Meet our people
Chisom is a mother of three young girls, an established author and a passionate community advocate. She moved to Canada from Nigeria to joinUNB Saint John’s MBA program and graduated in 2021. Before moving to Canada, she worked with FirstBank Nigeria Limited in several roles. Having held management roles in customer service, Chisom delights in providing excellent experiences to the public. In Nigeria, she also volunteered with several charities including working with Seniors Homes and organizing fundraising for educational sponsorships. Chisom looks forward to enhancing community outreach at Port Saint John.
1. Tell us a little bit about your new role. What will you be doing and what are you excited to accomplish? As the Community Coordinator, I’ll oversee community-related projects and social corporate responsibility initiatives. This is a new role at Port Saint John. Throughout the past decade, the Port has had a strong positive impact on the community, but they are ready to take it to the next level. I will oversee our education program, community partnerships and events, and community outreach including a new ‘Anchored in the Community’ newsletter (sign-up here). I will also support the Engagement and Sustainability team on other projects.
2. What is your favourite thing about working for Port Saint John so far? I like that Port Saint John embraces diversity and makes the workplace safe for everyone. I feel encouraged to bring new ideas and innovations to the team for consideration. Port Saint John has a welcoming and fun culture that makes me feel at home. I also value the commitment the Port has to the community which surrounds it.
3. What professional development are you excited to do with Port Saint John? Why? I have been in customer-facing roles for most of my career, a role that I love as it provides me with the opportunity to create positive change and make lasting impacts. This chapter of my career further exposes me to corporate social responsibility and community engagement. It is an exciting period for me as I look forward to improving my knowledge of stakeholder engagement and corporate citizenship. This will help me to lead initiatives and programs that will further benefit the community and all our stakeholders.
4. Why is it important to you to work towards our mission: “To be the driver of sustainable economic growth in our region through innovation and collaboration”? Since moving to Saint John I can tell that the people here are hard workers and committed to working together to ensure that we have an equitable future for all. I believe the Port plays a role in this because it influences so many other sectors which provide good paying jobs for locals. To me, it feels like working at Port Saint John is working towards a greater mission of prosperity for our region.
5. What community initiative or volunteering opportunities have you enjoyed the most with Port Saint John? Why?During my work term with the Port, I joined the team in a tree planting event organized by ACAP SJ. This was fun and was an opportunity to bond with the team while contributing to saving our planet. We planted 150 trees!
6. Where do you see Port Saint John in 10 years? I believe the Port is currently in growth mode with the infrastructure upgrades that are happening. I can see us reaching more students each year with our education program and growing our community outreach to an even higher level, perhaps with a team of students to help. I also believe Port Saint John will be a sustainability leader in our region with a renewed emphasis on that in recent years. I can’t wait to see where we will be!