Jennifer Warren

Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo Economic Development & Tourism’s (FMWBEDT) Manager of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Jennifer Warren, has called our region home for the past eight years. She is an avid volunteer, and the past president and current director of Rotary Club of Fort McMurray Oilsands. YMM: What is the most rewarding part of your career? JW: Getting to work with people as they take on huge, exciting challenges and helping them to navigate those challenges. YMM: What is the biggest challenge you’ve taken on this year? JW: Honestly, I feel like just coming back to work after having a baby was a huge challenge! It was the compounding of working from home for two years, to being on Maternity leave to jumping right back into things in a new role… I found the transition very hard, but ultimately rewarding. YMM: How have your priorities changed in the last 10 years? JW: I came to FMWB right out of university (eight years ago) looking for Marketing work, and after a year of working for a homebuilder (in a declining economy) I moved into what turned into a very rewarding career path of working with entrepreneurs and business owners. YMM: What keeps you in Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo? JW: The sense of community here is very unlike the bigger city (Edmonton) that I grew up in.  It feels like a small town but with a bigger population.  When I first moved here (with no set timeline in mind) I found it hard to integrate in the first year and a bit, but as I got more involved in the community and went out of my comfort zone to make friends, I built my friend-family that I feel is part of what sets this community apart from any other. YMM: In your opinion, in what areas does our region need improvement? JW: Fort McMurray has overcome great adversity,  and continues to overcome more all the time.  I think one big thing that we have been battling is our outward reputation, but I know that there is great effort going into this from some of my colleagues at Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo Economic Development & Tourism. YMM: What are you most grateful for? JW: I am most grateful for my son. He exhausts me to my core but is also a ray of sunshine in my life.  I am also very grateful for the opportunities that this community has presented me with.  I have learned so much in the short (relatively) period of time that I have been here, and I truly believe I would not have learned as much if I had stayed in Edmonton. YMM: Who is your hero, and why? JW: Honestly, all of the ladies that I work with at FMWBEDT are amazing! They are all superheroes in their own right. I always knew that they were killing it as working moms, and then when I became one I found out it was even harder than I thought (and they all go over and beyond.) Also… my Mom. She is amazing. She went back to school even later in life than I had and she is always working on herself and striving to improve. That kind of self-reflection and work is not something that comes naturally to everyone…a true superpower. YMM: What is something that people are always surprised to learn about you? JW: I went to a performing arts school from grades seven to 11 and actively pursued ballet as a career in my late teens and early twenties.