Andrea Reimer has been a strong public voice for over two decades with a focus on making government easy to access and giving people tools to hold power accountable.
Andrea started her public work as a community organizer on issues of social, economic and environmental justice. In 2002 she was elected to the Vancouver School Board – a first for the Green Party in Canada – and went on to be elected three times to City Council with Vision Vancouver. During that time she served as Vancouver’s first permanent Deputy Mayor, represented Vancouver at the regional level, served as vice-chair on the national $800 million Green Municipal Fund, and represented the world’s cities at the United Nations.
Driven by policy outcomes, Andrea led the City’s effort to be the Greenest City on Earth and the first major city in the Americas to commit to getting off fossil fuels, championed Vancouver’s nationally significant municipal framework for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, catalyzed the first public digital strategy in the country and transformed public engagement and open government policies.
After retiring from municipal politics in 2018, Andrea was awarded a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in recognition of her significant contribution to leading edge policy-making. She subsequently was appointed as the first policy practitioner fellow at UBC’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs.
In 2020 Andrea founded Tawâw Strategies, a strategic advisory firm, started teaching power literacy at way too many places and continues to sit on way too many boards.
About Tawâw Strategies
Tawâw Strategies was founded in November 2020 by Andrea Reimer. The original strategy had been to take Andrea’s decades of experience in community organizing, public policy advocacy and elected office to help courageous leaders make bold, progressive ideas a reality in order to impact the biggest public policy problems of our time.
Over four years, Tawâw Strategies has worked on 85 projects with over 40 clients including labour unions, post-secondaries, First Nations, local governments, provincial governments, health authorities, crown corporations, elected officials, Indigenous organizations, housing providers, non-profits, foundations, political parties, economic development organizations and even a few tech start ups. The projects span an even broader range.
What remains constant is a commitment to deeply listen to the client’s needs and innovate to get the job done, all while ensuring there is organizational support for the effort and building the internal capacity in organizations to maintain policy changes for the long haul.
Power literacy is a passion of Andrea’s and it informs all of her work. In addition, through Tawaw Strategies and partnerships with policy institutes and post-secondary institutions, Andrea has developed ground-breaking training and courses to support change makers to better understand and navigate power structures. Never heard of power literacy? Check out her videos on IG or LinkedIn.