Leann Hackman-Carty

Leann has been the CEO of Economic Developers Alberta (EDA) since 2009. She specializes in community economic recovery and resiliency. In 2014, Leann completed a project with 11 Alberta flood-impacted communities. In 2016-17, she worked with the Fort McMurray region on business and economic recovery by settig up and operating the business hotline, validating businesses for Red Cross emergency relief, and leading a 10-member economic recovery assessment team to the region. She has also done extensive training and consulting work across Canada and the United States in the area, including among the Eastern Tribes. She is currently coordinating a multi-stakeholder group focused on building regional economic capacity in response to the 2024 Alberta wildfires.

Leann has updated the Canadian version of IEDC’s Leadership in Times of Crisis toolkit several times to help communities prepare for and recover from economic disruptions and brought IEDC’s community economic resiliency training to Canada. EDA’s most current version of this course continues to be offered online and in-person. More recently, Leann’s personal and professional experience has fostered a growing interest in supporting the mental wellness of community leaders in challenging times. EDA’s Mental Wellbeing for Community Leaders Course will launch in 2025.

In addition to her work at EDA, Leann heads up MYD Global, which is focused on community capacity building, resilience and recovery. At the end of December 2017, she released her “Master Your Disaster” series of guidebooks on Amazon designed to help individuals, businesses and communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. In 2018, she received Public Safety Canada’s Emergency Management Exemplary Service Award-Resilient Communities.

Leann is a Certified Economic Developer through EDAC and has a BA (Political Science/Sociology), BSW (Community Development), Professional Management Certificate (Marketing) and a Certificate in Economic Development.