Vice-President, Research and Innovation, and Strategic Initiatives
University of Toronto

University Professor Edward (Ted) Sargent received a BScEng (Engineering Physics) from Queen’s University and a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering (Photonics) from the University of Toronto. He joined the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto in 1998, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2002 and to Full Professor in 2005. He served as Associate Chair, Research, for Electrical and Computer Engineering, from 2009 to 2012. He then served as Vice-Dean, Research for the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering until 2016. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology. In 2015 he was appointed as University Professor, the University of Toronto’s most distinguished rank. Among his many honours, he received this year’s Killam Prize for Engineering.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Canadian Academy of Engineering. The impact of his work has been felt in industry through his formation of a number of start-up companies. He is founder and Chief Technology Officer of InVisage Technologies and co-founder of QD Solar and Xagenic.

Professor Sargent’s research interests cover many areas of nanotechnology and its application to communications and computing, medicine, and tapping new energy sources. His research has been cited more than 49,000 times (Scopus) and has been disseminated in Nature, Science, and other leading journals. Through his work as a scholar, Vice-Dean, Research and Vice-President, International, Professor Sargent has accumulated extensive experience in developing and enhancing global research networks involving both academic and industrial partners.

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President & CEO
Carmichael Worldwide Inc., Canada

Business Lecturer
DeGroote School of Business

With over 25 years of extensive executive management and start up experience, Dianne has had the opportunity to work in four distinct industries – Consumer Packaged Goods, Technology, Financial Services and Healthcare. She has been involved in multi-national, entrepreneurial and growth companies, rising to President and CEO in two of those industries.

In 2004, Dianne’s father was diagnosed with cancer, affecting her profoundly. This led to a major shift in her career and personal focus. Dianne chose to make a difference in the lives of Canadians stricken with profound illness by advocating and championing for patients, contributing to the highest quality of care in Canada and working to transform the health care system through disruptive innovation.

As the former President of Best Doctors Canada, she is credited with growing a strong consumer movement and market for remote second opinion and healthcare navigation services, resulting in Best Doctors becoming one of the most sought after employee benefits. With Dianne’s leadership, Best Doctors Canada now makes a difference in the lives of over 5 million Canadians and 40 million globally – changing diagnosis 22% of the time and modifying treatment 61% based on tens of thousands of second opinions. In addition to her role as President, Dianne helped drive the global branding and go-to-market effort of the Best Doctors organization, which operates in 30+ countries worldwide.

In 2012, Dianne was appointed Founder & President of UHN Solutions at UHN (Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre & Toronto Rehab Hospitals).  Her role at UHN Solutions combined her passion for patient advocacy and empowerment with her belief that unique funding models can be created to help feed Canada’s universal healthcare eco-system – ultimately enhancing the quality of care for all Canadians. She was a member of the Executive Team and International Business Committee Member.

In 2014 Dianne was acting CEO of a digital health technology startup, taking it from ideation to MVP and contracts in the US and Canada within 6 months.

Prior to her leadership roles in the healthcare industry, Dianne created and spearheaded Worldsource Wealth Management (a subsidiary of publicly-traded Guardian Capital Group Ltd.) where she was Chairman and CEO. While overseeing four operations nationally – with three reporting Presidents and 1,200 employees and Advisors – Dianne, grew Worldsource Wealth Management to more than $8 billion in AUA.

Before taking the helm at Worldsource, Dianne was with TD Waterhouse where she was promoted to Vice-President. She built, and later sold, one of the largest individual investment advisory practices, focused exclusively on sophisticated investors.

Earlier in her career, Dianne held progressively more senior sales and marketing management roles at leading consumer packaged goods organizations including Procter & Gamble, Gillette, RJReynolds-Nabisco and in technology organizations such as Memorex-Telex.

Dianne is currently a Board Member at Holland-Bloorview Kid’s Rehabilitation Hospital and The Patient Canada and is Co-Chair of Operation Smile Canada Gala.  Dianne also sits on the Advisory Boards of CAPCH (Canadian Association of People-Centred Health), ARC (academic e-health research collaborative), York University’s Faculty Heath. Dianne is a Business Lecturer at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business.

As an international keynote speaker and expert panelist, Dianne has spoken at podiums such as The Economic Club. She writes for the Huffington Post, PolicyMatters, and Health & Lifestyle Magazine. Dianne has been interviewed extensively about healthcare, innovation, leadership and branding in the media and on television, including the Globe and Mail, BNN, SunMedia TV, The Charles Adler Show and CBC.  She has been profiled twice on the cover of Women’s Post Magazine and interviewed for FIND YOUR GREAT WORK, a series highlighting major international leaders who have made significant contributions to society and business.

