Leah is a key advisor for Arts Ottawa’s Community Wealth Building Learning Lab series, bringing deep subject expertise alongside long-standing experience working across the sector. She has played a central role in shaping the series by coordinating and curating speakers, drawing on her network of practitioners and collaborators, and facilitating workshops to ensure the right questions are being asked and meaningful insights are gathered to move the work forward.

Leah Cogan is a bilingual coach, facilitator and educator who combines strengths-based, arts-inspired, embodiment practices with human-centered design principles and innovation theory. She is also a multi-disciplinary artist with experience in performance, creation and arts education. Iterating from her thesis project at Brown University, Leah has been continuously exploring the intersection of creative practice and collective action. She has worked as an engagement and knowledge mobilization specialist at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and the Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa, leveraging her creative tools to lead multi-stakeholder strategic sessions to design and coordinate around new community-led housing solutions. Leah also served as Chair of PAL Ottawa, a non-profit housing initiative serving aging artists in the National Capital Region. Leah is currently hosting a Learning Series with Arts Ottawa to explore Community Wealth Building as an economic coordination model for the sustainability and growth of Ottawa’s creative sector.