Avila Coutinho – Treasurer

Avila immigrated to Canada as a teenager and was drawn to the big city of Toronto with it’s skyscrapers, transportation, theatre and multi-cultures. She began her career with Morguard Investments and after meeting her husband, moved to Halifax and continued with Morguard in a different role. She later took employment with Scotiabank after Morguard closed its office.

Avila realized there is so much that is beautiful in Nova Scotia…the people, the hills and valleys, the lakes, rivers and oceans, the small friendly communities. Having recently retired from the financial industry with 35 years experience, her family purchased the Avondale Sky Winery and Restaurant as a family business. The learning curve is steep as the farming and agriculture business is quite different from what they all did prior to this. The family is enjoying the experience and have learned a lot. What they do want to do though, is support local and be part of the local farming community.

Being part of the FarmWorks board, will give Avila the opportunity to help the local businesses involved in ‘farm to table’ the ability to get the support, mentoring, and financial start-up or expansion funds that are otherwise not available. Avila very much wants to be able to provide valuable insight to our members.

Avila is married to Louis, former CAO of the Town of Windsor and has two grown sons Karl 38 and Sean 29 and has four grandchildren all under 5 years of age.