To our members, partners, and friends,
Four and a half years ago, on December 7, 2020, I had my first day leading the Downtown Business Association. Like most people, I had spent the previous 9 months mostly stuck at home, taking endless walks around my neighbourhood, watching Tiger King and Ted Lasso, (but I never did make any sourdough), and watching the disasters of the pandemic through my phone and my TV and wondering what was going to become of our city and our downtown. After landing in this new role that December– it hit me like a ton of bricks just how much our downtown business community was up against, especially our small business owners. It became very clear, very quickly, what a monumental task we had ahead of us to try and find our way back to the incredible energy and momentum that we’d only just started feeling in our downtown just before the circumstances of the pandemic took it all away. Fortunately, I was equipped with enough fire and optimism to try to take it on. Despite the major challenges we’re still facing, when I look back on those early days now, it blows me away just how far we’ve come.
Today, I’m writing to let you know that after five incredible, tumultuous years, I’ll be departing from the EDBA later this year. Our Board will begin recruiting for my successor in the coming weeks, and we’ll form a collaborative transition plan for welcoming our new leader likely in the fall and having me spend a few weeks with them before I’m gone.
I can’t help but get emotional when I reflect on these past few years, for so many reasons. This role has pushed, challenged, inspired, motivated, and changed me. I am fiercely proud of our EDBA team members, current and past, who have poured their passion and creativity into supporting our members and building up this community and creating remarkable downtown experiences. I am overwhelmingly grateful to our Board of Directors, current and past, who have volunteered so much of their time and wisdom and energy to this organization and its mission, and especially to our Chairs – currently Mark Anderson, and previously Keenan Pascal, Martin Kennedy, and Robert Bothwell, for entrusting me with this mandate and supporting me and the team every step of the way. And there are a number of people outside our organization, the partners and friends of the EDBA, both in Edmonton and in downtowns across North America, who I’ve been lucky to fight alongside and learn so much from and without whom we would’ve gotten nowhere.
We’ll have a lot more time in the months ahead to reflect on the big wins, breakthroughs, stumbling blocks, and lessons learned from all of the work we’ve done in my time leading the EDBA, and we’ll have a few more events this year where you can catch me in person. If you’re doing your own reflection about the journey we’ve been on and you haven’t yet taken a look at our 2024 Annual Report or the previous one, I’d encourage you to take a look at what we’ve been up to and to reach out to our Board of Directors if you have any feedback or thoughts about the future that you’d like to share.
It has been the honour of a lifetime to serve the members of the EDBA in this role, and this has been a very difficult and bittersweet decision to make. I look forward to connecting with many of you over the summer, and while I don’t yet know what exactly I’ll be up to after this, I can promise you that whatever it is, you’ll always still be able to find me downtown.
Thank you so much.
Puneeta