Senior Leadership

Vera Etches assumed the role of President and Chief Executive Officer at CHEO on March 3, 2025. With over two decades of leadership in public health, Vera brings a steadfast commitment to enhancing community well-being and improving access to health services for populations facing barriers.

Before joining CHEO, Vera served as Ottawa's Medical Officer of Health since 2018, where she led Ottawa Public Health's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Under her guidance, Ottawa Public Health was recognized for its innovative approaches and community engagement, particularly in communications across multiple channels in diverse languages. Growing clinical services in neighbourhood health and well-being hubs, and collaborating with organizations providing culturally appropriate settings, help to support populations who have experienced racism in the healthcare system.

Vera holds a Bachelor of Science from Simon Fraser University, a Medical Doctorate from the University of British Columbia, and a Master of Health Science from the University of Toronto, where she also completed a Fellowship in Community Medicine. She began her career at the Sudbury & District Health Unit in 2005, holding various leadership roles, including Associate Medical Officer of Health, Acting Medical Officer of Health, and Director of Clinical Services. In 2009, she joined Ottawa Public Health as Associate Medical Officer of Health, later becoming Deputy Medical Officer of Health in 2014, and Medical Officer of Health in 2018.

An advocate for integrating research into clinical practice, Vera has been published in peer-reviewed journals and has presented at numerous provincial and national conferences. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa, where she supervises medical residents in Public Health and Preventive Medicine and Family Medicine.

Vera's leadership has been acknowledged through various accolades, including the Key to the City of Ottawa in June 2022 for her exceptional service during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As CHEO’s President and CEO, Vera is poised to lead the organization into a new era of pediatric health care, reinforcing its vision of providing the best life for every child and youth.

Since 1998 Lindy has been a staff physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases and a Clinical Investigator at the CHEO Research Institute. She also holds an academic appointment as Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Medicine.

Lindy obtained her Medical Degree from McMaster University School of Medicine in Hamilton in 1990. She completed her Pediatrics and Pediatrics Infectious Diseases residencies at CHEO, with further training in Pediatric HIV and Clinical Epidemiology at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and the University of Toronto. Moving back to CHEO in 1998, she was the Chief of the Division of infectious Diseases for over 10 years.

Since April 2016, Lindy has been CHEO’s Chief of Staff and Chief Medical Officer, stepping away from October 2024 to March 2025 when she was CHEO’s interim President and CEO.

As CHEO’s senior physician leader, she is responsible for organizing the activities of the medical staff and for ensuring the quality of clinical care and patient safety. She co-chaired an interdisciplinary initiative regarding the future health needs of children and youth in our region, co-chaired the regional hospital’s COVID response and focuses on ways to optimize the dyad leadership model in healthcare. In this role, she works closely with the CEO and the Executive Team and reports directly to the Board of Trustees.

Her academic and research work focuses on pediatric HIV, the impact of social determinants on the health of children and youth and teaching/evaluating the Health Advocate and Leadership Roles across the continuum of learners.

Tammy joined the Executive Team in 2021 in the role of Senior Vice-President of Clinical Services and Chief Nursing Executive.

Tammy started at CHEO in 1995 as a Registered Nurse working on the Inpatient Surgical Unit as well as in the Emergency Department.  She has since served in leadership roles across the organization from Inpatient Medicine to Health Records and e-health.  For many years, Tammy led the Ambulatory Care portfolio and was a leader of our Electronic Health Record implementation as well as Benefits Realization following go-live as Chief Nurse Information Officer.

As a graduate of the University of Ottawa School of Nursing and Telfer School of Management, Tammy holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and her Master’s of Health Administration.  She also earned her CHE designation through the Canadian College of Health Leaders.   She was also appointed to the Ottawa Board of Health in 2019 and serves as their Vice-Chair.

In Tammy’s current portfolio, she oversees clinical services across the organization. As Chief Nurse, she is proud to be working with our dynamic and professional nursing team throughout CHEO.

In her role of Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice-President of Corporate Services and Capital Programs, Nathalie’s portfolio includes Finance, Strategic Sourcing, Food and Marketed Services, Contracted Executives for EORLA, Foundation and Stakeholder Liaisons, Facilities and the renewal of the campus, including the 1Door4Care integrated treatment center project.

Nathalie came to CHEO with a wide range of leadership experience, having held senior leadership roles across a number of sectors, including the not-for-profit Municipal Housing, having held the role of Vice President, Corporate Services and Chief Financial Officer for 7 years with Ottawa Community Housing (OCH). Prior to joining OCH, she held the role of Director Real Estate, Corporate Performance and Analytics with Canada Post Corporation, and spent many years in the private sector running Facilities Management and Corporate Real Estate outsourcing contracts. She also spent 20 years in Europe, covering large European portfolios and acquiring a diverse ability to improve efficiency and optimize resources.

