Alexia McKinnon

Associate Director of Indigenous Leadership, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity/AB
Mentor(e)

Lexi joined the Indigenous Leadership team in 2012. As the Associate Director of Indigenous Leadership, she focuses her time on designing and developing programs to inspire Indigenous leaders. These programs aim to utilize the strengths of communities as a way to create solutions honouring traditional knowledge and governance through a contemporary lens. Lexi is passionate about systems change, social innovation and design thinking from the teachings learned through an Indigenous worldview. She is grateful and excited about the opportunity to learn from and work with Indigenous people and communities across Canada.

During her time at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Lexi has also led the institutions Truth and Reconciliation Framework.  Her first task was to curate a Truth and Reconciliation Summit in 2016 asking the question of what would it look like if we could inspire a community to advance the action of Truth and Reconciliation in their lives, organizations and communities. From that summit she co-edited the Truth and Reconciliation Summit report which provided a data informed approach to advancing Truth and Reconciliation. This report was then utilized to design Banff Centre’s own Truth and Reconciliation through Right Relations program.

Through her previous experience of working in the North, she brings specialized knowledge of working with Self-Governing First Nations, Government and Community Relations. Her proudest accomplishment was working for her own Nation as the Cultural Centre Coordinator for the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations (CAFN) ; holding the responsibility  for the development of the CAFN Da Ku Cultural Centre in Haines Junction, Yukon. She also served as the Special Assistant to the Yukon’s Premier Executive Assistant to the Yukon’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and Justice.

Lexi received her Bachelor of Arts in Canadian Studies from Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick and completed her MBA in Aboriginal Business and Leadership at the Beedie School of Business (Simon Fraser University). Prior to focusing on governance, Lexi worked as the Yukon’s Community Arts and Culture Liaison. She was involved with the performing and visual arts as well as with heritage and cultural preservation. Each day she wakes up appreciating how lucky she is to be working in a place that promotes and nurtures her two passions - arts and governance.

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