what makes people tick. And so when you if I went back and redid it, I might become a consumer behaviorist or a psychologist as an example, um, because I'm really interested in what makes people want to do things. Um and so over my career I've worked in marketing, which is absolutely about consumer behavior and what makes people be persuaded to buy things. In my nonprofit work, I'm often working with volunteers and what makes them motivated to volunteer more or contribute more. Um, and then in uh my military experience, which was very short-lived, but it is fundamental of who I am for sure. It's how I met my husband. Um, that military uh background really got me thinking about how do we come together as a community to move a goal forward. Um, and so it's a combination of those things. I was also a teacher for a professor in colleges and universities for a long period, almost 18 years of teaching. Um, and during that time, I really, you know, how to want, had to get people to want to learn. And so, how do you persuade them into learning? And so, you know, some people are there because they want to learn, some people are there because they think they want to learn, but they actually don't want to put in the time. And then others are there because somebody told them to be. And so, how do I make sure that they all want to be part of that community and learn together?

Dave 4:11

Now, was there a particular moment or experience that brought you to this particular position that you're in right now? Oh, that's a really hard question.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

I know, I'm like, that's a hard question. I definitely have some defining moments in my life that have led to where I am. Um, and uh I don't know if there's one particular that led to where I am. One of the earliest ones, and and perhaps we go on a little journey together, but uh in 1991, I was young. I I think I was 15 at the time. Um, I did a course called Practical Leadership with the C Cadet program on the West Coast. So I grew up in subsidized housing. We're going down a journey here, Dave. I hope you're okay with this journey, but we're going down a journey. So I grew up in subsidized housing, uh, very uh poverty um oriented background. My mom worked two jobs. My dad was out of the home for many reasons, uh, had mental illness and so on. Um and so I was in the cadet program, which gave me lots of opportunity that I wouldn't have otherwise had. And so they sent me to Comox, British Columbia. I'd never been on a plane, uh, got to fly there. I actually got to go on a Herc plane, so the very intense opportunity in my life. Um, but that eight-week course taught me a lot about who I am and the grit that I had and the tenacity I had to try things even when people said I couldn't. So we did an outward bound, uh, where we had a soapbox, soapbox of food for five days while we were out on a cutter on the ocean and how to find our way back. Um, and that really taught me a lot. One, about how to get along with other people. There was 15 other girls in the boat with me and no adults there. We were 15, 15-year-olds out in this boat um for five days uh with no food. So it taught me a lot about resilience, understanding people, um, trade-offs, you know, this is what I want, but this is what they want. And how do we compromise to get what we both need? Um, and I would say that that was uh fundamentally developed who I was from an early stage uh growing up. I think some of the other defining moments in my career, um, my husband and I met, uh, we both owned companies at the same time. Uh and so my husband. No, not the same company. We did later go to own to jointly own a company together. Um, but him and I owned two separate companies uh at uh you know early 2000s, and that was during the dot-com crash. And he owned a web development company, and I owned one of Canada's first web marketing companies, and nobody knew what that was. And that taught me a lot fundamentally about marketing, um, because I had been doing marketing before that. But what that taught me was I was trying to sell a product that nobody understood, and it's really hard to make money when you're trying to educate and sell. And it was in an industry just like we are in now with AI, where it's changing faster than I could keep up with. And the only way to make some money from something truly is to sell it the second time. The first time you sell it, you're there's loss and RD and so on. And I didn't get to the second time ever because the industry would change too fast. Yeah. And so I couldn't keep up. And I'm finding that's happening with AI right now with a lot of industries, and that's what I was going through. And so that has served me well throughout my career to think about that moment and how how do you stay ahead so that you're not falling behind. Um, so that was a defining moment in my career. And then most recently, and I'll and I'll be really transparent, my last role, I was uh with a university that was going through some uh financial hardship. Um, and as most of them are in the country at this time, um, and uh the choice came to my role or other roles on my team. And I had already done a lot of layoffs on the team and uh didn't feel comfortable proceeding with more. And I said to my boss, I think I'm the next layoff. And so worked myself out of a job, basically put my name forward on the list I was submitting for layoffs, um, and got an exit package. And the defining moment that led is it brought me back home. So Ontario is my home. And I missed, I was very homesick when we left Ontario, uh and Eastern Ontario in particular. I missed my friends and my family. Um, and so I would say this is the next big defining moment in my career in the last year and a half. I'm back, uh, I'm not in higher ed. I haven't been in higher ed now for uh only a year, but I've been in higher ed for 16 years. And so for the first time in 16 years, I'm in a different industry. Um, but it's uh deciding what I want my last last, I don't know if it's last, but last 15 years of my professional career uh to look like, I think that's where I'm sitting right now.

