Jill Schnarr
Chief Social Innovation and Communications Officer
Jill Schnarr leads corporate communications, social media, media relations, public affairs, sponsorships, community investment, brand office, brand marketing, TELUS Studios, and corporate events. With over 29 years of telecommunications industry experience, Jill is a dynamic and engaging leader with a natural ability to build strategy and enable collaboration. She has significantly influenced TELUS’ reputation as a global leader in corporate citizenship, enabling TELUS to be the most trusted telco brand in Canada. She has ensured our social purpose approach focuses on business benefit, enabling every dollar invested in the community to return over 4 times back to TELUS in business impact and 150% to the community in societal impact.
Jill leads TELUS Days of Giving, facilitating over 40,000 volunteers globally in 2019 alone, and our Team TELUS Cares programs, enabling over $700 million in giving and 10 million volunteer hours from TELUS since 2000. She has launched major marketing campaigns including We Give Where We Live, Go Pink, Rise Above, Share Love, All Connected, Million Hours, and 2019’s Most Giving Company in the World campaign.
Jill was recognized as one of Canada’s Distinctive Women, as one of the Most Influential Women in Vancouver, and as Most Innovative Leader by the Canadian Women in Communications. Under Jill’s leadership, TELUS was acknowledged as the Most Philanthropic Corporation in the World by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and was awarded the Prime Minister’s Inaugural Corporate Volunteer Award.
Jill earned her Honours Business Administration degree from the Richard Ivey School of Business and completed her Graduate Diploma in Social Innovation from the University of Waterloo. She achieved her Masters of Business Administration from the Gustavson School of Business at the University of Victoria in 2018, winning awards for top GPA and best overall MBA thesis project. Jill has also attended Executive Education programs at INSEAD, Rotman School of Business, University of British Columbia, Sauder School of Business, and Harvard University.
Jill is a board member of the TELUS Friendly Future Foundation, and served as a director on the BC Women’s Hospital Foundation for 7 years, and as a TELUS Vancouver Community Board member for 6 years. She was a Board Director and Chair of the Women’s Leadership Circle on the Vancouver Board of Trade. She served on the fundraising cabinet for BC Women’s Hospital Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit, and was Co-Chair of Glow, the inaugural BC Women’s Hospital Gala, raising $1.4M, significantly over the $500K target.
Jill lives in Vancouver, BC with her husband, David, her two teenage sons, Dylan and Andrew, their three cats and one dog. She likes to go camping in her Airstream on Hornby Island during the summer, and to go skiing at Big White in Kelowna during the winter.
