Amanda Shatzko stands with her award for Canada's Top 100 Powerful women on Nov. 22, 2018.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Amanda Shatzko

VERNON - It's been a triumphant year for Vernon local Amanda Shatzko who was elected in to the RDNO for the North Okanagan and named in Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women.

Shatzko was selected in the Mercedes-Benz Emerging Leaders category which recognizes women between the ages of 30 to 40 years old who have demonstrated successive leadership positions within their organizations. The Women’s Executive Network, that puts on the awards, says in a media release that she was chosen due to her, "ability to become a front-runner, proven passion for learning and innovation, track record of being a high-performing leader, exhibiting vision, creativity, and ambition."

Shatzko says she was not expecting the award.

"It is actually a surprise that I would be included within these remarkable women," she says in a phone interview. "Just seeing the past winners the astronaut [Dr. Roberta Bondar], the government general [Michaëlle Jean]— things like that."

The Vernon community knows Shatzko for her art including Vernon Secondary School poppy sculptures, and an aerial art act where she paints while suspended in the air. 

Artist Amanda Shatzko with a cement poppy she created at Vernon Secondary School in 2016.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Amanda Shatzko

Coming form a background working in creative and cultural spaces, she recalls being confronted with rejection.

"I kept trying to do these ambitious projects and what would happen for me is they would say, 'no you can't do it,'" she says. "I hit these road blocks because 'there isn't a policy in place for you to be able to do that.'"

And to that, Shatzko would ask, "Why not?" She was not satisfied going through the avenues presented to her so she sought out ways to create new avenues.

"The only way I found to be able to do that was if myself I stepped up into these executive positions to help open the doors," Shatzko says. Currently she is vice-chair of the Regional District of the North Okanagan, president of the Arts Council of the North Okanagan, a director for the B.C. Alliance for Arts and Culture, vice-president of the Vancouver United Nations Association in Canada, and a professional artist. She is also president of AS Consulting which works on cross-cultural collaborations, and bridging diverse groups in the business and government sectors.

She kept herself motivated by staying curious, and instead of getting bogged down by road blocks asking the question, "What if? What's another way I can get around this? What would that look like?" She took a "no" as a "not right now."

After speaking to other winners of Canada's Top 100 Powerful Women, Shatzko says one commonality is that they are "champions of being a mentor."

"They're not just sitting on executive and high-level seats they're doing more than that. They're reaching out and pulling other women up with them."

Shatzko was recognized along-side political veteran and past B.C. Premier Christy Clark, as well as founder and CEO of Troika Management Corp. Renee Wasylyk of Kelowna.

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