Darcy Riddell – Director of Strategic Learning, The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation
Darcy has played diverse social change roles as a strategist, convener, researcher and campaigner. Her work integrates a potent mix of transformative process design, capacity-building and social change strategy. She has a PhD. in Social Innovation/Social and Ecological Sustainability (www.sig.uwaterloo.ca), where she researched disruptive innovation in complex systems, with a focus on linking and scaling impacts, and the role of individuals in transforming systems. She was previously program director at Hollyhock Leadership Institute, where she designed and delivered social change and environmental leadership programs and facilitated cross-sector change initiatives involving non-profits, foundations, cooperatives, labour, universities and government. She has also held campaign, communications and public engagement roles advancing coastal forest conservation in the Great Bear Rainforest with ForestEthics and Sierra Club of BC. She recently co-designed Rockefeller Foundation’s Global Fellowship in Social Innovation and Resilience, and a developed new certificate in Social Innovation at SFU in Vancouver. Darcy serves on the board of the Catherine Donnelly Foundation, and lives with her family in Vancouver’s first cohousing development.