Health Programs Advisory Board

Helen Angus is a creative and dynamic executive with a 30-year progressive career in the public sector including 20 years working in the Government of Ontario, ten years in government agencies as well as four years working in management consulting.

From June 2018 until September 2021, Helen served as Ontario’s Deputy Minister of Health and led the health response to the Covid-19 pandemic as well as the most ambitious health sector modernization in decades.  Helen has also served as Deputy Minister in several portfolios including the Treasury Board Secretariat, International Trade, Women’s Issues, Seniors Affairs, and Citizenship, Immigration, and International Trade. While Helen has spent most of her career working in health care where she led numerous organizational and systems-level transformation initiatives, she is also a versatile public sector leader with over four years working in the central agencies of government.

Helen studied at the University of Toronto and holds a Master of Science degree in planning.

Debbie Fisher, BSc, MHA, CHRL, ICD.D, has held a variety of positions in private and public sectors including Executive Vice President, Strategy and Organizational Development at Mount Sinai Hospital and Assistant Deputy Minister at the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. Previously, she held several senior consulting and executive management positions in international professional services firms.

She is currently an Executive Associate with KPMG where she consults on organizational change and large-scale system transformation in the healthcare sector. She is an Executive-in-Residence at the Rotman School of Management. In recent years, Debbie has turned her attention to corporate governance and serves on several boards including the CIHR, OMERS and North York General Hospital.

She is a passionate mentor for business students who are interested in a career in healthcare so that they may have flourishing careers and maximize their leadership potential.

Debbie has a BSc (Neurobiology and Comparative Physiology) from McGill University and a Master of Health Administration from the University of Ottawa. She also holds CHRL and ICD.D designations. She was awarded a R. Trudeau Medal from the Telfer School of Management, the highest honour awarded to Telfer alumni.

Feisal Keshavjee is the Senior Vice President, Health Partnerships and Transformation at CBI Health, one of Canada’s largest Home Care and Rehabilitation providers. He is an accomplished healthcare leader who has worked in all facets of the healthcare system – policy, public, private, corporate, and early stage. He has worked in the healthcare system in Alberta where he was involved in the restructuring and regionalization efforts throughout the nineties. He was also a Principal for Ernst & Young in the Asia Pacific region, carrying out numerous post-merger integration efforts in New Zealand, Australia, and Malaysia.

Feisal has held the position of Director of Business Development at the University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine, General Manager for GE Healthcare, CEO of a large radiology practice in Calgary, and CEO of a health technology start-up.

For the past few years, Feisal has been involved in the health technology sector in Alberta and is a sessional instructor at the University of Calgary on New Venture Finance and Precision Medicine (Fall 2022). Prior to joining CBI Health, he led a boutique consulting practice in the healthcare space and has been involved in several engagements involving strategic planning, business growth, due diligence, negotiation, project planning, and operational excellence.

Feisal has just finished a term as Chair of the Canadian College of Health Leaders, the professional association for Canada’s 4,000+ health leaders and industry executives. He currently sits on the Board of an artificial intelligence (AI) company in the imaging space, as well as a board member of a not-for-profit, long-term care provider, and is the Co-Chair of the Alberta Continuing Care Association.

Dr. Viren Naik serves the Medical Council of Canada (MCC) as its Chief Executive Officer, after serving as its Chief Assessment Officer. He is a Professor of Anesthesiology in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa and has over 25 years of experience as an internationally recognized and award-winning educator, researcher, and leader. As CEO, Dr. Naik leads the MCC strategy to serve as a trusted keeper of physician credentials, and assessor of a physician’s general competencies to inform safe licensure decisions in Canada.

Following his specialty training in Anesthesiology and Master of Education degree, Dr. Naik was recruited to St. Michael’s Hospital, where he led a research program in simulation and was appointed Medical Director of the Allan Waters’ Family Patient Simulation Centre. In 2009, he was recruited from the University of Toronto to establish the University of Ottawa Skills and Simulation Centre (uOSSC) as the founding Medical Director. In 2014 while completing his Executive MBA, he served as the Vice President, Education for The Ottawa Hospital, one of the busiest academic health sciences centre in Canada. Between 2017 and 2022, Dr. Naik served as the Director of Assessment for the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Canada, and the R.S. McLaughlin Professor of Medical Education at the University of Ottawa and oversaw the credentialing of specialist training and the assessment, including examinations, for all medical specialties in Canada.