Dave 8:57

Okay. I want to go back to the initial question about all of those things that you work on and explore a couple in detail because I don't think we have enough time to explore them all. But economic development. So that's a phrase that we have heard uh all over the place, and it comes from business people and politicians and news reporters. What does it actually look like in real life? Economic development. Give me the uh the the uh the what do they call it, the simple explanation for that for those listening.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Yeah, ideally, and and it's really hard to do, but ideally what you're trying to do is to create economic opportunity for everybody that lives in that space or place. Um, and that's ideally what you're trying to do, is to create the conditions that make them be able to succeed to whatever success looks like to them. So that means having the health care they need, the education they need, the job opportunities they need, and the cultural experiences that they want to have a quality of life. So that's ideal what you're going after when you work in economic development is that everybody has what they need to feel successful and to live the life that they want to live. The reality, studying to be an economic geographer for my PhD, are that that that's near impossible to do. And there's always trade-offs, right? When one group succeeds, there is likely an unintended consequence for another group by doing so. Um, and and that's the unfortunate part. And as an urban geographer in particular, I wanted to understand how cities and urban districts and neighborhoods, because I believe that people's experiences are lived at the neighborhood level. They're not lived at this macro scale at the national level. They're lived on the street. Do I have a corner store to buy bread from? Um, and and do I feel safe when I walk to that corner store? And, you know, can I get a doctor when I need it? And that's uh what I think us in economic development, although sometimes it comes down to we're trying to get jobs, but at the end of the day, the reason we want jobs here is so that those people feel successful and have the means to pay for the things they need to, like bread.

Dave 11:03

Okay. Does the approach that you would take in helping to promote economic development uh is it different from working with a municipality or a small business or a post-secondary institution?

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Does the approach change? Um, I think lots of people uh perhaps. I think it changes by industry. I think my level that I come at it from as a marketer is that brand perception and trust. So how much do people trust the institution, whether that's the university, the municipality, or the companies that live there, to provide those conditions? And do we trust that they're actually doing it in the best interest of the people that live there or not? Um and are they building it for the people that live there or the tourists that come? And the tourists that come bring economic wealth to the city, but are they leaving it there or giving more detriment? Um and a conversation I had yesterday as an example was in the world of AI, we have a lot of um companies starting or asking to use more resources for energy, right? To run an AI data center, it's gonna take more energy than we see in the Darlington energy plant, nuclear plant, as an example, than we've ever seen. But the trade-offs for that have very significant um environmental impacts on society. And, you know, power plants don't have a lot of jobs in them. So they're taking a huge footprint, huge environmental impact. Um, and I haven't studied this at large, but the trade-off consequence of that is it worth it or not? Um, and I think that's some of the complexities we're facing right now in a world of AI. Like we I I believe deeply in Jane Jacob's theory. You know, people live their experiences on the street. So how do we get those experiences on the street to feel safe, livable, interesting, and vibrant?

