Danya Pastuszek Appointed Co-CEO of the Tamarack Institute

Posted on January 19, 2022
By Liz Weaver

The Board of Directors of the Tamarack Institute is proud to announce the appointment of Danya Pastuszek as CO-CEO and Director of Vibrant Communities. Danya joins the Tamarack Institute from the United Way of Salt Lake, where she worked for 10 years helping lead the organization's collective impact transformation and the development of the Promise Partnership, a regional cross-sector partnership comprised of multiple place-based cradle-to-career initiatives. She served most recently as the Chief Operating Officer. Danya assumes this leadership role from Paul Born who is the Founder and Co-CEO of the Tamarack Institute since its inception in 2001. 

Danya Pastuszek 3Danya has served in senior leadership positions centred on strategic planning, learning, data analytics and continuous improvement, operations, resource development, and partnership building. Over the course of her career, Danya has focused on the advancement and educational attainment of youth, workforce readiness and development, immigrant and refugee services, and health.

In Ontario, where she’s lived for the past seven years with her husband and two young children, she has served on the board of directors of the Wise Owl Daycare; Family and Children’s Services of Renfrew County; and the corporate services committee of the United Way Centraide Ottawa. A resident of the United States until she moved to Ontario in 2015, she has also been active in the StriveTogether network. As a recognized community leader with experience supporting community change efforts throughout North America, she brings important experience supporting the development of backbone organizations, advancing racial equity in organizational operations, and supporting continuous improvement efforts.


Shauna Sylvester, the Tamarack Institute’s Board chair, explained why Danya was the right leader to join the organization to help ensure the success of its 2030 vision:

“After starting her career as a social service provider in refugee resettlement and workforce development, Danya became a leader in supporting organizations to partner across sectors to achieve system-level outcomes. Over the past 20 years, she has helped to build partnerships, contributed to policy and other systems changes, advanced equity initiatives, and provided thought leadership in community change. We know that Danya will provide strong leadership to the team in Vibrant Communities, support our relationships with partners, and work closely with our Co-CEO Liz Weaver to support Tamarack’s important work in supporting communities through these challenging times.


Danya is excited to join the Tamarack team and build on its twenty years of impact on community change:

I’m thrilled to be joining Liz and the Tamarack network in pursuit of ending poverty in Canada. Succeeding a founder is a tremendous responsibility, and I am excited to learn with and innovate with Tamarack’s bold and committed team, Board, donors, and other partners, at a time when we have a tremendous opportunity to create a world that works for all of us.


Tamarack Institute adopted the Co-CEO model in 2018. The Co-CEOs share operational oversight and strategic leadership. As well, each of the Co-CEOs engage directly with members and partners leading a specific portfolio area. Danya will be leading the Vibrant Communities portfolio. She will be replacing Paul Born. After a brief sabbatical, Paul will be returning part-time as the Senior Director of Whole Community Change. Danya will be joined in the Co-CEO role with Liz Weaver, Co-CEO and Director, Tamarack Learning Centre.

Danya joins the Tamarack Institute at an exciting time of growth. Celebrating our twentieth anniversary and incredible growth, we launched our 2030 vision over the past year with important goals for growing the capacity of changemakers; shifting policy and advocating for systems change; and driving large-scale change. She will lead the Vibrant Communities team to support communities working to end poverty, deepen community, build brighter futures with and for youth, and develop community strategies for just climate transitions.


In the past 20 years, Tamarack has grown as an institute supporting community leaders to learn about community development and large-scale change. The organization has contributed significantly to ending poverty across Canada and advancing place-based work to strengthen community. Tamarack engages and empowers over 41,000 learners from all sectors through in-person and online learning events, peer-to-peer networking, papers, e-magazines, websites and consulting to strengthen their capacity to lead community change efforts. In VibrantCommunities, Tamarack works with over 100 regional networks operating in over 400 cities to end poverty, deepen community, build youth futures, and most recently establish just transitions to climate change. Vibrant Communities has a proven track record of success, contributing to more than 1 million Canadians exiting poverty in recent years.


For more information, please contact:
Liz Weaver, Co-CEO
Tamarack Institute
Liz@tamarackcommunity.ca


Topics:
Community Engagement, Collective Impact, Evaluating Community Impact, Collaborative Leadership, Community Building, Community Innovation, Tamarack Institute, Blog


Liz Weaver

By Liz Weaver

Liz is passionate about the power and potential of communities getting to impact on complex issues. Liz is Tamarack’s Co-CEO and Director, Learning Centre. In this role she provides strategic direction to the organization and leads many of its key learning activities including collective impact capacity building services for the Ontario Trillium Foundation. Liz is one of Tamarack's highly regarded trainers and has developed and delivered curriculum on a variety of workshop topics including collaborative governance, leadership, collective impact, community innovation, influencing policy change and social media for impact and engagement.

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