David Billson

Kate is presently MP of London-West in London, Ontario. Previous to pursuing public office, Kate had a distinguished career in local news broadcasting and public relations. She was able to speak to a wide variety of issues and London's relationship to innovation.

Titus has co-founded a number of initiatives to help make London better connected, most recently Springboard (formerly unLondon).

As someone who thrives on innovation, Titus shares his perspectives on innovation in our home town.

Peter Fragiskatos is an MP for London North Centre. We covered a large variety of topics, including what it's like to work in government as an MP, how London is represented on the national stage, and the broader economic region of Southwestern Ontario.

Kate and I served together on the board of Pillar Nonprofit Network. She's a passionate Londoner and I enjoyed exploring the areas of the city where we are doing well, and where we still have our challenges.

I particularly enjoyed her stories of "Knocking on Doors" and what she's learned from talking to Londoners about the city.

I find the tension that exists in London palpable. It flows through every aspect of our city. Economic. Political. Social.

I think this tension is what makes us great. I also think it’s what holds us back. The first three interviews encapsulate the excitement, opportunity and tension that exists in our community. We get a unique opportunity to look forwards, but also backwards, and review some of the trends that made our city what it is today.

Rachel Berdan, the cohost of Branding #LdnOnt, and I review and recap what we learned from the first three interviews. We will do one of these recap episodes after every three interviews. I have the benefit of having conducted the interviews, whereas Rachel is hearing them in the same order as you, the listener.

We hope that this episode pulls together some of the pieces of the narrative. We don’t have the answers, but we think we have pretty good questions!

The London Economic Development Corporation is one of those organizations that we hear a lot about, but don't often have the opportunity to fully appreciate what they do for the city. I enjoyed Kapil's overview of what LEDC does in our city.

I think I learned more about the LEDC in this 45 minute interview than I knew after living here for almost 20 years.

It was a good exploration of the economic factors that determine the success or failure of a small city.

I enjoyed this interview with Steve Bolton, Head Coach at Libro Credit Union. The conversation was hard to stay on the topic of London's brand as Steve has so many good comments on leadership as well. I enjoyed how he framed the Libro strategic process around their 'why'.

We explored both the importance of a focus on building London but also the broader economic region of Southwestern Ontario.

The first section of Branding #LdnOnt explores the concept of "A tale of two cities" - there are different narratives that come to the surface about London. Are we conservative? Progressive? Forward thinking? Looking back.

An update on the Branding #LdnOnt project, and the official launch of Season 1.