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GVBOT names Edelman executive as new president and CEO

Bridgitte Anderson is first woman to helm Greater Vancouver Board of Trade in its 132-year history
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Bridgitte Anderson has been appointed president and chief executive officer of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade (GVBOT).

Anderson, the first woman appointed to the role in the board’s 132-year history, has for four years been leading the Vancouver operations of the Edelman global communications firm.

She will leave to take up the new role November 12.

Anderson is a former journalist and was press secretary to former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell. She has served as chair of the board’s Women’s Leadership Circle and has been a board director since 2018. She is co-chair of the Jack Webster Foundation and in 2017 obtained her Institute of Corporate Directors designation as a director.

She succeeds Iain Black, who left the board earlier this year to return to the tech sector as an executive. Under Black the board became a much more prominent voice in its advocacy for business.

It staged several high-profile events featuring such speakers as prime ministers Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper, Barack and Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Richard Branson, among others. The board conducted an extensive national search for his successor.

“I look forward to building upon that momentum and working on behalf of our organization’s 5,800-plus members to ensure that our region’s business community has a voice at all levels of government, and our local economy continues to prosper,” Anderson said.

“Bridgitte is a respected pillar in B.C.’s business community with a wealth of experience in communications, journalism and public policy,” said Lori Matheson, the board’s chair.

“This is a very exciting day for the Board of Trade, and we look forward to working with Bridgitte as she builds on our 132-year-old institution’s history and begins writing its next chapter.”