Nathalie is a Certified Professional Accountant (CPA-CGA) and holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance and Accounting from the University of Ottawa. She is fully bilingual and has served on the Board of the Caisse Populaire Rideau Vision Ottawa from 2017 through 2019.

Dr. Jason Berman is the CEO and Scientific Director of the CHEO Research Institute and the Vice-President of Research at CHEO. He is also a Full Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Ottawa.

Previously he served as Associate Chair, Research, Department of Pediatrics, and Professor of Pediatrics, Microbiology & Immunology and Pathology at Dalhousie University and interim Vice President Research, Innovation and Knowledge Translation for the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is a pediatric hematologist/oncologist and internationally recognized for pioneering research using zebrafish to study childhood cancers and rare inherited diseases. His laboratory has served as the Atlantic node of the Centre for Drug Research and Development and a national hub for zebrafish modeling of orphan diseases.

He has served as president of the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation, president of the Canadian Hematology Society and is a founding member of the Canadian Rare Disease Models and Mechanisms Network. He is currently Chair of the Board of Directors of the national Maternal Infant Child and Youth Research Network, Chair of the Research Committee of the Boards of the Ontario Institute of Cancer Research and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada and a member of the Institute Advisory Committee of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Cancer Research.

Joanne Bezzubetz is an accomplished and innovative healthcare leader with more than 30 years of experience in delivering transformative change to enhance client and family experience. She was responsible for the delivery of community services and mental health programs on the West Coast, before joining the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group 10 years ago, where she led and delivered transformative operational change and a bold new strategy and research-based academic mandate for the organization.

In her role at CHEO, Joanne will be part of both YSB and CHEO’s leadership teams and will ensure that services and programs are accessible to community members who face barriers such as culture, gender, age, isolation, homelessness, language, physical and/or cognitive disabilities, poverty, sexual identity, and race.

Joanne will also play a leadership role at the Kids Come First Health Team, a collaboration of over 60 organizations, youth and family partners that assembles nearly 1,100 physicians and other health providers to provide health services to children and youth. Part of this initiative includes 1Call1Click, a unique service in Canada that makes it easier for children, youth and families of Eastern Ontario to find the care they need for mental health and addiction.

Karen joined the Executive Team in the role of Vice-President of Acute Care in 2023. Her portfolio includes Critical Care and Surgical Services, Inpatient Medicine, Hematology/Oncology, Ambulatory Care, Pharmacy and Emergency Department.

Her roots started at the bedside. A Respiratory Therapist by training, she worked at Sick Kids in Toronto, as well as in London, before joining CHEO in 2007. She served as Director, Information Services and spearheaded the launch of our integrated health record and the Epic roll-out across the organization. This initiative helped CHEO to become one of the most digitally enabled organizations in the country. Karen served as CHEO’s Chief Information Officer and worked to strengthen our cybersecurity and updated our provincially integrated systems with key partners. Supporting teams through transformational change that improves safety, outcomes and patient/family experience is a priority for Karen.

As Vice-President of Child Development and Community Services at CHEO, Jennifer’s portfolio includes Development and Rehabilitation, Home and Community Care, Neurodevelopmental Health, Regional Genetics Program, Palliative Care, Professional Practice, the Champlain Maternal Newborn Regional Program, the Kids Come First Health Team, CHEO School, and the 1Door4Care integrated treatment center project.

After a decade in leadership roles at The Ottawa Hospital and Ontario’s homecare agency, Jennifer came to CHEO in 2019 to lead the creation of Ontario’s first-ever child and youth health team – our region’s Kids Come First Health Team, based at CHEO. She also negotiated the transfer of home and community care services from the Ontario government to CHEO and Kids Come First and has most recently been leading the work to better connect those services to everything else we do in pediatric healthcare. Jennifer is a collaborator, working with patients, families, healthcare providers, and community partners to transform health care services.

Jennifer holds a Master of Arts in Psychology from Carleton University and a Master of Health Administration from the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management, where she also received the Robert Wood Johnson Award. Since 2007, Jennifer has been an active member of the Canadian College of Health Leaders (CCHL) and is a Certified Health Executive (CHE). She is serving her second term on the CCHL Board of Directors and is a mentor to emerging health leaders.

Mari Teitelbaum trained and worked as an electrical engineer in the first half of her life, but found her passion when she shifted her technology expertise from the tech sector (security and big data) to healthcare with the help of the genes her doctor parents gave her in 1971 and a Masters of Health Administration in 2010. Bridging what technology can do with the impact on people and work allowed her many exciting opportunities at CHEO.

