Daniella Novak didn’t exactly plan to run the Qualicum Beach Chamber of Commerce. She just couldn’t say no.
That’s how she puts it, with a laugh that tells you she’s made peace with the fact. But spend any time listening to her talk about Qualicum Beach — the town she grew up in, the community she’s devoted nearly 30 years of professional life to in one form or another — and you realize this isn’t someone who drifted into a role. This is someone who was heading here all along.
She joined the Chamber as a board member in 2019, moved to Vice President, then Chair, and now serves as CAO. Along the way she brought something unusual to the job: almost three decades in financial services, much of it spent leading teams and building organizational culture from scratch. “Leadership is leadership,” she told us. The skills she developed managing people through COVID — learning what motivates humans under pressure, building trust when everything is uncertain — turned out to be exactly what the Chamber needed when it took its administration back from Parksville and had to figure out what it was going to be on its own terms.
What it became, under Daniella, is an advocate. That’s the word she keeps coming back to. The Chamber’s job isn’t just to host events or sell memberships — it’s to wrap its wingspan around local businesses and make sure they’re not navigating the hard parts alone. The provincial budget lands and everyone’s anxious? The Chamber is in the room. Someone wants to offer their employees a benefits package but can’t afford to do it solo? The Chamber has a group plan. A business owner doesn’t know where to start? The Chamber picks up the phone.
Membership has grown from under 120 to nearly 200, and Daniella thinks 300 is realistic this year. We believe her. She has the kind of quiet certainty that comes from knowing exactly what she’s building and why. “I’ve done pretty good for a kid from Qualicum Beach,” she told us. And then, without missing a beat: “To retire out of this job would be a pretty cool success.”
Hear the full conversation with Daniella Novak: https://bit.ly/S2EP28PulsePodcast
The PULSE Community website: ThePulseCommunity.ca.
Peter McCully is a multimedia creator and podcast host based in Parksville, BC. https://mccullymedia.ca/category/blog/