As she starts a new position with Chandos Construction, Jennifer Cross says she’s found a role that fully allows her to embrace her passion for city-building.
Cross joined the North American company’s Ottawa office earlier this month as director of regional development for eastern Ontario.
In an interview with OBJ on Wednesday, she said she feels like she’s “in the right place.”
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“Where I was last, I learned so much about the future of work and how business leaders were thinking about the state of Ottawa,” she said. “That has really directly impacted how I feel about the growth of Ottawa and where development is going in the city. It’s such a broad range of things that go into building a city.”
An interior designer by trade, Cross said the COVID-19 pandemic was the thing that sparked her interest in getting involved with the construction industry.
“I started to see the way our city was changing,” she said. “The future of work was suddenly under peril, and what was that going to look like? I’ve always kept my ear to the ground and I could see that things were shifting with Ottawa specifically and I wanted to be a part of that conversation.”
In 2022, she joined Marant Construction as business development manager for the National Capital Region, a role she stayed in until last month.
Cross said much of her work focused on the interior construction of workplaces and, due to the timing, the changing needs of office workers.
“The way we use our spaces really dramatically changed,” she said. “It was a really interesting time for growth and development for our city. And I wouldn’t say that we’re out of it, but I would say that we’ve moved past that critical temperature check. That was the thing in 2020 – is the office dead? I think we’ve all realized that it isn’t dead; it’s evolved.”
Now, as the office sector stabilizes, Cross said there were other aspects of city development that have been increasingly catching her attention.
In 2023, she co-founded Ottawa’s City BuildHERS, a networking organization that hosts events to foster connections between women from across all city-building industries, including construction. She said it pointed her in the direction of some new ambitions.
“Through that work I started to have a real passion for city development and that’s the next evolution of my career,” she said.
With Chandos Construction, Cross said she will be more focused on community-building and projects that meet the needs of everyday people, from fire stations and community centres to social housing and pools.
“I feel like I’ve come into my full mission in my career now in terms of really being at the heart of city-building and community development and all the things that go into that,” said Cross. “It’s just such an incredible world to be part of, when you’re really driven by city-building through an equity lens. We’re creating these cities that people want to live in.”
Ottawa is one of Chandos’s seven markets and Cross’s work will cover a large portion of eastern Ontario, stretching from Ottawa out to Cornwall, Trenton and Peterborough.
“We’re in total growth mode,” said Cross. “We are adding to our footprint. We’ve added a warehouse and tool centre and we’re adding to our headcount. It’s really exciting to be part of a company that’s growing and putting down deeper roots, investing in the city where I live and work.”
Other people on the move
The Ottawa Hospital Foundation has added Sean Heffernan as its new chief financial officer, according to president and CEO Tim Kluke, who made the announcement on LinkedIn last week. The bulk of Heffernan’s 30-year career has been spent at Soccer Canada, where he spent 18 years as CFO, before moving to the transition team for a year to support the organization through major executive leadership changes. Kluke said Heffernan’s experience will “be a tremendous asset” to the foundation. Kluke also thanked finance and administration vice-president Shelley Crawford, who is remaining with the organization, for her leadership through the CFO transition.
Mychelle Mollot has stepped away from Ottawa tech company Knak to join U.S. data security firm CrashPlan as chief marketing officer. In a LinkedIn post last week, Mollot, who served as CMO of Knak since 2023, thanked her former team and said she would be continuing to help the company going forward as a member of its advisory board.
Hats off!
Five local leaders are being recognized for their accomplishments by Algonquin College, which will be awarding honorary degrees at its spring convocation ceremonies in June. Cameron Love, president and CEO of the Ottawa Hospital, will be honoured by the School of Health Studies; Patrick Moore, a carpenter with local company Amor Construction, will receive his honorary degree from the Centre for Construction Excellence; Christina Tessier, president and CEO of science museum Ingenium, is being recognized by the faculty of arts, media and design; Peter Tilley, CEO of the Ottawa Mission, will be awarded his degree from the School of Wellness, Public Safety and Community Studies; and Canadian country music artist Jason Blaine will receive his degree from the Pembroke Campus.