Cameron Love is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Ottawa Hospital (TOH), one of Canada’s leading academic health sciences centres. He took on this leadership role as of July 1, 2020, in an unprecedented time as Ontario’s health system adapts to a new service model in the wake of COVID-19.

Cameron is an inspirational leader determined to continue building TOH’s reputation as a global leader in health care, research and education, improving the lives of people in our community, province, and country. In his mandate as CEO, Cameron aims to advance the programs and services at TOH; to help innovate new deliveries of health care by empowering TOH clinical teams and scientists; and to partner with patients and families in the Champlain region to deliver the best care.

Strengthening the integration between hospital and community care, Cameron served as the interim CEO of the Champlain Community Care Access Centre to focus on improving the delivery of home care services in the community. Through this experience, and as Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer of TOH since 2014, he was responsible for the leadership and oversight of programs and services across the hospital, and their integration into regional programs throughout the Champlain region. Cameron now leads the exciting development of the new Carling Site, which will be one of Canada’s most modern academic health sciences centres.

Cameron has a Master of Health Administration, training from the Wharton and Telfer School of Management, as well as a bachelor’s degree in Biology and Psychology from Queen’s University. In addition, Cameron is involved in many regional and provincial initiatives, committees, and task forces, and sits on several boards that promote the health and wellbeing of the people in the region. Cameron is active in the education of aspiring healthcare executives as a preceptor to residents in the Master of Health Administration program at the Telfer School of Management, for which he received an MHA Preceptors Award from Telfer.

Saurabh a Telfer School MHA alumnus (1998) and a diversified tri-sector health care leader with over twenty-six years of experience across the private, public and not-for-profit health care sectors.

He is currently the Director of Business Development, Public Sector for TELUS Health, focused on transformative partnerships to advance quintuple aim value through digital health innovation, including data interoperability and patient solutions at scale. He also serves as a Board Director and Vice-President at The Empire Club of Canada and is an active member of Digital Health Canada and TechNation.

He has served in varied leadership roles across the healthcare ecosystem including the medtech sector, the pharmaceutical sector, and with the Ontario Government, having served two Ontario Ministers of Health where he managed various health system transformation portfolios including digital health, health innovation, strategic procurement, pharmaceuticals, pharmacy and laboratory services modernization.

Saurabh has also served in various governance roles including Board Member and various Committee Chair roles at Medtech Canada, Board Member of the Canadian American Business Council, Health Policy Council member at the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Ontario Medtech Working Group advising Ontario Health Innovation Council.

Wendy Nicklin has a strong commitment to improving the quality of healthcare. With a background in critical care and emergency, Wendy taught at Queen’s University and held senior positions at The Ottawa Hospital. She was President and CEO of Accreditation Canada from 2004 to 2016.

Past governance experience includes the Canadian Patient Safety Institute, Healthcare Insurance Reciprocal of Canada, and the Champlain Local Health Integration Network; most recently with the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua). Currently, she serves on the Boards of Hospice Care Ottawa, Salus Global Corporation and Queensway Carleton Hospital and is a member of the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools and Patients for Patient Safety Canada.

With an academic appointment to Queen’s University, Wendy has numerous publications to her name and has given many presentations nationally and internationally.

Wendy has a B.N. and M.Sc.(A) from McGill University; is a Fellow of ISQua; is a member of the International Academy of Quality and Safety in Health Care; and is a certified Corporate Director (ICD.D) with the Institute of Corporate Directors.

Dr. Puneet Seth is a practicing physician, technologist, and entrepreneur passionate about redesigning healthcare. He has been engaged in the digital health industry for over a decade, having worked on a healthcare podcast, a social media health educational tool, and a modern health record company that developed the Collaborative Health Record (InputHealth, now part of TELUS Health).

He is presently Managing Principal at TELUS Health focusing on product and innovation. Clinically, he is practicing family medicine and occupational health in Toronto, ON, and routinely writes, speaks, and teaches on improving patient access to their health information and the role of AI in healthcare delivery.