Gladys Christiansen first began working for the Lac La Ronge Indian Band in 1977. (AFOA Canada)

By Derek Cornet

milestone

LLRIB executive director wins national leadership award

Feb 28, 2024 | 5:00 PM

Gladys Christiansen, the executive director of Lac La Ronge Indian Band (LLRIB), is the 2024 recipient of the AFOA Canada Indigenous Leadership Award.

The award, which is sponsored by TD Bank, recognizes leadership and achievement in Indigenous management, finance, and governance. The award is presented to an individual who has shown a long-term commitment to excellence, has made significant contributions to the management, finance, and governance fields, and has had a measurable impact on the performance of an Indigenous community or organization.

“I just had kind of a flashback,” Christiansen said about the moment she found out she won the award.

“I was so surprised and then it just kind of took me back to how it all started, where I had been all that time and the changes I’ve seen. That was what was first in my thoughts.”

Christiansen began working with the band in 1977 as an accounting clerk in the education department. At that time, First Nations across Canada were first starting to talk about taking local control of education from the federal government.

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She would go on to spend the next 30 years working for the band in education, eventually receiving a Bachelor of Education degree and become a teacher and later a principal.

“The important thing for me all along was education and employment, making sure we had opportunities for our First Nations community members,” Christiansen said.

“We gradually, since that time, have been taking control of other federal programs. For example, post-secondary education. When the band took over in 1992, I moved over to post-secondary. At the time, there were very few people who were receiving funding from Indigenous Services Canada.”

After spending five years with the Federation of Sovereign Indian Nations as the executive director of education, Christiansen returned to the LLRIB in 2012 as the executive director of human resources. In 2014, she moved into the role of executive director of the entire First Nation.

In her role, Christiansen is responsible for supervising all band departments such as public works and housing, social development, health, administration and finance, recreation and more. She noted the band now has approximately 800 employees with that number not taking into account the employees working for Kitsaki Management Limited Partnership.

Since it was made public this week that Christiansen would be receiving the award, she said many colleagues have congratulated her on the achievement.

“I want to thank the person who nominated me, I want to thank my management team and I want to thank the 800 employees who do the best they can every day, and to the leadership for allowing us to do our jobs and to help guide us by developing the policies,” she said.

The award will be presented at a ceremony on March 7 during AFOA Canada’s 22nd National Conference in Winnipeg.

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com