Videos

Tonya Surman

Self-proclaimed ‘governance geek’ turned facilitator of a social experiment.

TONYA SURMAN has been a life-long activist. After 20 years of helping non-profits build networks, she became frustrated with seeing many organizations continually “reinventing the wheel”. She was particularly interested in how many small groups and businesses had so much in common, including similar set-up and office issues. She believed that by coming together to experience “institutionalized sharing” they could create viable enterprises and share overlapping resources. The result: The Centre for Social Innovation, a workspace that currently helps 100 organizations create their own success. Tonya’s value proposition: “I’m a social entrepreneur who wants to get people to work together, using open-network thinking.”