“Leaders are the deepest believers”
In November 2023, Zita Cobb, CEO & Founder of Shorefast and Innkeeper of Fogo Island Inn, took centre stage to deliver the prestigious Thomas d’Aquino Lecture on Leadership. This two-part lecture series was hosted at the iconic National Art Gallery of Canada and the Ivey Business School in London, Ontario.
The following is an excerpt of her speech with a focus on growing the capacity of place leadership.
“Place holds all the answers.”
– Zita Cobb, Shorefast CEO & Founder
In mid-October Zita Cobb, Shorefast’s CEO & Founder, delivered the keynote address at the annual Evergreen Conference. Held at the Evergreen Brickworks in Toronto, the conference brings together thought leaders, community members, private and public sector innovators, and city builders from across the country who value place as key to a resilient and connected future.
At Shorefast, we believe that place holds all our relationships. When we practice economic development that takes into consideration the context of where we live – the geographic and human assets in each place – we set ourselves up for a stronger economic foundation that can successfully modulate the ecological, economic, and social needs of a community.
During her keynote, Zita reminded the crowd that “the opportunity for Canada is to figure out how we work at many scales.” Taking the local as our starting point, Shorefast’s work is to demonstrate how the proper tools and resources can enable other entrepreneurial communities to drive economic momentum and build toward the future they want.
Our national economy is strongest when it works toward the whole. Finding ways to stitch local economies into the national framework is central to what we do.
Recently, Shorefast’s founder & CEO, Zita Cobb, joined Michael Bungay Stanier on his podcast MBS Works to read two pages from one of her favourite books—The Third Pillar —and talk about the importance of community, economic dignity, and finding the right people to help create real change.
Written by Raghuram Rajan, The Third Pillar, was foundational to the creation of Shorefast’s first national initiative – a Community Economies Pilot that focused on discovering the key levers and interventions to strengthen local economies.
Zita Cobb was born on Fogo Island in 1958, part of the eighth generation in her family to call the island home. Forced to leave after the collapse of the inshore cod fishery, she and her family ended up in Ontario, Canada where she studied business in Ottawa. Following a subsequent successful career in high-tech, Zita returned to Fogo Island and established Shorefast in 2004 with two of her siblings, Alan and Anthony Cobb.
The story of her early life inspired the National Film Board of Canada’s immersive, interactive film in 2021 called Far Away from Far Away.
You can experience it here or Far Away From Far Away (nfb.ca)
More than 50 years ago, a film crew led by Colin Low headed to the island to shoot a series of short videos
and films as part of a larger project known as Challenge for Change.
A platform for transformative change, the Summit encouraged speakers to consider how the impact investing community can supercharge innovative solutions for the world’s most pressing problems. Over the course of 4 days, top changemakers discussed how we can transform our economy to create a more just, equitable, sustainable, and prosperous future for all.
Zita was able to share her unique point of view, and elaborate on Shorefast’s proof of concept developed on Fogo Island, as a way to prompt people to rethink how our economic systems can be rebuilt to be in service of place.
“Asset-based community development is essential to every place. Humans often have a very shallow understanding of what economic development is and what our assets are. That has given rise to a world where people make investments, but they are not development. Development is about uplifting the inherent assets of a place.”
-Zita Cobb
Prior to speaking at the Summit, Zita answered questions on why “Place” is our most important economic gift.
