Our Board of Directors represents wide-ranging expertise to enable us to fulfill our mandate. Read about each of our current directors below.
Charles Jago, Chair
Dr. Charles Jago completed his doctoral studies at Cambridge University and has held academic appointments in three Canadian universities over forty years. As a university administrator, he was Principal of Huron University College at Western University from 1987-95 and President of the University of Northern BC from 1995-2006 and 2008-2009. As a historian, his area of specialization was Early Modern Spain.
Previously, Charles served as Chair of the Northern Health Authority. He is currently Board Chair of the Sinclar Group – Forest Products Ltd and a Board member of Canfor Pulp Products Inc and the Canada West Foundation.
Charles received both the Queen’s Silver and Diamond Jubilee Medals and was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2006 in recognition of his distinguished academic career and of his role in the creation of the Northern Medical Program in British Columbia. In 2013 he was named to the Order of British Columbia.
Read a profile of Charles from November 2018 here.
Mary Ackenhusen
Mary holds the appointment of Senior Executive in Residence and lead for the Partnerships and Innovation Division at the British Columbia Ministry of Health. This exciting new role is focused on health innovation and aligns with Mary’s long-standing commitment to system transformation.
Mary has had an impact on the health sector in British Columbia for close to 20 years. Most recently, she was the President and CEO of Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) from 2014-2020. Mary joined VCH in 2007 as a Chief Operating Officer and prior to that she served on the Fraser Health Authority’s leadership team for seven years.
Throughout her career with the Health Authorities, Mary has pursued her passion for transforming the way care is delivered in order to ensure BC has a high quality healthcare system that is sustainable in the face of growing demand and constrained resources. This focus includes her leadership of the OneVCH employee engagement initiative that is committed to empowering and engaging staff and physicians across VCH. In 2019, Glassdoor, one of the world’s largest employee recruitment sites, named Mary as one of Canada’s top 25 CEOs based on employee reviews.
As CEO of VCH, she encouraged a focus on innovation and discoveries that improve patient health, transform health systems, and directly impact health and economic outcomes. Her longstanding interest in virtual care enabled health providers to continue delivering care to patients and clients across VCH during the recent weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mary is a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s Master of Business Administration program and the West Virginia University’s Industrial Engineering program.
Brendan Byrne
A physician by vocation and an entrepreneur by profession, Dr. Brendan Byrne has spent more than 25 years exploring how digital health can transform information into better health outcomes. He is passionate about the role of entrepreneurs play in innovating our healthcare system.
Currently serving as Chief Innovation Officer for TELUS Health, Brendan is also the co-founder of FIRSTEP Innovations Inc, which has partnered with TELUS to create immersive experiences and dialogue between innovators at the edge and enterprise leaders. Prior to joining TELUS Health, Brendan founded Wolf Medical Systems, which at the time of its acquisition by TELUS in 2012 had become the largest cloud-based electronic medical record (EMR) provider in Canada.
Brendan continues to practice medicine and has most recently launched a wellness practice focused on leveraging the latest personalized medicine technologies and digital health tools to shape foundational behaviors of diet, exercise, sleep and mindfulness.
Brendan has a degree in Neurobiology from Yale University and is a graduate of McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine.
Doug Cochrane
Doug Cochrane has served as the Chair of the BC Patient Safety & Quality Council (BCPSQC) and as the Provincial Patient Safety & Quality Officer since the Council’s creation in 2008. In 2017, he was also appointed as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Interior Health Authority.
Doug retired from clinical practice in 2017 after a three-decade career as a paediatric neurosurgeon at BC Children’s Hospital and Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children in Vancouver, and the Hospital for Sick Children (Sick Kids) in Toronto. During that time, he served in numerous leadership roles supporting BC Children’s Hospital, the Children’s and Women’s Health Centre, the Provincial Health Services Authority and Sick Kids. He chaired the BC Patient Safety Task Force from its inception in 2003 to the creation of BCPSQC and was past Chair of the Canadian Patient Safety Institute.
A passionate teacher, Doug was appointed Professor Emeritus by the University of British Columbia’s Department of Surgery in 2016. He continues to serve as Faculty for the BCPSQC Quality Academy and Clinician Quality Academy programs, as well as the Sauder Physician Leadership program at the University of British Columbia.
Delia Cooper
Delia Cooper has a long history of service in representing the patient perspective within health care, research and health education. She has led or participated in numerous local, provincial and national initiatives, bringing her insight and personal experience with arthritis to enrich the work of the Arthritis Society, the BC Ministry of Health, the Canadian Arthritis Network, the Scientific and Medical Advisory Committee, the Consumer Advisory Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Cochrane Collaboration.
Delia has been an active member of the Patient Voices Network in BC since 2010 and has provided a patient perspective on the care of people with chronic conditions for the Chronic Disease Management Shared Care Advisory Group with Providence Health Care. She has also been a member of Fraser Health‘s Patient Advisory Council since 2012.
Delia has received numerous awards for her volunteer work including the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal and most recently the BC Patient Safety and Quality Council’s Leadership in Advancing the Patient Voice Award (2017).
