Board of Directors

Jo-Anne Poirier, Chair

Jo-Anne Poirier joined VON Canada in 2014 as President and Chief Executive Officer. From 2008 until 2014, Jo-Anne was Chief Executive Officer of the Ottawa Community Housing Corporation. Under her leadership, Ottawa Community Housing received several awards for excellence including the 2011 Ottawa Chamber of Commerce Business Achievement Award’s Non-Profit Organization of the Year. Jo-Anne was previously Vice-President, Resource Development and Chief Executive Officer of the Government of Canada Workplace Charitable Campaign for United Way Ottawa, First Vice-President, Business Development for MBNA Canada Bank, and Deputy City Manager, Corporate Services with the City of Gloucester. She has worked for more than 35 years in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors.

Jo-Anne is also actively involved in the community and on several Boards of Directors. She was Second Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees of CHEO until September 2016 and is continuing on the Board of CHEO, Vice-Chair of the City of Ottawa Board of Health and is a member of the Calian Board of Directors. She was a founding board member of the Board of Directors of the Champlain Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), 2005-2010. Jo-Anne has received several awards for her work in the community, including the 2012 Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and the 2012 Dirigeante de l'année, Secteur Communautaire (2012 CEO of the year, Non-Profit sector) Award from the Regroupement des gens d'affaires de la capitale nationale.

Jim Armour, Vice chair

Jim Armour is a Vice President at Summa Strategies and has extensive knowledge of media relations, communications, advocacy and advertising. His broad skill set gives clients the opportunity to take an integrated approach to achieving their objectives.

Prior to joining Summa, Jim served as Director of Communications and Marketing at the Canadian Medical Association where he played a key role in their efforts to improve access, reduce wait times and address Canada’s doctor shortage.

Jim worked on Parliament Hill from 1994 to 2000 and from 2002 to 2005. He was Communications Director for two Leaders of the Official Opposition and helped brand the launch of both the Canadian Alliance and the Conservative Party of Canada. This interest in marketing strategy and tactics was furthered by the two years he spent with one of Atlantic Canada’s top advertising agencies.

Originally from St. John’s Newfoundland, Jim has a B.A. (Hons) from McGill and a M.A. in Newfoundland History from Memorial University. He also earned his APR accreditation from the Canadian Public Relations Society and has a CAAP designation from the Institute of Communication Agencies.

Outside of the office, Jim serves on the boards of CHEO, the Canadian Pharmacists Association, the Forum for Young Canadians and the North Grenville Public Library. He also sits on the editorial board of the international Journal of Communication in Health care.

Filipe Dinis, Treasurer

Filipe Dinis is Chief Operating Officer at the Bank of Canada. As COO, he is responsible for overseeing the Bank’s strategic planning, corporate functions and operations including bank note production.

Mr. Dinis has had a distinguished career in public service. Before joining the Bank, Mr. Dinis served in the federal Privy Council Office, where he was Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet and provided strategic advice and analysis to the Clerk of the Privy Council on Business Transformation and Public Service Renewal. He also served as Secretary to the Prime Minister’s Advisory Committee on the Public Service. Prior to that position, he was Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Commissioner at the Canada Revenue Agency. 

Mr. Dinis holds a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University, and is a Chartered Professional Accountant. Mr. Dinis is also a recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal.

 Louis Doyle

Louis Doyle served as a Parent Representative on the Ottawa Children’s Treatment Centre Board from 2015 to 2016, bringing with him 20 years of experience in various fields, including policy and programming. Currently he works as a ministerial liaison with FedNor, an Innovation, Sciences and Economic Development Canada program that is working with community partners to achieve job creation and economic growth in Northern Ontario.

Annie Chartrand

Annie Chartrand is Dean of Education, Collège La Cité, overseeing the School of Administration, Hospitality and Tourism and the Emergency and Judicial Services Institute. Annie has an extensive background in the education sector, beginning her career as a teacher. With a Master’s of Science in Education, she has held progressive leadership roles with several post-secondary institutions including the University of Ottawa and Collège La Cité.

Annie also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Collège La Cité and has been an active member in the community, including supporting many CHEO events along with her family. Annie brings a strong patient and family perspective to CHEO’s Board.

Karen Green

Karen Green, from Tyendinga Mohawk Territory, is a lawyer who has spent her career advocating and promoting the rights of First Nations People, particularly those of First Nation’s women and children.  She worked for most of her career with the Department of Justice where she held senior positions, most notably, as the Executive Director of the Federal Centre for Conflict Management, and the Director of the Diversity and Gender Equality Unit. As part of an executive exchange, Karen spent two years, as the Chief Executive Officer of the Native Women’s Association of Canada. Karen was the main writer and advisor of the women’s chapter of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Report. Since leaving government, Karen has worked as a Senior Advisor on Indigenous Issues for the University of Ottawa, and as the Director of the Equity Office at Carleton University. Now self-employed as a lawyer and policy consultant, specializing in Indigenous issues, Karen has a range of clients seeking to advance the rights of Indigenous people.

