Gunta MacKars

Background

About Gunta MacKars

I bring over 35 years of award-winning leadership experience in the public and private sectors working globally. My core leadership values are respect, clear communication, equity and sustainability with a depth of in executive management: Board reporting, complex change management, project delivery across various delivery models, and design integration across all disciplines. I am a strategist and big picture thinker identifying gaps, risks, issues and opportunities across functions. I build strong and motivated teams and divisions with consistent high engagement scores. This focus on people and customers leads to effective long-term outcomes for the organization, my teams, projects and customers. As Principal, Transportation at NORR I work with a team dedicated to bringing comprehensive and innovative design solutions to aviation, transit and multimodal hub projects. We understand the needs of government and private operators to maintain, upgrade and provide new transportation services, in addition to supporting infrastructure that is innovative and adaptable to future needs. We are focused on understanding and designing for customer needs to support seamless movement considering navigation and wayfinding, sustainability, universal design, integrated art, operational needs and maintainability by considering the full life cycle experience. At Metrolinx, as Vice President Design, I led a committed team in bringing consistency in holistic design delivery of all customer facing elements which include: architecture, site, urban design, transit oriented communities (TOC), universal design and sustainable design, customer interface in station interiors, fleet interiors, and regional wayfinding across all modes of transit. We implemented a rigorous review process focused on ensuring compliance, design quality, an elevated customer experience, resiliency and adaptability of design to support future needs. My Workplace team led the workplace transformation and the shift to an optimized hybrid model of working. I am passionate about and committed to being part of a healthy future. As a self-starter my passion led me to research humankind’s relationships with nature to better understand ways of shifting the urban paradigm to support humankind’s needs for connection to nature to maintain health and well-being. I have lived and worked in Canada, Dubai and Southern California and have lead design teams on a variety of projects within Canada and the United States, and abroad in the Middle East, Europe, China and SE Asia.