By Charlie Senack
Dennis Van Staalduinen has parted ways with the Wellington West Business Improvement Area (BIA) after serving as its executive director for more than five years.
In a statement posted on the BIA website, the BIA board said it wanted to recognize Van Staalduinen “for his service and his passion for this community over the past 18 years.”
Van Staalduinen played a prominent role in founding the Wellington West BIA in 2008. According to his LinkedIn page, the goal was to “represent, promote and improve the business conditions for more than 530 businesses and 100-plus property owners in Ottawa’s Hintonburg and Wellington Village neighbourhoods …”
Board chair Brian Muzyka thanked Van Staalduinen for taking the BIA through “several challenging years of growth and change.”
The statement included a comment from Van Staalduinen: “It has been the pride and joy of my life to work so closely with the local merchants of Hintonburg and Wellington Village over my years with the BIA. And while I am very sad to be parting ways at this time, I thank all my BIA colleagues and collaborators for the incredible opportunity to serve with you.”
Van Staalduinen asked his Twitter followers to reach out if they had any ideas on how he could use the “weirdly particular skills” that he picked up as executive director. Van Staalduinen did not provide Kitchissippi Times with comment.
Before joining the Wellington West BIA, Van Staalduinen served 20 years as a communications, public relations and brand strategy professional. From December 2000 to October 2017, he was president and chief strategy officer at Brandvelope Consulting.
Van Staalduinen taught part-time in brand management at Algonquin College for six years and was director of marketing at Network RADIUS for a year before that.
The BIA has not said who the new executive director will be or when the spot will be filled.
“During this transition, the Wellington West BIA is still actively working to support all our members. We are currently in the process of defining how that looks, and feel that now would be too early in the process to make any further comments,” said Muzyka in a statement to Kitchissippi Times.