Angela Clarke | Top 40 Under 40 2025

Age: 39

Occupation: Chief Strategy Officer, Trellis Society

After graduating from university, Angela Clarke was ready to get out of Calgary. To pay the bills, she got a gig working 6 a.m. shifts at a local family shelter, and intended to move overseas to start her career in international development as soon as possible. But then she discovered that fulfilling work didn’t require relocation.

“I realized that you don’t have to go far to find something that is going to make an impact,” she recalls.

Clarke spent 16 years supporting families navigating poverty and homelessness, first at Inn from the Cold and then at Aspen Family & Community Network, in progressively more senior roles. She was instrumental in the merging of Aspen and Boys & Girls Clubs of Calgary to form Trellis Society in 2020 (one of the largest non-profit mergers in Alberta history).

Since then, Clarke has served as chief strategy officer for Trellis, which champions accessibility with its “one-door” model.

“When someone is in crisis — facing homelessness, having their kids apprehended, losing a job — the last thing they have capacity for is jumping from agency to agency to get all the different pieces of support they need,” Clarke notes. Trellis services include preschools, emergency shelters, tax clinics, youth employment support and affordable therapy.

Indigenous knowledge is foundational across all of Trellis’s programs. “There is a massive overrepresentation of Indigenous people in the systems that we work in,” Clarke says. “Doing this work ethically calls you to be an ally in a way that you shouldn’t shrink away from.”

Clarke’s strategic leadership has resulted in a $4 million increase in fundraising for Trellis, and this year the non-profit announced its first purpose-built, affordable family housing project, which is now well underway. When complete, it will provide up to 50 homes, with a mix of studio, two-bedroom, three-bedroom and connected three-bedroom-studio units.

“Being able to open doors for 50 families is something we’ve been dreaming about for a long time,” Clarke says.

Thank yous
“My husband, Josh, my polar opposite and the best teammate I could ask for. The incredible family I was born into, the amazing one I married into and the beautiful friends who’ve become chosen family — your presence means the world to me. My Trellis people, past and present, it’s a rare and wonderful thing to love both the work and the people you do it with. I’m so grateful to be in it with them!”