People sometimes ask how a CBC journalist becomes a city councillor becomes a marketing agency owner becomes a podcaster. To me it has always been the same job. Find out what is really going on, say it plainly, and help good people get their message to the people who need to hear it.

I started out in journalism, nine years as an on-air host and producer with CBC Radio in Vancouver, on shows like North by Northwest and the weekend programs. That is where I learned to listen, to ask the question everyone is thinking, and to tell a story so a busy person actually gets it.
In 2000 I founded Curve Communications. We helped businesses tell their story, and over twenty-five years we grew into a full lead generation agency for small businesses and nonprofits. In 2008 Business in Vancouver named us one of the fastest-growing companies in the province. In 2015 I wrote Buzz to put what we had learned in the hands of owners who could not yet afford an agency.
From 2011 to 2018 I served two terms as a Vancouver city councillor. I sat through the budgets, read the staff reports, and learned how a city actually runs, and where it gets stuck. I ran provincially in 2020. I did not win, but I would not trade what those campaigns taught me about message, money, and the voter's gut.
These days I split my time between the agency, the microphone, and the stage. I co-host UnSpun with Jody Vance, I write, I speak, and through Accountability Vancouver I keep asking City Hall the questions it would rather avoid. Different hats, same person, same habit of mind.
Eric Dunning Integrity Award, lifetime achievement, BC and Yukon Community News Media Association
Author, Buzz: How to Grow Your Small Business Using Grassroots Marketing (2015)
Two-term Vancouver city councillor, 2011 to 2018
Former CBC Radio host and journalist, 1991 to 2000
Curve Communications named one of BC's fastest-growing companies, Business in Vancouver, 2008
Chair, marketing committee, HAVAN
If any of this is useful to you, business, campaign, stage, or just a good argument
about Vancouver, I would like to hear from you.
Helping small businesses win customers
and campaigns win votes, from
Vancouver, BC.
© 2026 George Affleck. All rights reserved.