Dave 12:55

You mentioned this uh somewhere on your website, and I forget exactly where, but you mentioned a relationship between St. Lawrence College and an in-house business called Spark. Now, I volunteer with the Kingston Scout Museum, which is a virtual museum, and when we converted to uh virtual entity, we went to Spark and said, okay, we need to rebrand our logo and all of our advertising. So talk a little bit about that interplay between a business that is that employs the students who are studying marketing and promotion, all that kind of thing, with paid employees who help guide them along the way.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Amazing. Oh, I love Spark. And I love that you have an experience with Spark. That is so cool. Um, so Spark came out of my master's thesis, actually, and I I did a project to understand how do we create transferable skills from post-secondary students that are driven by industry and solve industry's needs. And so I did a whole project on talking to industry about what do you need out of our graduates coming out and who's responsible for that. Um, what came out was models like this, where students weren't doing case studies or simulations, but working in businesses on real business problems and putting them to test. So not just presenting a proposal, but actually doing the work and seeing the outcomes of that work. Um, and so in all of my classrooms that I taught in, I always brought in applied learning where I would bring in real clients and the students would launch advertising campaigns and to be honest, see them fail most of the time because it's hard when you're new in advertising. And so Spark came out of that. Spark, the original model, we got funding from HRSDC and a few other funding bodies to fund recent grads to run um the this agency that was run at St. Lawrence College. Um, and then students would uh have different ways that they could sign up. So they could sign up for their co-op to work in Spark, they could get a paid job through um there was funding for that for them to work in it if they were other students that weren't doing co-op. And then classes could also participate in Spark as a class project. And then Spark would do just as you said, they would work either with in-house work from St. Lawrence, so athletics needed posters for their upcoming game as an example. Spark would take that on, or industry nonprofits a lot of the time would come and say, Hey, we need this thing. Can you build it for us? And there'd be a small fee to cover any hard costs of the agency, but not the same as um, you know, people that are fully out there um running an ad agency as an example. And the students would get practical experience. And so there was this win-win relationship between industry, St. Lawrence, and the students. Um, so I guess that's win-win-win, not just win-win. Uh and it was similar to the hair salon that St. Lawrence runs. Um, there was only two of these run in all of Canada. So Spark, uh, some universities have similar, but it's typically only consulting, not doing the work. It's just advising on the work. So there's only two that I found in all of Canada where they're doing the actual work. Unfortunately, Spark did close last year due to funding cuts uh in the post-secondary sector, which to be honest, it ran for a decade. It was really sad to see that go. Um, and uh I wasn't the only visionary behind it. John Conrad was another uh visionary behind it too. Um and yeah, I think it's a great model. And I think there we're gonna see more of that actually happening in post-secondary as a way out of their funding crunch right now, to be honest, because it's gonna help them diversify some funding streams.

Dave 16:33

Although we've talked about it a little bit so far, but let's uh focus in on promotion and marketing, which is something that seems to be your specialty. There was a time when uh marketing was the first thing cut when budgets got tight. Uh, has that changed?

SPEAKER_02 16:49

I would say no, uh, unfortunately. And and I think marketing is probably one of the most misunderstood um parts of the C-suite. So out of all the VPs, and and obviously I'm biased because that's the role I hold, um, but we are often the last to get to sit at the C-suite or the executive suite of a team, um, and we're the first to be asked to leave or our roles get merged. And and some of that comes from a misunderstanding what our job is. Um, and that is everybody can send an email, so therefore we're all communicators as an example. We all use Facebook, therefore we all know how to use it for business. Um, and so everybody's a marketer, but when everybody's a marketer, nobody is, and especially in a very noisy crowded marketplace that we have right now. Um, and we have a whole lot of data, and that data we're drowning in marketing data that is actually um distracting us from the real outcomes. And so any marketer can give you tons of data. A real marketer can tell you what that data means and why you're not getting more sales, more customers, and so on. Um, and that's the part that we've got this disconnect in the industry for. Marketing is cut because we're not able to draw the correlation easily. We're not we're not good enough storytellers. It's just like cobblers aren't good at their own shoes and accountants' books suck, right? It's very similar. Marketers are great external storytellers, but we forget that we have to tell our story internally about the value we're bringing to the organization and the risks if you don't bring us into the table. And so we we get drowning on doing things. And I'm and I'm working on some of the change management here right now in my current job, but we get drowning doing more posts on social instead of saying, you know what, if I did two less posts a day, I could get you more customers. And here's how. And so we're not good at stopping the treadmill so that we can actually do good work, and therefore our outcomes are suffering, and that's why we get cut.

Dave 18:51

Now, where does traditional print and broadcast media fit alongside social media and other digital channels?