Karen has an extensive history with the voluntary sector. Currently, she is the President of the Makonsag Aboriginal Head Start Program, a director on the board of Andrew Fleck Children’s Services; and a member of the University of Ottawa Indigenous Education Council. She is a past director of the following boards: 

• Ottawa Community Foundation, 
• United Way, 
• Ottawa Children’s Aid Society, 
• Children’s Aid Foundation, 
• Interval House, 
• Gloucester Non-Profit Housing, 
• First Nations Technical Institute, 
• Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health, 
• Minwaashin Lodge 
• Odawa Native Friendship Centre.  

Heidi Hauver

Heidi is a strategic people-oriented leader who partners with companies as a Chief People Officer. She offers executive guidance, consultation, and mentorship to Executive Teams and HR professionals throughout their career trajectories.

With over two decades of experience across diverse industries, such as technology and non-profit sectors, Heidi is committed to revolutionizing the Human Resources (HR) function and showcasing its strategic business significance. Since 2007, she has established an HR consultancy, created HR departments from the ground up for three companies, and served as the inaugural HR Executive for three companies. Heidi's dynamic leadership and unwavering dedication to innovation have earned her numerous awards, including: the 2022 WBN Businesswomen of the Year Award for Community Impact, the 2020 Alumni of the Year Award (Business) from Algonquin College, the inaugural 2018 Leadership Agency Award for Woman of Distinction, a 2017 Top 25 HR Professional recognition, the 2012 Ottawa Business Journal/Ottawa Chamber of Commerce Forty Under 40 Award, and the 2012 CATA Information Technology Strategic HR Leadership Award.

Heidi is a Certified Human Resources Executive, a Chartered Professional in Human Resources, a Canadian Certified Inclusion Professional, and a Certified Coach Practitioner. As a devoted volunteer and community advocate, she supports various organizations, including Algonquin College, Code Youth, Hire Immigrants Ottawa, Women in Communications & Technology, Women's Business Network, Women In Leadership Foundation, and CHEO.

Justin Ferrabee

Justin Ferrabee is an experienced entrepreneur, having co-founded several businesses, including Fieldless Farms (which grows produce indoors in Ontario) and Ollie Quinn (an in-store and online glasses/sunglasses retailer). He is also a transformational leader having driven challenging, large scale change in dynamic, complex, multi-stakeholder environments across geographies and cultures, including his previous role as Chief Operating Officer at Payments Canada.

Justin is a leading expert on large-scale organizational transformation with over 25 years of experience in the field, as both an executive and a consultant. He has worked with complex and sophisticated global companies (e.g. British Telecom, Unilever, Philips) and has been involved in many advanced and challenging public sector transformations, working across the political, executive and operational levels in federal, regional and municipal governments. Previously, Justin was the President and Managing Partner of TotemHill Consulting, an international management consulting firm focused exclusively on large-scale transformation projects. He also held vice-president and senior vice-president positions with CapGemini and Calian Technologies.

Justin’s family, including children Lincoln and Levi, have been strongly supported by CHEO. Lincoln, who was born with cerebral palsy, has been a CHEO patient since birth and was also a student at CHEO’s school.

Seema Nagpal

Seema Nagpal (Ph.D.) is an applied epidemiologist with broad experience as an executive leader of scientific operations. She has expertise in population health, epidemiology, and pharmaceutical sciences with an emphasis on interpretation of science into policy and practice.

Dr. Nagpal joined the Canadian Cardiovascular Society in 2022 as the Chief Science Officer. She leads the team in working towards their mission to advance heart health for all. Previously she was the Vice President, Science and Policy at Diabetes Canada. Seema has worked closely with researchers and clinicians, promoted evidence-based public policy, programs and information development, identified and leveraged partnerships and worked closely with the collaborating teams. She has built her reputation as a strong and effective leader by collaborating with governments, health care professionals, partnering organizations and patients to drive impactful change within the health system.

Seema practiced as a hospital pharmacist, and then earned a M.Sc. Community Health and Epidemiology (Dalhousie University) and a Ph.D. in population health (University of Ottawa). Prior to her work at Diabetes Canada, Seema worked at the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technology and Health (CADTH) and the Canadian Medical Association (CMA).

Dr. Nagpal has served on the board of a local youth sports club, volunteer committees for the Canadian Public Health Association and the Canadian Pharmacists Association, and CHEO’s Quality and Safety Committee.

Nancy Naylor

Nancy has held several leadership roles in the Ontario public service, including Deputy Minister, and led major projects in funding, labour relations, infrastructure, information technology and public policy.

Ms. Naylor holds degrees from McMaster University and Carleton University and has served on a number of other boards, including the Public Policy Forum.

Benoit Laberge

Chair of the Board of the CHEO School Authority

As a member of the CHEO Board of Directors, Benoit Laberge brings years of experience in education and administration. He has been in the field of education for 43 years, as both a special education teacher as well as Director of student services in both Quebec and Ontario. He is presently teaching special education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa.

Benoit has been a board member of the CHEO School Authority since 2014. In this role, he is responsible, along with fellow board members, for supervising the operation of the School Program.

