Anna Thornton, Senior Director, Executive Office and Corporate Affairs, National Arts Centre (Ottawa, Canada)

Anna Thornton is an experienced leader in project management, HR, digital strategy, and change management. She has a proven ability to lead large projects that make systems work better and create stronger experiences for both employees and visitors.

Since joining the National Arts Centre in 2001, Anna has held senior roles in Information Management & IT, People & Culture, and Audience Engagement. Before being appointed Senior Director of Visitor Experience in August 2024, she led the modernization of the NAC’s core business systems—including payroll, HR, finance, CRM, and telephony.

A certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and PROSCI Change Management Practitioner, Anna holds a bachelor’s degree in Communication. Bilingual and deeply committed to continuous improvement, she is passionate about creating systems, environments, and experiences that help people—staff and guests alike—feel connected, supported, and inspired by their NAC.

Kondwani Mwase, Executive Director, Brand & Audience Engagement, National Arts Centre (Ottawa, Canada)

Kondwani Mwase is a high-impact executive leader with a track record of turning ideas into movements and audiences into communities. For over a decade, he has shaped transformative engagement strategies, designed programs that foster consumer loyalty, and led campaigns that inspire people and move metrics. That said, his deep specialization is people.

As Executive Director, Brand & Audience Engagement at the National Arts Centre (NAC) he’s leading the charge to reimagine how the NAC shows up —deepening its reach, relevance, and impact across audiences and communities. Equal parts strategist and steward, he aspires to contribute to a progressive, productive and powerful future for the performing arts.

The Space We Make: How Culture is Cultivated When Concrete Meets Community

The talk explores the National Arts Centre’s transformation from a dark, brutalist-style building into a transparent, public facing space, and the deeper cultural shift that transformation required. The NAC’s architectural renewal was only the beginning. To earn trust, the institution also had to make its values visible through visitor experience, programming, communications, and sustained community engagement.

The presentation traces how architecture, brand, and strategic direction aligned around a shared goal: shifting loyalty from subscriptions to relationships. Through audience-centred initiatives and CRM-informed engagement strategies, including a case study on Black Out Night, the talk examines how traditional measures of success were challenged in favour of relationship-based indicators such as return, presence, and community response.

Along the way, the NAC has had to balance institutional legacy with relevance, define what “meaningful engagement” looks like, and build trust with communities historically excluded from cultural spaces, and manage the realities of operating a performing arts centre that is open to the public day and night, 365 days of the year. Key lessons include the importance of visibility, consistency between values and behaviour, and using data as a listening tool rather than a transactional one.

Ultimately, this is a story about who the NAC was created for, who it is now, and who it is becoming; it’s about how relationships, not transactions, are shaping the future of cultural institutions.