SPEAKER_02 18:59

Yeah. Um, so I absolutely believe in a fully integrated approach to marketing, and I think digital, I think we over-emphasize the value of digital because we can see the analytics in real time. And so people will say, I'm just gonna post that on LinkedIn, everybody's on LinkedIn and I get data out of it versus an out-of-home billboard on the side of a highway. I don't have real-time tracking to know how how effective that is. There is ways to do it, but it's a little clumsier. And people are looking for actual attribution. This ad led to this sale. But what they don't realize is the only reason that ad stuck, the only reason I even noticed that ad on LinkedIn is because there was other things coming at me with this brand and other platforms that when I saw this thing on LinkedIn, I actually took action. But we can't attribute those other things that people are seeing because it's not digital. So we over-emphasize digital to our own detriment, to be honest. Um, and so I love to look for the most creative ways to get to where people are and where they'll digest the information. I think you're at your cottage right now, Dave, as an example. Cottages are a brilliant place to get to people when they're least expecting it. And so, an example, if I'm trying to sell something that is a luxury item, so you know, $10,000 buy kind of thing, a car, uh university degree, anything that's inexpensive, um, that's going to take some thought and to have to think, you need space to think. Cottages are a great place for that. So the LCBO wine and drink magazine that people take to their cottage because they actually have time to do leisure reading would be a great option as an example uh for a luxury-based item. Um, and I wouldn't do digital because the chances of you looking through your, you know, through your phone right now are lower than they would be uh during your workday. And so I think it's really important that we think about where our customer is and where they're less likely to hear from others. So I've done pizza box advertising during the pandemic. I did pizza box advertising because everybody was ordering food uh to their homes. Um when I've done um actually during the pandemic, I also did uh national park bathroom stalls because everybody was going outside and I was like, that's how I'm gonna get to them. And and you've got a dedicated audience in a bathroom stall. They're sitting there.

Dave 21:24

I never would have thought of that. Um you talk to people who are looking to promote their business or their nonprofit or whatever they're promoting, and if they're looking at social media, there are a lot of different options. And I don't know, I haven't studied it or analyzed it, but my thinking is based upon what I've heard. So, what's what's the general overview of what works with what group?

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Yeah, and and there's definitely outliers for sure, and some of this, and there's also cultural biases built into this, but in general, uh, Facebook is a Me generation uh here, Dave. So you and I are the Facebook users, yeah. Um, and uh so if I'm looking for mid or or late career, uh early retiree, senior leaders, um that are, and especially if it's lifestyle-oriented products, uh, Facebook is the place to go for sure. Um, if I'm looking for professionals, and that and that actually the one that transcends multi-generation would be LinkedIn for sure. Um, if I'm going after the millennials, so the experienced-based people, people that care a lot about lifestyle and experience and they want to experience your product and service, that would be the Instagram folks, and that would be your millennials, so the 30-year-olds and early 40-year-olds. Um, and then the uh the next generation below that, they are much more skeptical of social. So they use it a lot, but they are definitely spectators more than posters. The millennials are the posters. Um, and oh, millennials were also the Reddit generation. So uh Reddit is mostly them. So when I was uh promoting um uh graduate degrees, Reddit was a good place to do that. Um, or if you're going after people returning to school, so when I was at SAIT, our audience was people that had already done some post-secondary. I would go to Reddit as an example. Um, but the next generation is definitely more uh skeptical. They are more likely to uh do direct messages, they don't want to have public personas. They saw what happened to the millennials and they don't want to live their life in the public space. So they are they're there, but they're not posting. And so the best way to connect with them is through texting or direct messages as opposed to public uh communications. Public one, they don't like one-to-many, they like one-to-one communications.

Dave 23:55

So I'm gonna take a quick off-ramp here and talk about something else. You and I share a connection with Junior Chamber International, JC's, JCI. It's still the same outfit depending what generation you are, you call it something different. Yes. Uh what exactly what role did that organization play in your development?

