March 14, 2025
Gwen is a citizen of the Ktunaxa Nation and has worked for the Ktunaxa Nation Council for the past 40 years. She has held a variety of senior management positions, overseeing departments of Education, Health, Corporate Services, Traditional Knowledge and Language; Gwen is now a member of the team leading the Ktunaxa Nation back to self-government.
Gwen established the design for the first person centric, population data warehouse in BC in 2002 and continues to be a champion of the BC First Nations’ Data Governance Initiative (bcfndgi.com); a tripartite government initiative (federal, provincial and First Nations governments) with a key objective of having timely access to quality data to plan, manage and account for investments and outcomes associated with First Nations’ well-being. Gwen was a member of the First Nations Health Council for 12 years, and part of the team that negotiated the transfer of Health Canada’s BC Region First Nations and Inuit Health Branch to First Nations control. She also advances BC First Nations’ interests nationally in data sovereignty and data governance, as a volunteer member of the First Nations Information Governance Centre Board.
Gwen is assisting Indigenous Services Canada in the implementation of their Indigenous Community Development National Strategy—an approach she helped co-develop through which to manage the shift from program-based funding and reporting relationships to investments and reporting aligned with community-driven, Nation-based development plans. She co-chairs, along with ISC HQ, a national working group comprised of Indigenous planning advisors from across the country, and federal government managers from Ottawa and the provinces/territories.
Gwen has extensive experience in relationship building. She has developed and instructed First Nation Studies courses at the elementary, secondary, and college levels and continues to function as a public educator. Her formal education is in business administration, and she has operated her own small business, as a community planner, facilitator/trainer, artist and curriculum developer.