She began at BORN Ontario (Better Outcomes Registry & Network) where her skills and enthusiasm were quickly recognized, promoting her into the leadership team responsible for delivering on the promise of BORN - high quality data to enable clinical change for newborns and their families across Ontario.

Joining the CHEO Executive team in 2014 as CIO was the beginning of a 10 year adventure that saw CHEO reach the top 1% of digital hospitals in Canada with a shared EMR instance with SickKids. Mari's contribution to that and to virtual care at CHEO during the pandemic were recognized by her 'Canadian public sector CIO of the Year' award in 2021

Finally, with the technology environment stable and thriving, she shifted her attention to other hospital enablers as Vice-President of Strategy, Quality & Family Partnership

Mari recently competed a sabbatical at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London UK to learn more about how transformation is done in the NHS and bring the best parts home to CHEO.

Ann Clancy is CHEO’s accomplished Chief Talent Officer who brings a wealth of experience spanning over two decades. Ann’s portfolio includes all branches of Human Resources including Total Rewards/HRIS, Organizational Development and Learning, Labour Relations, Talent Acquisition, and Occupational Health and Wellness.

Ann holds over 25 years of senior leadership experience in HR in the charitable and not-for-profit sector. She has worked with CEO’s, Boards, leadership teams, and HR teams to design and implement strategies, programs, and tools that are relevant and adaptable to ever changing environments. Her work supports those at all levels of the organization across the full employee and volunteer lifecycle. Throughout her 20-year career with the Canadian Red Cross, Ann helped drive organizational evolution and transformation, always striving to improve the employee and volunteer experience while strengthening the organization's ability to deliver the mission.

As a certified Human Resources Leader, Ann’s motto is: “we can’t take care of others if we don’t take care of ourselves!” Ann is honoured to be part of CHEO’s team to focus on supporting the people who help the children and families that CHEO serves.

Watson Gale is CHEO’s General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer. Watson brings over 30 years of experience in law and executive management to his role together with an extensive background in governance.

Watson has a business background and a long history of working with not-for-profit and charitable organizations, including being on the board of directors of several key organizations in Ottawa. In addition to practicing law in Ontario, Watson was called to the bar in both Nunavut and the Northwest Territories and has a strong interest in Canada’s amazing northern regions.

Anick Losier joined CHEO in 2022 in the new role of Chief Branding and Communications Officer. Her purview spans across CHEO, the CHEO Foundation, and the CHEO Research Institute in a collaborative and integrated approach to communications, marketing and branding.  Anick is an experienced bilingual communications and brand leader who has spent the past two decades in key executive positions for pan-Canadian organizations.

A creative thinker who doesn’t believe in the status quo, she is constantly trying to find better ways to connect and reach audiences and tell compelling narratives.

Anick brings a wealth of experience to CHEO’s leadership, having led external communications efforts at the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), supporting their Presidents as spokespeople and managing issues. Throughout those years, she successfully led the efforts to position the CMA brand and voice on the national stage during the COVID pandemic, managed the announcement and issues following the sale of MD Financial Management and was the catalyst to CMA’s successful push for the implementation of Bill C-3 to protect health workers. Last year, she researched, developed and successfully received board approval to a new initiative designed to address misinformation and disinformation in Canada. She was the successful candidate for the CMA Media Vice President position following a rigorous external recruitment process in May 2022. Prior to joining the CMA, Anick led media relations efforts at Canada Post as their national spokesperson and director of media and issue management. During this time of transformation for the postal system, her work led to the implementation of impactful narratives that supported a fundamental pivot from a lettermail business to a competitive parcel company with much public scrutiny. Anick’s healthcare knowledge also stems from spending close to a decade at the Canadian Institute for Health Information where she held various communications and marketing roles to create brand awareness initiatives for the organization and build their media and social media programs.

A passionate volunteer, Anick has served on several boards and committees, including the Dovercourt Recreation Association (DRA), the Ottawa Race Weekend’s Board of Directors, the Ottawa Viennese Ball, and the YMCA/YWCA Women of Distinction Awards.

As a graduate of the University of Moncton and the Université Laval, Anick holds a Bachelor in Information-Communications with a specialization in journalism and political science, and a Master in Public Communications.