SPEAKER_02 24:13

Oh, it so the JC's or JCI, I was right in the middle of that transition, actually. So I was the president when we went from JC's to JCI. Um I was uh that is fundamental to who I was, especially in my professional career. It launched my professional career. Um, Kingston was a smaller city and it had one of the most um looked to JC unit, I think, maybe in North America, if not the world. Uh, lots of other JC chapters were very envious of the Kingston JCs. Um, that's how I met you, Dave. It's how I met most of my friends, colleagues in Kingston. It's how I met uh Matt Hutchen, Senator Hutchen, who became my business partner for many years. We wrote a book together. We toured, we traveled around the world uh together and went from JC chapter to JC chapter as a speaker related to our book. And none of that would have been possible without the JC's. My best uh friends have become Jen and Tony uh Gargero, who were also senators, and and Tony's dad is also a senator. Um, and I became uh their middle daughter's godparent and was at her birth, and that was all stemmed from the relationship I have with the JC's. And then something even more remarkable is as we were talking about my husband and I were talking about our JC experience. We also talked uh to his family who are from the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania area. Um, and Matt's granddad uh pulled out a whole bunch of memorabilia and he was still involved at this time. He's now 98. At that time, he was uh like 80, and he was still involved in the JCs in Tawnytown, Maryland, and uh Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, helping both chapters at that time because it had been so fundamental to who he was. And so it was interesting to have these multi-generations, an 80-year-old, and at that time I was 25, both talking about this organization. Um, it is what taught me project management. It's what taught me fundraising, absolutely, which is a core part of my job today is fundraising. Um, it taught me relationship development, business development. It taught me risk mitigation after running the soapbox derby, the little kids running down the big hill on Patrick Street. Um, it taught me community relations. Um, it taught me governance, uh, public speaking, debate, uh, which I use every night at the dinner table with my husband.

Dave 26:46

How does that go?

SPEAKER_02 26:48

Well, I won.

Dave 26:49

So you talked about a book and you talked about Matt Hutchen, which was my next question, as a matter of fact. He's a mutual friend of ours, and he's, as you mentioned, heavily involved in JC's. The book is called Trucker Management Driving Small Business to Success. Uh, where did that idea come from and what is the core message from the book?

SPEAKER_02 27:13

Oh goodness, you're gonna have to interview Matt on this too, uh, because we'll have funny stories on it. So Matt and I had the best, we were the best partners ever. He's an accountant, I'm a marketer, and he is the most marketer accountant I've ever met, and he would say I'm the most accountant marketer he's ever met. And so, uh, which is perhaps why we got along. He um he had mentioned he had this idea for a book uh in passing one night at dinner, and then I had been working at the Kingston Economic Development Corporation running the entrepreneurship center at the time, and he was one of our consultants that we would bring in and he um he had talked about this book, and I was looking to leave Ketco at that time. We had a young kid and I wanted to spend more time as a mom. Um, and I'm not good at saying no. And uh so they interviewed me. The WIG standard interviewed me about my exit from Ketco. And in that interview, I said, I'm leaving to write a book with Matt Hutchin. And so, and he and I forgot to tell him that I did this, and it showed up in the paper the next day about our book and that it would be launched in three months from that day. And so he's like, he called me and he's like, What? We're writing a book in three months, and so we got busy that day writing our book. Um, I think we took six months, we took a little longer to write the book. The uh, and we learned a lot along the way in that book too. Oh my goodness, mostly don't try to be too clever with the name. Uh, we've gotten more requests for trucking conventions than we have for anything else, and it's not about trucking. And so that was it was an analogy. Um truckers have a book they have to look at when, and again, I'm not a trucker, so I don't totally know. And we didn't interview any truckers uh to prepare for the book, which perhaps we should have. But we looked at the MTO book that truckers have to use every day and every ride. You know, have I checked the tires? Have I checked my emergency system? Have I checked my brakes? That kind of stuff. And we applied that to business principles because we often write a business plan at the beginning of our business and then we put it on a shelf and it collects dust, and then we're surprised at the end of the year why things went how they did. And so we were saying, what if we ran our business like that, where we had checklists every day, every hour, every month, every week, every quarter that guided us so that we didn't lose sight of some of the things that were fundamentally leading to our success? And some of them were really practical, like every day do an exterior walk around your building just to make sure, you know, yeah, that you know what's there. And I lead a facility now, so that checklist is really useful. Um, and uh other things were more like a rearview mirror. Do you have somebody helping you um, you know, critique what happened in the past and what you can learn from that? Do you have some of them are about a mentor? So that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 30:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

Um, and that was how the book came to be. Um, it our goal with the book was really for it to pay for itself, but to create new opportunities for us to open our own consultancy um and meet new people. And it really and it did that. We lost we didn't make any money, but we didn't lose money in the end. Uh and it depends on the way you do the accounting on, I would say.

Dave 30:27

And you're not the accountant.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Exactly. I'm the marketer. So yes, yeah.

Dave 30:33

Let's bring it right up to today. You work with an outfit called Invest Ottawa. And what is that group and what does it do?

