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Executive Team
Paul Nursey, ICD.D
Chief Executive Officer, Destination Greater Victoria
Paul Nursey is a highly accomplished tourism marketing, strategy, and branding expert who is widely regarded as one of Canada’s top tourism policy minds. Since joining Destination Greater Victoria in 2014, Paul has led DGV to numerous significant accomplishments, including:
- Negotiating a new funding relationship with local hoteliers, the City of Victoria, and the Province of B.C.
- Integrating and aligning the sales and marketing efforts of the Victoria Conference Centre with DGV, leading to significant business improvement.
- Establishing the Greater Victoria Sport Tourism Commission to maximize sport tourism opportunities.
- Co-founding the IMPACT Sustainability Travel and Tourism Conference.
- Becoming a climate positive organization and achieving Biosphere sustainability certification for Greater Victoria.
- Aligning DGV business and sustainability goals with local community values and achieving 97 per cent community support for tourism.
- Navigating the COVID-19 pandemic as a leaner, more flexible, and financially viable organization driving superior results.
- Recovering Greater Victoria’s visitor economy to beyond pre-pandemic levels in less than one year from reopening.
- Evolving DGV into a global leader in sustainable tourism practices and winning Destination International’s Destination Organization Award for Global Impact.
Paul’s 28 years of tourism management and leadership experience includes holding leadership positions with the Canadian Tourism Commission, Rocky Mountaineer Rail Tours, Mount Seymour Resorts and Tourism Vancouver. He serves on the board of the Destinations International Foundation and previously served on the board of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada as the Advocacy Committee Chair.
Miranda Ji
Executive Vice President, Sales and Business Development
Miranda Ji is the leader of Destination Greater Victoria’s business events and travel trade teams, which are widely regarded as some of the most effective destination business sales teams in Canada. Her responsibilities include leading DGV’s meetings, conferences, incentive, travel trade sales and business partnerships, and working with CEO Paul Nursey on more complex business partnerships, such as airline route development. Miranda’s leadership, dedication, and ability to strategically grow business development while always considering the stakeholders’ interests has played a key role in Greater Victoria’s visitor economy and events business recovering faster and stronger than most competitor jurisdictions worldwide.
Miranda is also a Certified Meeting Professional and Certified Association Sales Executive who lends her expertise to numerous organizations, including the Tourism Industry Association of BC (elected Board Member), Destinations International (member, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee) and Inter-cultural Association of Greater Victoria (Vice President, Board of Directors). She has also served organizations such as the Professional Convention Management Association, Vancouver Island South Film and Media Commission, Meetings Mean Business and Meetings Professionals International. In 2018, Smart Meetings recognized Miranda’s achievements with the Smart Women in Meetings Industry Leader Award.
James Adams, CPA
CFO and Executive Vice President, Commercial
James Adams is a qualified Chartered Accountant who, after six successful years as CFO, was promoted to CFO and Executive Vice President, Commercial in 2023. In addition to his fiduciary duties as CFO, James oversees Destination Greater Victoria’s commerce, transactional business, and partnerships. This includes driving the commercial success of visitor services and e-commerce platforms, leading the commercial aspect of DGV’s involvement in major events, commercial oversight of sport tourism opportunities, and exploring commercial opportunities that serve a societal benefit, align with DGV’s mandate, and compliment the work of DGV members.
James has more than 17 years of experience helping local businesses be competitive and successful and driving growth in the hospitality sector. Prior to joining DGV, James served as CFO of New Zealand`s largest Class 4 gambling organization, The Lion Foundation, and also ran Lend Lease Primelife’s New Zealand portfolio of high-end retirement villages.
Jodi Westbury, MBA
Vice President, Marketing Communications
Jodi Westbury leads Destination Greater Victoria’s marketing communications, which includes overseeing all content marketing, website, campaigns, creative development, branding and earned media initiatives. Since joining DGV in 2022, Jodi’s experience and expertise has helped DGV earn more than 500 media and influencer stories per year, generate millions of visits to the DGV website, and secure high rankings from the world’s most influential travel publications.
