After eight years with E-Comm 9-1-1, Oliver Grüter-Andrew has departed as CEO, Nancy Kotani, Chair of the Board of Directors, announced today.
E-Comm has made enormous progress over the last eight years under Grüter-Andrew’s leadership. Highlights include:
- launch of the new enhanced Lower Mainland radio system in 2017;
- launch of E-Comm Vancouver Island communications centre in 2019;
- successfully navigating E-Comm through the challenging COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21;
- adoption of a new Transformation Plan to transform staffing, systems and service-delivery in 2022;
- securing $90 million in funding from the Province for Next Generation 9-1-1 in 2023;
- achieving E-Comm’s best service-level results of the past decade in 2024.
As E-Comm is currently awaiting the report and recommendations of the Province’s independent review of the organization, the Board felt that the timing was appropriate for a change of leadership, to meet the challenges and opportunities ahead.
“I sincerely thank Oliver for all of his extraordinary leadership in leading us to where we are today,” said Kotani. “We are grateful for his vision, positivity, advocacy and the many improvements at E-Comm under his leadership.”
The Board is pleased to announce that Nancy Blair, Chief Transformation Officer, has been named interim CEO while a search for a new permanent CEO is underway. “I am grateful to Nancy for agreeing to serve as interim CEO,” said Kotani. “Among our top priorities as a Board are continuing to work towards a successful launch of NG9-1-1, and resuming development of a new financial and pricing model to provide greater predictability and fairness for our partners. At the same time we need to sustain our staffing and service level improvements in a way that’s affordable for our funders. Nancy is ideally positioned to lead this work, having developed and led E-Comm’s Transformation Plan improvements to date.”
The Board is committed to conducting an extensive search for a new CEO, and anticipates the process will take several months.