SPEAKER_02 30:41

We have four different parts of our business. The first is we help um tech and non-companies start, uh, scale, and grow. Um, and so an example of that could be your local hair salon, but it could also be Shopify, was one of our clients as an example. So uh some of the biggest um start tech startups in Canada started by working with our services and our advisors. The other part of our business is the which is similar to what Lodge Lab does in Kingston. Um, we also do BRE, which is uh business expansion. So companies in Ottawa helping them grow, and that could be companies with 300 employees, and we want to help them get to 600. Um, and then FDI, so foreign direct investment, we're working on attracting new companies to Ottawa, wanting them to in the Ottawa Valley, we want them to set up business here. And an example, um, Amazon Canada's first desk was in our building here, as an example.

unknown 31:41

No.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

So and then, oh, sorry, and then we have two other parts of our business. I'll just say really quick. One is Bayview, which is the building that I run. Bayview is a um living lab and incubator, so it's the space where all these offices are, but the building itself is also a testing bed for these uh tech startups so they can run their software or their tools or their hardware within our building, and then we get some testing for them. And then the last one is a property called AreaX.o and it is uh an RD complex. Um, we are the only one, only economic development corporation in Canada that has an RD complex that we own and operate. And it has a smart mobility testing facility, it has a NATO Diana testing facility for defense and dual use and drones. Um, and uh it has an innovation farm where we test uh smart tractors as an example.

Dave 32:41

Now, what is it that you do in that particular yeah?

SPEAKER_02 32:46

So I have uh I have a very diverse portfolio. So I run um marketing and communications for our programs and services for Invest Ottawa, but that also means that I am kind of like the chief marketing officer for Ottawa. My job is to promote Ottawa to the world, um, not to tourist so much, but to businesses and corporations and tech talent. Um, and so I lead all of our brand campaigns around the world for Ottawa. That's one part of my portfolio. I run the Bayview facility, so the living lab and incubator. Um, and then I also run all of our corporate partners and sponsorships and our flagship events. And so our flagship events, we have GC Expo coming up in the fall. It is our um Canada's largest live demonstration event for dual-use technology. So this think drones are getting demonstrated. We had 90 live demonstrations last year with um drones and autonomous vehicles, including autonomous tanks. Yes. Yeah.

Dave 33:50

Now you've already alluded to one of the reasons why you're in your position that you're in now, and that was to get back to home, get back to where you grew up. Now, my question is, is what from a particular career point of view, why was this the right move for you?

SPEAKER_02 34:05

Um so I have worked, we started this conversation uh around economic development. I've worked in economic development in various ways, whether that was in higher ed, whether that was in tourism, or whether that was in uh running my own companies in some way. I've worked in economic development and in and contributing to my local economy. And Invest Ottawa does just that. So it was the right opportunity because of that. Um, I also um I think the other part, I mean, the diversity of the portfolio was very interesting to me. For a long time, I've been only in marketing. And so being able to bring in those other components with it, the events and the facility are nice stretch goals, but also interesting and complex for me at this point in my career. I'm looking for an additional challenge, so I think that's interesting uh and that appealed to me. And then uh working for Sonia Shorey is definitely something that is motivating and exciting. She is a dynamic human, she's our CEO and president um and uh very well respected in the industry. So getting to work with her is great. And then to be honest, a huge part of it was an opportunity to do just that, get back home.

Dave 35:17

Yeah. This is one of my particular pet peeves. When I was working, I've always believed that when you're working in a particular company and there's an opportunity to get involved in your community in some sort of uh nonprofit way, that that's important for not only them, but for your own business. Your thoughts on that? Getting involved in the community.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

