For 30 years Susan McLeod has been helping museum, heritage and other tourism destinations share their unique stories with visitors.
SGang Gwaay National Historic Site
Susan started her consulting practice in 2013 to assist tourism and museum operators in the areas of destination planning, product development, marketing and interpretive planning. She also provides training, project management, group facilitation, and exhibit-text writing services. As a former museum curator she understands first-hand the need to balance the protection and preservation of natural and cultural resources with public access.
Prior to setting up her consulting practice, Susan worked for Parks Canada where she helped grow visitation by innovating products and services to satisfy the evolving needs of visitors. While at Parks Canada Susan worked with iconic national parks and historic sites all across the country to help them maximize the enjoyment of their visitors. Along the way she developed a keen appreciation for the importance of these sites as drivers of local tourism and regional economic development. She also became an early adopter and authorized user of the powerful market segmentation tool, Explorer Quotient, which provides important insights into consumer needs and expectations.
Susan began her career at the Royal Ontario Museum in the area of interpretive planning. This was followed by several rewarding years as curator at the National Postal Museum where she researched the history of Canada through a postal service lens, acquiring artifacts for the collection and sharing knowledge through exhibitions and publications, most notably On Track: The Railway Mail Service in Canada.
When an opportunity arose to introduce the function of interpretive planning into the practices of Canada’s most visited museum, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Susan was tasked with leading the initiative. During her years building and lending vision to that department, Susan was instrumental in the successes of many ground-breaking exhibitions and programs, including The Mysterious Bog People. She also honed the project management skills fundamental to producing cultural events and products on time and on budget.
Susan started her career in archaeology (B.A, Trent University), drawn by the challenge of resurrecting the past through material evidence unearthed from the ground. Driven by a desire to share the reconstructed stories of people’s lives through exhibitions and programs, she pursued a degree in Museum Studies (M.A, University of Toronto).
Susan is an enthusiastic team player with extensive experience leading cross-functional groups. She is also an advocate of sustainable tourism practices. Susan has solid research and communication skills backed by an analytical yet creative mind. She is bilingual and based in Ottawa, Canada where she volunteers as a community activist on behalf of heritage protection and sits on the board of the Diefenbunker: Canada’s Cold War Museum.