Carla Ventin joins the gt&co team from the nation’s capital and knows her way around Ottawa.  For more than 11 consecutive years, she was ranked as a Top 100 Lobbyist in Canada by The Hill Times, Ottawa’s political newspaper, based on her track record, reputation and proven results.

Carla has over 25 years’ public affairs and senior leadership experience positioning organizations for success in the association, private, government and not-for-profit sectors in Canada, United States and the European Union.  As a trusted advisor and government relations professional, Carla understands how public policy decisions are made and influenced, and is known for helping companies navigate the political and public affairs landscape, mitigate risk, plan ahead, and develop effective engagement strategies.

For over a decade, Carla represented some of the most well-recognized brands in the world as Senior Vice President of Government Relations for Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada (FHCP), an industry association comprised of manufacturers of products found on grocery and drugstore shelves.  She was responsible for advancing the industry’s priorities with federal and provincial governments and executing campaigns to help shape policies that support Canadian manufacturers.  Carla led government engagement on some of the most pressing issues facing the sector including COVID, food inflation, Grocery Code, retaliatory tariffs, product shortages, sustainability, border, labour, and supply chain disruptions.

She brings political experience to her new role having worked on election campaigns and on Parliament Hill as Press Secretary to the federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food under the Paul Martin government, where she helped navigate the BSE and avian influenza crises.  As Director of Communications to the federal minister responsible for infrastructure, Carla was part of the team that launched the New Deal for cities and communities.

Internationally, she worked in Washington DC, where she sunk her teeth into political party development work for the Central and Eastern European Team for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.  In Hungary, she worked for NATO while the country was joining the alliance and was responsible for launching the country’s first NATO Information and Research Centre.  She was also a visiting university lecturer in Canada-US relations at the Eötvös Loránd University of Economic Sciences in Budapest.

Carla is thrilled to return to consulting.  She previously worked as a consultant with NATIONAL Public Relations for three years and also owned her own public affairs firm, where she launched a not-for-profit foundation, Nutrients for Life Foundation Canada, as its Executive Director.    

She was a long-standing Board member of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, a coalition of national organizations that support a more open and fair international trading environment, and Co-Chair of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s agri-food committee.  Carla holds masters degrees from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs and the University of Waterloo in political science, and has an undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Guelph.