Adelana Gilpin-Jackson

Business leader, Business mentor, Consultant, Designer, Entrepreneur, Environmentalist, Global soul, Idea generator, Inventor, Life mentor, Parent, Project manager, Scientist, Technologist, Writer/Editor

Innovator, professional engineer, experienced asset manager, and executive leader. Technical and business leader with over 25 years’ experience, who brings a unique, practical, open minded and collaborative approach to any endeavor. My interactions in the private and public sector have included successful engineering, technology management, multi-year infrastructure management programs, climate change management, asset management, organizational transformation, and emergency planning. I have enjoyed primary research and the discipline that is required for peer reviewed technical publications. Key strengths and accomplishments are: Research and Innovation: Subject matter expertise through engineering design, materials technology, information technology, ageing of physical infrastructure and business process. In my profession as a project, program or portfolio manager, the aim of project delivery practice has been efficiency; however, through innovation I have been able to demonstrate that technology can be used drive effectiveness in business decisions. These efforts have brought me recognition for patents in both Canada and the US with applications for electric utilities and beyond. Social Impact and Policy: Impact achieved as Chairman of the Board for the non-profit Peoples Foundation of Sierra Leone – a registered Canadian charity that provided academic scholarships to disadvantaged youth in Sierra Leone. This role involved organizational development, leadership in strategic goal setting, and fund raising for the foundation. Executive Leadership: Experience gained as the Vice-President for Engineering and Innovation for Icona Properties, a boutique real estate developer in Vancouver and Vice-President and Chief Operations Officer at SmolPawa Energy, an energy start-up which was also based in Vancouver. These roles demonstrated my executive leadership, and business acumen as they involved people management, resource accountability, identification of target investment markets, sourcing and mobilizing debt and equity financing as well as navigating regulatory environments. Asset Management: Regularly and successfully developing standards and specifications, define investment requirements, identify scope targets, and manage people and technology to ensure a reliable and efficient asset system. To date this has included direct capital planning and deployment of almost over billion dollars across the past 15 years as well as playing key roles in major capital projects totaling over $2 billion in the same period. Portfolio and Project Management: Managing projects across distances and cultures as Engineering Sector Head and Cost Centre manager with the United Nations. This international experience provided valuable real-world skills in delivering engineering projects in a multi-lingual setting within an atmosphere of uncertainty, limited resources and very tight budget and schedule pressures. Multi-disciplinary leadership and collaboration throughout a career as engineer, cost center manager, executive leader and consultant. This experience has included the delivery of multi-million-dollar strategic initiatives such climate change management, organizational transformation, and emergency planning. Over 20 years of writing specifications, standards, strategy documents, asset management policies and peer reviewed technical papers. Experiences include presenting complex thoughts and information through conversations, discussion, lectures, presentations and seminars across all levels of a corporation as well as at international committees and conferences. Overall, I have enjoyed unique or sometimes new roles in varying spaces and geographic locations.

Innovation, human development, technology, social justice, efficiency and effectiveness, equity

Multi-expertise, multi-focus, multi-resourced actions ae needed towards a new age of human achievement and progress. We are in age of rapid innovation, and data democratization when global human development and business effectiveness are ever increasingly linked. I believe that innovation across all business streams will provide the means to harness and channel new resources, create alternate human solutions and reduce the environmental impact and footprint of business decisions.

Asset Management, Business Development, Capital Planning, Climate Change Impacts, Coaching, Emergency Planning, Energy - Generation, Energy - Sustainable, Energy - Transmission, Engineering, Innovation, Physical Infrastructure, Portfolio Management, Project Management, Technical Writing

My transformation from believing my background and experiences in the global south are limitations to understanding the power in my voice and that my global experiences have given me resilience and a unique perspective. My emergence as a professional who combines my education and experiences to see and seek non-standard solutions throughout my career and be open-minded in engaging with all levels of society and in corporate spaces. TED has provided a platform for me to see the work of others with similar stories and global experiences and democratized competence.

Art