It is with both gratitude and sadness that the Immigrant Services Calgary (ISC) Board of Directors announce Hyder Hassan’s departure as Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Since his appointment as CEO in 2018, Hyder has played an instrumental role in Immigrant Services Calgary’s transformation, growing the annual revenue from $9.4 million to $12.5 million, while developing and launching the Gateway initiative and the Newcomer Knowledge Hub strategy. Under his outstanding leadership, ISC achieved remarkable results, including the exponential growth of its social enterprise, expansion of ISC’s language assessments services to Southern Alberta, the launch of the Calgary Newcomer Collaborative’s Immigrant Arrival Centre at the Calgary International Airport, and the transformation of ISC’s offices in downtown Calgary to build a more welcoming and modern space for clients and staff.

As a nimble and innovative leader, Hyder successfully led ISC through the initial stages of a major organizational transformation—development, startup, and growth. This transformation included the offboarding of programs and services to partner agencies, and the development and strengthening of collaborative partnerships across sectors to better serve newcomers to Calgary. Today, thanks to Hyder’s leadership, Gateway boasts over 65 partners and more than 7,200 newcomers served via a Gateway Personalized Plan.

After four years of leading ISC, Hyder has decided to hand over the reins to a new CEO who can shift the organization’s focus from startup to maturity—the next stage of the transformation. We are grateful to Hyder for taking this organization to new heights and wish him the very best as he focuses on his young family before taking on his next professional challenge.

As the organization enters this new—and exciting—era of transformation, we are thrilled to announce the addition of Joanne Aime to ISC’s executive leadership team in the role of Chief Operating Officer. Joanne has over 30 years of experience leading large-scale, complex, multi-phase projects across different industries, with a focus on business transformation, change management, and strategic program management.

The search for the ISC’s next CEO is underway, and we expect the position to be filled by this spring. Shirley Philips, a member of ISC Board of Directors and past Board Chair, will serve as interim CEO. Shirley joined the Board in 2016 and is a key instigator of the organizational transformation. Shirley has over 30 years of education, volunteer, board governance, and non-profit high-level management experience.

The ISC Board of Directors thank Hyder for his years of service, and the vision, passion, and unwavering commitment with which he proudly led Calgary’s longest standing newcomer-serving agency.

Rhona DelFrari

ISC Board Chair