Jodi’s extensive marketing experience includes having served as Director, Marketing Communications for Coast Hotels and its 35+ properties, as well as for Grouse Mountain Resort for almost nine years. She also held a series of positions at Tourism Whistler and led their marketing/communications efforts around the 2010 Olympic Games. Jodi holds an MBA in Strategic Management from Sauder School of Business at UBC, and an BA in Communications Studies from the University of Calgary. She currently sits on the Destination British Columbia Tourism Marketing Committee and serves as a board member for the Wildlife Rescue Association of BC.
Graham Wallace, PhD, MBA
Vice President Strategy, Governance and Stakeholder Engagement
As VP of Strategy, Governance and Stakeholder Engagement, Graham Wallace supports Destination Greater Victoria’s strategy development, including the current Destination Master Plan project. He also oversees DGV governance, research, and membership services, which provides support, information, and engagement for DGV members. Over recent years, Graham has also managed DGV’s sustainability initiatives, particularly the Biosphere program and certification for Greater Victoria.
Graham brings a broad background in analytics, governance, applied research and project management to DGV’s executive team. He has management experience in the tourism, retail, manufacturing, distribution, and insurance industries, has held senior consultancy roles internationally, and has worked with universities, government agencies and NGOs in a wide range of multi-stakeholder environments. He is also trained and experienced in Balanced Scorecard, which is the framework underpinning DGV’s strategy and performance evaluation. Graham holds PhD and Master of Science research degrees, as well as an MBA from Durham University Business School in the United Kingdom. He joined Destination Greater Victoria in 2017.
Keith Wells
Executive Director, Greater Victoria Sport Tourism Commission
Keith Wells is the Executive Director of the Greater Victoria Sport Tourism Commission (GVSTC), which focuses on attracting major regional, provincial, national, international, and multi-sport events to the Capital Region. Through the Major Sport Investment Program, the GVSTC also provides funding for sporting events that contribute to local economic development, promote tourism and the region, and generate significant overnight visitation to Greater Victoria, particularly during off-peak season.
Keith’s experience in the B.C. sports community goes back more than 30 years, first as a sportscaster with CHEK (Victoria) and Global (Vancouver) and most recently as the founder of STNVideo.com, a Victoria-based company delivering 1 billion+ sports video highlights monthly for the NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB. Keith’s extensive local, provincial, and national sports connections play a key role in Greater Victoria hosting approximately 100 major sporting events per year, which contributes approximately $117 million to the regional economy. In 2023, Keith was also instrumental in bringing back the Greater Victoria Sports Awards, which celebrate local athletes. In his free time, Keith golfs, travels, watches Australian rules football and sumo, and is a volunteer with the Oak Bay Volunteers Society.
Astrid Chang
Executive Director, Corporate Communications and Community Relations
As Destination Greater Victoria’s Executive Director of Corporate Communications and Community Relations, Astrid Chang is responsible for developing and executing communications strategies that guide DGV’s interaction with members, partners, stakeholders, and the media. Her responsibilities include the creation of a wide range of materials to support proactive media relations, community relations and social media initiatives that share the story of DGV and Greater Victoria’s visitor economy with numerous audiences. Astrid also serves as a spokesperson for the organization.
Astrid’s background in tourism includes close to five years at BC Ferries, where she held progressively more senior leadership roles, most recently as Manager of Corporate Communications. For 17 years, she was also a popular media personality in the Capital Region, where she served as an anchor, reporter, and broadcast meteorologist with CTV, CFAX, and KOOLfm. Her award-wining professional career includes being a nationally endorsed weathercaster by the Canadian Meteorological & Oceanographic Society and earning an Edward R. Murrow Award for hard news reporting from the Radio-Television News Directors Association.