Terry Guiel has quit as executive director of the Peterborough Downtown Business Improvement Area (DBIA).
DBIA board chair Sacha Lai-Svirk sent an email to all DBIA members on Tuesday afternoon (October 17) announcing Guiel’s resignation.
“The board of the DBIA wishes Terry all the best in his new endeavours and we are sorry to see him go,” Lai-Svirk writes in the email.
Lai-Svirk, who is a partner at downtown advertising agency Outpost379, tells kawarthaNOW that Guiel’s resignation is effective immediately.
“He has had a great run — a full ten years,” Lai-Svirk says.
No reason was given for Guiel’s resignation. kawarthaNOW has reached out to Guiel for more information.
A long-time professional musician in Peterborough, Guiel turned to local politics in 2003, when he was elected to Peterborough city council in Ashburnham Ward. After his three-year council term ended, the late DBIA board chair Erica Cherney hired Guiel on a part-time basis for a year in 2008 to help organize events in the downtown.
After a five-year stint as a legal assistant at the Peterborough law office Farquharson Daly, in 2013 Guiel applied for and was hired as the DBIA’s executive director.
He quickly became known as tireless promoter of the downtown and, under his leadership, the DBIA won several awards from the Ontario Business Improvement Area Association for the DBIA’s promotional events and projects, most recently in 2022 for Economic Development – COVID-19 Response & Recovery and for Small Special Events & Promotion for the inaugural Peterborough Mac and Cheese Festival.
While Lai-Svirk says the DBIA is sorry to see Guiel leave, she says “This is an opportunity for us to reimagine our future.”
Lai-Svirk adds the DBIA board will begin the search for a new executive director.
In the interim, the DBIA’s vibrancy manager Hillary Flood can be contacted at hillary@ptbodbia.ca or 705-748-4774 ext. 201 to answer any questions that would normally be directed to Guiel.
