Colleen Collins joined the Foundation as Vice-President in 2015. She brings her research, business and policy expertise to the Foundation’s work as part of a team commitment to quality, clarity and usefulness. She is a frequent media commentator and experienced speaker on a wide range of issues important to the West.
Her broad range of experience in administration, government and academia reaches back to her early career in the late 1970s as a researcher in the office of then-Alberta premier Peter Lougheed. Collins earned her PhD in Marketing at the University of Alberta before joining the faculty at the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University. She has taught extensively on marketing, research, and technology adoption as well as taking on administrative duties as Associate Dean. Her published academic research includes public policy, export development, entrepreneurship and marketing.
Among her many notable accomplishments, Collins drove the establishment of the Executive MBA in Aboriginal Business and Leadership, and created a collaboration with graduate schools in the U.S., Mexico and Brazil to create the Americas MBA for Executives.