Yeah, I worked when I worked at SAIT, which is a polytech in uh Calgary, I loved that they had volunteer days and they were mandated. So you got two a year and they were mandated that you took them. And and they actually like were pretty strict about it. They would be like, hey, you haven't used them, what if you're doing? And you would report in what you did for your two days. You got to choose what was important to you during those days, um, which I also liked that it really was about you and getting into your community and and showing that the institution cares about us getting into community. I think that that model should be adopted by other organizations uh and become kind of standard. I think there's a great book from a while ago called Bowling Alone. And I think that, you know, part of why we're seeing uh disintegration and social cohesion across the world right now is we're not doing enough, we're not leading with empathy enough in our own homes. We're not getting out of our homes to see what's happening around us. And I think by volunteering you can do that. Um, one of the things that I led here last year was the shoebox project. And so I I I already talked about growing up in poverty, but there were many Christmases that I spent in a shelter with my mom. And my mom, one of the things I loved when you arrived at the shelter is you would get a shoebox, and in that shoe box there'd be just personal stuff, but there were like, you know, shampoo and and stuff, but there'd always be something like a piece of jewelry or nail polish or something special for my mom. And my mom didn't get a lot of gifts because we were the situation we were in. She kept those boxes. The boxes themselves became something she carried with her when we would leave. Um, and and they became quite precious to her. Um, and I was always like, cool, what's in my box? Because there was always a kid one, right? Um, and so I didn't realize how important those were. And so last year we did it as a team here at Invest Ottawa. I led the group through that, and I think we donated 41 shoeboxes to the shoebox campaign last year. Uh, and I will continue to do that type of work as much as I can.

Dave 37:41

Now, if you look back on your career so far, what is there, which accomplishment stands out for you that you've been particularly proud of?

SPEAKER_02 37:53

I have two. Uh so I think I think two. Uh that that PL course I talked about was certainly one, but that was so early. But on my professional career, I have two. So when I again when I worked at SAITE, I led a campaign um that was so uh it was both my career high and my career low in one. So I I use that as my example. So the SAIT students, uh I already talked about, they're typically older, they had typically gone to post-secondary or were in post-secondary at other institutions, and they were choosing to switch to us, transfer to us. So this was some data that I had gathered about our current students and a potential to increase our students, and I had to do student recruitment. And um, and so using that piece of information, we developed a campaign that said state grads get jobs, um, unigrads go to state. And we posted these posters all over university campuses in Alberta. So that they were on their bus stops and their pubs and their washrooms, stickers on the sidewalk that basically said, state grads get jobs, unigrads go to state. Um, and students loved how cheeky it was. They took pictures of this, they put it on social media at like they would take a hard photo and then post it on social media, which is like as viral as you can get in higher ed marketing. Um, and so that was the high. We were like, oh my God, people are loving this campaign. And then they were chatting about it on Reddit. They were like, oh, state's very bold and cheeky. And then the province or one of the universities in Alberta called the premier and said, this is unfair. They shouldn't be stealing our students. And the premier called our president and we had to take the campaign down. That said to me that we were onto something, that we were getting noticed, and that was frustrating other people. So it was both a career highlight and a career low at the same time, uh, because we had to take the campaign down. It is still my favorite campaign I've run. So that's uh one of my career highlights that will stick with me. I I saw a speaker once that said, if I in marketing, if you're not on the bridge of almost getting fired, you're not pushing the needle hard enough for people to notice. So I, you know, I I take that I got there. I got that close, which made me happy. Um and then my own uh accolade, uh, well, I've oh, I've got a few. I won the JCI Entrepreneur of the Year, uh, Young Entrepreneur of the Year, uh, one time, and that was special because it was from my peers that I was nominated and awarded, and that that meant a lot. Um, but recently, a year ago, I was awarded um the um Council for Advancement in Education. So uh it's an organization that brings together advancement and marketing professionals in higher ed. I won the the equivalent of the Lifetime Achievement Award uh for the sector and the industry um for the work that I've done in progressing the profession in the sector. Um and that meant a lot because that was also peer peer nominated and peer awarded. Um, and it was a national award. So that was it felt it also felt like wow, I'm getting a lifetime achievement award, but I feel like I still have a lot of life to live.

Dave 41:01

That's a problem with those awards. You hear about that all the time. You know, I'm I'm not dead yet. Exactly. There's uh a lot in this conversation that uh connects with where we are right now as a country, the need to build, promote, communicate effectively, and uh items that we all need to buy into, particularly now. And I want to thank you very much for the work you're doing and for your time today.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Thanks, Dave. Thanks for having me, and thanks for making me laugh and go down uh a trip on memory lane. That was great. Thank you.

Dave 41:34

You're welcome. My thanks to Lindsay Fair for joining me on the Kingstonian podcast. I hope you enjoyed getting to know Lindsay and hearing how her passion for helping people and communities succeed has shaped both her career and her approach to leadership. As always, thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend and consider waiting and subscribing wherever you get your podcast. It helps others discover the show. This episode was recorded in July of 2026. We'll be back soon with another conversation.

Steve 42:15

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