CEO Matthew Quetton Has Big “PLANs” for Families of Children with Disabilities
The Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network (PLAN) is pleased to announce the appointment of Vancouver-based business leader Matthew Quetton as CEO.
Quetton’s background in family estate planning, intergenerational issues, family business leadership, team building and developing strategic partnerships will contribute enormously to guiding PLAN into a new era of innovation.
“My business background gives me the skills to do the job, but my family’s real experience in parenting a child with a disability adds the ultimate source of expertise,” says Quetton. “Parenting our son has challenged us to hone our parenting and advocacy skills while actively seeking out the networks we need to support him. I understand intimately the value of an organization like PLAN.”
With Quetton’s leadership, the organization is now implementing a new strategic plan focused on collaborative advocacy and innovative solutions for families. Over the years, PLAN and its founding families have been leaders in social innovation— piloting new ways of thinking about personal networks and tools to support families. As PLAN moves into the future, it will strengthen and enhance the network capacity of the organization’s founding families while actively reaching out to new families who are facing the challenges of supporting school-aged children.
“PLAN is well positioned to lead a new kind of advocacy that moves away from an adversarial approach,” says Quetton. “Collaboration between stakeholders around ideas that work, scalable networks and leveraging innovation is what makes PLAN a unique and leading agent in B.C. and, increasingly, internationally.”
PLAN’s strategic vision deliberately imagines the possibilities for families in six areas: social networks, asset accumulation, personal supports, work and contribution, service transformation and social innovation. This “Prosperity Agenda” is the overarching vision that both leads and informs PLAN’s role as a catalyst. Whether it’s offering workshops in wills and estate planning, assisting with building a personal network or convening discussions with policy-makers, families are at the core of everything PLAN does.
The organization believes that families are the best advocates for their children. It’s their insights and motivations that are changing the way society and policy-makers think about disability. “At PLAN we celebrate and foster the enterprising power of families,” Quetton explains. “Families are leading this movement. They’re showing us what is possible, like family enterprise models that are ‘succession proof’ and like the game-changing creation of Registered Disability Savings Plans (RDSPs). My job is to move these models of success into the larger public discourse and ultimately to inform public policy and service-delivery development.”
PLAN and its sister organizations are also taking a lead in the national Social Innovation Generation (SiG) partnership. SiG is focused on innovative approaches to addressing Canada’s social and ecological challenges. SiG was created to generate and support social innovations that are resilient and sustainable, with a particular emphasis on innovations that engage vulnerable and excluded people.
“PLAN has been at the forefront of social innovation since its inception 21 years ago,” says Quetton. “SiG is a natural evolution for us. PLAN families have been challenging ourselves and others with that core question for years: What does a good life look like for our relatives with disabilities?”
Prior to joining PLAN, Quetton was a senior consultant for the Business Families Centre at the University of British Columbia and for the Canadian Association of Family Enterprise. He has been an active entrepreneur and consultant for over 20 years in the furniture, design and electric vehicle industries. He has a Bachelor of Arts (Economics) degree from the University of Western Ontario. Quetton lives in Vancouver with his wife, Leslie, and their two children, Theo and Celeste.
To find out more, visit:
www.plan.ca
www.planinstitute.ca
www.tyze.com