Dianne is a member of two CEO groups – TEC (The Executive Committee) and IWF (International Women’s Forum), which represents 6,500 female CEOs globally.

Dianne holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Waterloo.  She also holds a 3-year Business Diploma in Marketing, and various investment industry designations including CIM1, PFP, CSC Honours, CPH, and Officers and Directors.

In 2009, Dianne was recognized as one of the Top 20 Business Women in Canada, she has been nominated for Entrepreneur of the Year and was profiled as one of the Top Women to Watch in 2012. Schulich School of Business profiled her amongst the Top 100 Business Leaders in Canada.  She was recognized one of Canada’s Top Women Transforming Health Care 2015.

Dianne’s dream is to drive disruptive innovation that will positively impact healthcare, leading to sustainable, consumer-centred transformation.

Guided by this dream, Dianne founded Carmichael Worldwide Inc. in 2011 to provide executive leadership, innovation, commercialization while bringing digital health and consumer health & wellness solutions. The focus is on helping dynamic healthcare and wellness organizations whose mandates include enhancing the quality of patient care, enhancing the patient experience or impacting system sustainability through disruptive innovation, technology, delivery systems or unique funding models.

In 2015 Dianne was appointed Managing Director, Health Innovation & Ventures at MaRS Discovery District, North America’s largest Urban Innovation Hub. In this role, she hopes to exponentially impact health care globally by helping to scale Canada’s most innovative health ventures – driving innovation and economic advantage – with those digital technologies poised for global impact.

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President 

Manor Park Holdings, Canada

Lalit Aggarwal is President of Manor Park Holdings.  Previously, Lalit invested for H.I.G. European Capital Partners, Soros Fund Management, and Goldman Sachs.  He is a past fellow of the C.D. Howe Institute and a former Director of Bridgepoint Health.  Lalit holds degrees from the University of Oxford and the University of Pennsylvania and is also a current Director of the Hospital for Sick Children Foundation.

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Associate Vice-President, Research and Innovation
Global Research Partnerships

Professor Peter Lewis was appointed Associate Vice-President, Research of the University of Toronto in October, 2009. A highly respected and accomplished biochemist, Professor Lewis has been an academic leader, faculty member and researcher at U of T since 1974. Prior to joining the Office of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Professor Lewis served as Vice-Dean, Research and International Relations in the Faculty of Medicine for seven years. In that role, he distinguished himself through his leadership of the Faculty’s research enterprise, encompassing 27 departments, more than 4,000 faculty and approximately $600 million in direct research funding annually. He also had direct oversight of several Faculty research centres, such as the Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, the Structural Genomics Consortium and the Banting and Best Diabetes Centre. He served as Chair of the U of T Department of Biochemistry from 1991-2001. Professor Lewis serves on the boards of Bloorview Kids Rehab and the St. Michael’s Hospital Research Institute. His research interests include the structure and function of chromosomes with specific reference to gene regulation. Professor Lewis received his undergraduate education at the University of Calgary and his doctorate at Cornell University.

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Vice President, Research and Innovation
University of Toronto, Canada

Professor Vivek Goel is Vice-President, Research and Innovation, and Strategic Initiatives at the University of Toronto and a Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Professor Goel is a distinguished scholar with an extensive background in teaching, research and university administration. He obtained his medical degree from McGill University and completed post-graduate medical training in Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Goel obtained an MSc in Community Health from U of T and an MS in Biostatistics from Harvard University School of Public Health. His research has focused on health services evaluation and the promotion of the use of research evidence in health decision-making.

Professor Goel joined the University of Toronto in 1991 as Assistant Professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics. He was chair of the Department of Health Administration in the Faculty of Medicine from 1999 until 2001, then served as Vice-Provost, Faculty and subsequently was the University’s Vice President and Provost from 2004 until 2008. He was a founding scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), where he continues as an Adjunct Senior Scientist. He served as founding President and CEO of Public Health Ontario from 2008 until 2014, where he was highly successful in building an academic public health services agency that provided scientific and technical advice to front-line practitioners. Prior to rejoining U of T he served as Chief Academic Strategist with Coursera, a global platform that connects universities and learners with online courses.

He has extensive experience in governance and in his University role serves on the boards of MaRS Innovation, the Vector Institute, the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine, the Centre for Commercialization of Antibodies and Biologics, Compute Ontario, TRIUMF, and is co-chair of the Southern Ontario Smart Computing Innovation Platform (SOSCIP). He is also the Vice-Chair of the Board of the Canadian Institute for Health Information. He is also the Vice-Chair of the Board of the Canadian Institute for Health Information and a member of the Board of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research.

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