Benoit has worked on provincial programs related to children with special needs, including Programme AVIS, provincial Individual Education Plan (IEP), and a program related to social abilities. He is presently a consultant in the field of education, administration, and special education. Benoit has also developed and coordinated the Community services program for a French School Board.

Julie St-Pierre
University of Ottawa Representative

Julie St-Pierre received her PhD from the University of Cambridge (UK) and she pursued postdoctoral work at the University of Cambridge, Harvard Medical School (USA), and Université de Montréal. From 2008-2017, she was Assistant and Associate Professor at McGill University. Currently, she is a Full Professor and Associate Vice-President (Research Support and Infrastructure) at the University of Ottawa. Her research program focuses on understanding the connections between metabolism and cancer. During the last decade, her team contributed to uncover the role of the metabolic regulators in cancer, with a particular focus on poor outcome breast cancers. Her professional achievements have been recognized through research scholar awards from the Fonds de la Recherche en Santé–Québec and the Canada Research Chair program. In terms of service contribution to research, Dr. St-Pierre has served as panel member for the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), Canadian Cancer Society (CCS), Cancer Research Society (CRS), as well as the European Research Council (ERC).

Dr. Lindy Samson

President and Chief Executive Officer (interim)

Lindy Samson is the President & CEO (interim) of CHEO, as of October 2024.

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. From April 2016-October 2024, Lindy Samson held the role of CHEO’s Chief of Staff and Chief Medical Officer. As CHEO’s senior physician leader, she was 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 worked closely with the CEO and the Executive Team and reported 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.

Dr. Jean-Philippe Vaccani

Chief of Staff and Chief Medical Officer (acting)

Dr. Vaccani was appointed Chief Department of Surgery at CHEO in January of 2021 and continued 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.

Tammy DeGiovanni
Senior Vice-President and Chief Nurse 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 Chief Nurse Information Officer.

Tammy joined the Executive Team in 2021 in the role of Senior Vice President and Chief Nurse Executive. Her portfolio includes Critical Care and Surgical Services, Inpatient Medicine, Hematology/Oncology, Ambulatory Care, Pharmacy and the Emergency Department. She also supports the Champlain Maternal Newborn Regional Program as well as the National Newcomer Navigation Network. As Chief Nurse she is proud to be working with our dynamic and professional nursing team throughout CHEO.

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 currently serves as their Vice-Chair.

Dr. Joe Reisman
President, Medical Staff

Joe Reisman completed an undergraduate Bachelor of Arts degree (magne cum laude) at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario from 1972-1976. A Doctor of Medicine M.D. degree was completed at the University of Toronto between 1976-1980. Dr. Reisman completed his MBA at the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management from 1996-1998.

Postgraduate medical training has included a mixed internship year completed at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto (1980-81) and a year of General Surgery in the University of Ottawa Surgery Program (1981-82). A 3-year residency in General Pediatrics (1982-85) and a 3- year Fellowship in Pediatric Respirology were completed at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto (1985-88).

In 1988, Dr. Reisman joined the full time staff of the Division of Respiratory Medicine at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. Academic appointments were as an Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto from 1988-1995, and as an Associate Professor from 1995-1999.

Dr. Reisman was the Training Program Director for Pediatric Respiratory Medicine at the University of Toronto from 1995-1999. As well he has functioned as the Co-Chair of the Examination Board for Respiratory Medicine for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada from 1995-2002 and served on the Respiratory Medicine Nucleus Committee of the Royal College. For contributions towards the educational endeavors of the Lung Association, Dr. Reisman received the Special Services Award in 1995 and the Meritorious Service Award in 1997.

Research focus has pertained to clinical trials in the spheres of pediatric asthma and cystic fibrosis. From 1992-1999, Dr. Reisman served as a Co-Principal Investigator (1992-95) and Principal Investigator (1995-99) for the Hospital for Sick Children site of the multi-year, multi-centre, NIH funded, Childhood Asthma Management Program (CAMP). This is the largest pediatric asthma clinical trial ever undertaken. Dr. Reisman is currently working as a Co-Investigator in a variety of clinical trials at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Ottawa.

As of January 2000, Dr. Reisman became the Chief of Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Ottawa, and Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics, University of Ottawa. In his administrative capacity, as well as sitting on a variety of internal and external committees, he served on the Provincial Council on Child Health for the Province of Ontario, and was Co-Chair of the National Child and Youth Health Coalition ‘Efficiency Indicators’ Task Force.

Dr. Reisman completed two 5-year terms as Chief and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics in October 2010, and has continued on as an active clinician and Professor in the Division of Pediatric Respiratory Medicine, and is involved with both undergraduate

and postgraduate medical education activities. In 2014, he rejoined the Respiratory Medicine Examination Committee of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. As well in 2014, he was appointed Medical Director of the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.

He is currently the President of the CHEO Medical Staff Association and Chair of the Board of CHAMO, the CHEO Physicians and Surgeons Alternate Funding Plan. Dr. Reisman currently serves as Co-Chair of the Asthma Committee of the Lung Health Foundation (formerly Ontario Lung Association).