Dr. Chakraborty is a physician certified by the Royal College in Medical Biochemistry and Pediatrics, with a subspecialty in Biochemical Genetics. He has a long history with the care of patients with Inherited Metabolic Diseases (IMD) and with leading population based Newborn Screening. He started as a clinician seeing patients with IMD in 2003, and was the Medical and Laboratory Director for Newborn Screening Ontario (NSO) from 2007-2023; NSO leads the newborn screening program for the Province of Ontario which screens about 145,000 babies annually. Since 2020, he has served as a Senior Medical Advisory for the Laboratories and Diagnostics Branch of the Ontario Ministry of Health, and co-chairs Ontario’s Provincial Genetics Advisory Committee. Throughout his career, he has been involved in clinical and translational research related to IEM. In addition to these roles, he became a Full Professor at the Faculty of Medicine in 2022, having been Associate Professor since 2014.

Dr. Chakraborty’s research interest focuses on the two areas of inherited metabolic diseases and newborn screening. He is involved in team research in newborn screening policy, the development of novel laboratory diagnostic and screening methods, translational metabolomics and disease pathophysiology research, as well as patient registries and observational outcome research. He has spoken at dozens of national and international panels and symposiums to share his expertise and discuss matters related to newborn screening. He has co-authored several chapters in books and 150 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

In 1990, Dr. Chakraborty graduated from the University of Toronto with a BSc in biochemistry with a minor in political science. In 1993, he completed the MD program at McMaster University. In 1998, he received a medical biochemistry degree from the University of Western Ontario (FRCPC). In 2000, he successfully completed pediatrics training at uOttawa (FRCPC). In 2002, he received a biochemical genetics degree from the University of Toronto (FCCMG).

Dr Isserlin is certified by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in both Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She graduated from Dalhousie University medical school in Halifax. N.S. in 2004. She then completed her residency in Psychiatry with a diploma in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Western University in London, ON in 2009.

Dr Isserlin has focused her clinical work and research in the field of pediatric eating disorders since 2009. She worked at London Health Sciences Center from 2009 to 2012, before moving to North Carolina to work at the Center of Excellence in Eating Disorders at the University of North Carolina from 2012 to 2014. In 2014 she moved to Ottawa and to CHEO to become part of the CHEO Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders service.

Since arriving at CHEO Dr Isserlin has held multiple leadership roles including the Program Director for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the Director of Fellowship Development for the uOttawa Department of Psychiatry, the Medical Co-Director of the Eating Disorders Program and the Corporate Medical Director for System and Quality Improvement. As Chief of the Department of Psychiatry Dr Isserlin co-leads the Mental Health Patient Care Leadership Team, she is a member of CHEO’s executive leadership team, and she is the Academic Head of the uOttawa Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Dr. Vaccani is a native of Ottawa. He graduated from The University of Ottawa medical school in 1997 and Otolaryngology- Head & Neck surgery residency at The University of Ottawa in 2002. He then completed a fellowship in Pediatric Otolaryngology at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia.

Dr. Vaccani was appointed Chief Department of Surgery at CHEO in January of 2021 and continues as the Chief of the Division of Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery. As Chief of the Department of Surgery Dr. Vaccani co-leads the perioperative patient care leadership team; he is a member of CHEO’s executive leadership team and CHEO’s site Chief for the uOttawa Academic Department of Surgery.

Dr. Vaccani was previously the Deputy Chief of Staff at CHEO in which he was the educational liaison between CHEO and the University of Ottawa Medical School.

Sheila James is the inaugural Director of the Office of Indigeneity, Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access and Social Justice (I-IDEAS). She brings over twenty years of experience as an equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) leader and specialist in federal and municipal governments.

She is executive director of a sole proprietorship DEVI (Diverse, Equitable, Vital, and Innovative) Consultation and Strategies, providing EDI advice to national and provincial cultural agencies. Sheila has a Master of Fine Arts from University of British Columbia and has a Master of Laws (LLM) at Osgoode Law School, York University.

Prior to joining CHEO, Sheila served as the Senior Strategic Advisor, Equity, at the Canada Council for the Arts where she managed the Equity Office for ten years. She led the development of ground-breaking policies and million-dollar targeted funding programs that greatly contributed to the diversification of Canada’s cultural landscape. More recently she worked at the City of Ottawa leading organizational wide equity initiatives including data driven strategic hiring processes towards achieving the City’s workforce demographic targets.

Sheila is an award-winning author and videographer whose work focuses on stories from marginalized perspectives. She has presented extensively on equitable practices and diverse participation in government, unions, universities, and not-for-profit sectors.

Sheila’s mandate is to implement recommendations from the Equity Diversity, Inclusion, and Indigeneity (EDII) Task Force’s Roadmap for Change and further considerations and to build the Office of Indigeneity, Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access and Social Justice (I-IDEAS).

Sheila brings a feminist, queer and racialized perspective to her work as she strives to influence and motivates cross-sectoral teams to collaborate, excel and achieve equity and diversity goals towards greater social justice.