About
A Brief Introduction
From my small perch in Toronto, Canada, every day, I am navigating a way forward to own the change needed to transform our cities and towns into places of beauty, fairness, and harmony.
Having spent the almost 13 years heading up the planning for one of North America’s most aggressive multi-billion dollar city building ventures through public transit expansion. I practiced public policymaking, urban and regional planning, and transit-oriented development, in an industry where women are under-represented.
More recently I have stepped off a five and a half year tour leading one of Canada’s most influential civic capacity building organizations mobilizing civic entrepreneurship and collective leadership.
Its time now to expand this platform to not only showcase the heroines of cities but to share insights as to what it takes to build more beautiful, fair and harmonious cities..
Just to be clear, this is a venture to expose how much women around the world are a fundamental part of building a hopeful future.
That’s ME !
Yes, I know I look – I look Asian, but it’s a ruse. I am really Canadian. I didn’t start that way. I was born in Trinidad, a small, loud Caribbean island famous for the steel pan, calypso, VS Naipaul, and carnival (as in, bacchanal).
After high school, I was transplanted to a bitterly cold cornfield, also known as the University of Waterloo School of Architecture in Canada. Nothing like depriving a person of every familiar point of reference, to instill a strong and enduring desire to find roots, a sense of place, and personal relationships.
I think in some countries this might be construed as – sensory deprivation of all things familiar – even the weather. In my case, it resulted in an overwhelming desire to belong and an insatiable desire to make sense of remote and distant ideas, people, and projects.
This coupled with my formal training as an architect (creating beautiful buildings), planner (creating beautiful cities) and starting a young family in Toronto (creating beautiful people), led me to an overwhelming passion for the intense energy of cities and a career journey searching for a fair, beautiful and harmonious home, neighborhood, city, country and now globe.
I have worked in professional architectural private practice, in urban planning leadership roles in the public sector, and in not for profit advocacy. I dabble in academia. I have been a political aide and a local community activist. For close to three decades I have led major urban transformations in Canada’s largest growing urban region, and I advise on urban public policy internationally, and of course, sundry other jobs as assigned.
I no longer live in the same house I raised my kids. After 30 years I have left memories of my 16+ year old Jack Russell Terrier, my eclectic iPod collection (now reduced to a Spotify playlist) and neighbors who, like me, have been on the same street for years. I have downsized with my life partner, into a condo near the Toronto Distillery District. These are my new local roots near the waterfront, my young Havanese and the addition of two grandkids nearby, all a long way from my first landing here in Canada.
For so many summers I have been a bike-touring cyclist along the beautiful Great Lakes, riding alongside 150 plus fun-loving enthusiasts. I also try to fill my life with music and art - and people.
So many interesting and committed volunteers, neighbours, educators, and rising leaders. As one former mentor would say - its about the people, which in my twenties I could not fathom what he meant. But now I know. Curiosity about the lives and experiences of other women, is where I find inspiration and wisdom.
As a cathartic act of recompense for my fortunes in life, I offer this site to sing the praises of women changing the world through awesome city building.