An educator by profession, Delia has a Master’s degree from the University of Oregon in 1994 with a focus on Leadership and the Impact of Special Needs Students in the Classroom.
Read a profile of Delia from the December 2018 issue of the BC AHSN News.
Dermot Kelleher
Dr. Dermot Kelleher brings significant experience and is recognized internationally for innovation in academic health leadership and administration, clinical care, research and education.
Dermot joined UBC in 2015 as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. Prior to his appointment at UBC, he served as Vice-President Health and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London, where he also held a concurrent appointment as Dean of the Lee Kong Chian Medical School in Singapore until 2014. Dermot has also served as Head of the School of Medicine and Vice Provost for Medical Affairs at Trinity College, Dublin.
Dermot graduated from medicine from Trinity College Dublin in 1978, going on to specialize in gastroenterology. Author of 300 publications and 14 patents, his research examines the immune response to many of the leading causes of gastrointestinal infectious disease worldwide. Over the years he has received many prestigious awards including a Fogarty Scholarship at the University of California San Diego, Wellcome Senior Fellow in Clinical Science, and most recently the Conway Medal from Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland.
With a strong commitment to innovation and collaboration, Dermot has worked to found several companies supporting both translational developments in biomedical science and fostering collaboration in biomedical research in both Dublin and London. He also served as President of the Federation of European Academies of Medicine until moving to British Columbia.
Michael Marchbank
Michael Marchbank leads the overall management and delivery of health programs and services in one of the largest and fastest-growing health networks in Canada. He has an extensive breadth of knowledge and experience gained through increasingly senior positions in health care.
Michael joined Fraser Health in January 2015 where he served as President & CEO. Before this position, Michael was the President & CEO of Health Employers Association of BC, was chief operating officer and executive vice president of the Provincial Health Services Authority, and held senior leadership positions at the Fraser Valley Health Region and the Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops.
Additionally, he has held appointments in a wide range of health-related institutes, commissions and advisory committees including the BC Forensic Commission, the Child and Family Research Institute, the Women’s Health Research Institute and the Physician Strategic Services Advisory Committee. He has co-chaired, with the Assistant Deputy Minister of Health, the provincial Clinical Care Management Committee, a major standardized care initiative in BC.
Gwen Campbell McArthur
My name is Gwendyline Campbell McArthur of Ojibwe/Saulteaux Metis and Ukrainian Ancestry. Born in the Adhesion to Treaty 5 territory at Kississing, Manitoba, I was raised on the land, fishing, hunting, trapping, and gathering along with teachings of my paternal Grandmother, my Father Bob Campbell – Master Hunter and Fisherman, and my Auntie Mae Louise Campbell – Indspire Laureate for her work with vulnerable Indigenous women and families across Canada.
As a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse, my work has spanned 5 decades, my practice has been guided by Indigenous Elders, and other spiritual leaders. I feel like I have been an Elder in training all of my life from the age of 3 listening to my Granny’s stories.
As a patient partner with extensive experience with the BC health system, a researcher and health care provider, when the BC Academic Health and Science Network Board of Directors needed another patient representative, I jumped at the chance. This is a two-year tenure that began on March 23, 2020. Research is not done in a vacuum and is required to guide our health care systems in BC. The translation of that research into health care practices and policy is hugely important and I hope I can make a difference by contributing to the Board of Director’s table.
I am constantly aware that it is a privilege to be included in this work.
Richard Rees
Richard Rees was president and CEO of Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia from December 2013 to March 2017, having served as CEO of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of BC since 1999. Prior to that he was CEO of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of BC and Yukon for nine years.
Richard chairs the national Council of Chief Executives for the Canadian CPA profession, and has had extensive involvement in the profession’s certification education, professional development, and international professional recognition programs.
A graduate of the London School of Economics, Richard has been widely recognized for his professional leadership, including a national Top 40 Under 40 Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the CA profession. He is also active in the community, currently serving as a director and finance and audit chair of PROOF, a biomarker development program based at St. Paul’s Hospital.
Science Advisor to the Board: Martin Schechter
Dr. Martin Schechter is a Professor in, and previously the Founding Director of, the School of Population and Public Health in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. Martin received training in mathematics (PhD), medicine (MD) and epidemiology (MSc), and combines interests in clinical epidemiology and health services research with HIV and addiction research. He is a founder and former National Director (1993-2014) of the CIHR Canadian HIV Trials Network, a national network of investigators and research facilities aimed at conducting trials of HIV therapies, preventions and vaccines. He was also a founder of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and the Centre of Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences at St. Paul’s Hospital. Martin now serves as Chief Scientific Officer of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research.
Martin is the author of more than 360 peer-reviewed publications and has been the recipient of approximately $96 million in competitive grants as Principal Investigator. He has been awarded the Order of British Columbia (1994), a tier I Canada Research Chair in HIV/AIDS and Population Health (2001-2022), the Science Council of British Columbia Gold Medal (2002), and Fellowship in both the Royal Society of Canada (2004) and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (2005).
