Susan Danard will become managing director of Public Affairs at the University of British Columbia on September 2.
Danard was a news reporter for 15 years, working for newspapers and television in Ontario and B.C. Since 2004 she has worked in media relations and communications roles at TransLink and BC Hydro, where she was most recently manager, Capital Projects Consultation and Communications.
“Ms. Danard has the right qualities and experience to strategically build awareness of UBC’s extraordinary research, teaching and community service initiatives,” said Pascal Spothelfer, vice president Communications and Community Partnership.
“Susan is a responsive communicator who has shown herself to be adept at serving the needs of the media and working collaboratively with community partners.”
Danard takes on the role following the retirement of Lucie McNeill, who served as director for the past three years.
While a senior reporter at the Victoria Times Colonist and legislative reporter for CKVU, Danard covered provincial elections, budgets, public sector bargaining, and policy issues related to education, health care and economics. She received individual and team journalism awards for a series on mental health and homelessness and another on child protection.
In her recent role at BC Hydro, she led communications and consultation to gain public consent for building major capital projects required to upgrade and expand the province’s aging electricity system.
Danard was a founding organizer of the Times Colonist Book Sale for Literacy, a mentor for the Vancouver Board of Trade Leaders of Tomorrow Mentorship Program and currently chairs the advisory council of Royal Roads University’s School of Communication and Culture.