Donna Finley is the founder and senior leader at Finley & Associates. For 35 years, Donna has repeatedly proven herself to be a big picture strategist, successfully leading transformational initiatives. She has a solid, well-deserved reputation for strategic leadership, governance, organizational capacity building and leadership development.

Donna’s passion to create new thinking, ability to quickly synthesize information, create integrated strategies and motivate her clients has earned her high praise from Boards and Executive teams. Donna is a SSHRC Doctoral Fellow, a noted speaker, a pragmatist, author of multiple academic articles and co-author of a textbook on strategic planning.

How do Donna’s clients and colleagues describe her?

Motivator, wise, brilliant, critical strategic thinker, unfazed, strong, direct, mischievous, very deep, has depth, breadth and experience….

Awards & Recognition

• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship (May 2009 – April 2011). University of Calgary.
• Queen Elizabeth II Doctoral Scholarship (2009). University of Calgary. Declined in favor of SSHRC.
• Queen Elizabeth II Doctoral Scholarship (2008). University of Calgary.
• Alberta Premier’s Award of Excellence for work in partnership with the Alberta Agricultural Products Marketing Council on the Agricultural Industry Governance Review. Bronze medalist (2009).
• The City of Calgary Community Achievement Award (Education) for innovative Public-Private Partnerships.Nominated by Calgary International Language Foundation (2005).
• The Conference Board of Canada’s Global Best Award for partnerships in Business and Education. Nominated by Calgary French & International School (2004).
• Award of Distinction, National Post Awards for Business in the Arts for work with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (2003).