PRESENTER

Wendy Nelson
Wendy Nelson
Founder & Project Lead,
Vernissage Health
Senior Fellow,
Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation (IHPME)
University of Toronto

Wendy Nelson

Founder & Project Lead, Vernissage Health
Senior Fellow, IHPME, University of Toronto

BIO

Wendy is Senior Fellow with the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME) at the University of Toronto and an experienced executive in the health and social service sectors, possessing an established track record leading positive organizational and health systems change.

With Master’s Degrees in Management from both University of Toronto (1983) and McGill University (2014), Wendy is committed to incorporating contemporary ideas and available evidence to assist leaders facilitate positive, sustainable change within complex systems. Her graduate research at McGill focused on the critical success factors, including leadership, required for large scale health system transformation. Wendy is also one of a handful of Canadian graduates of the Leadership Academy offered through Parker Palmer’s Centre for Courage and Renewal in Washington (2014).

At IHPME, Wendy wears many hats serving as student preceptor, instructor, and Adjunct Professor and has served as President of the IHPME Alumni Association where she was recipient of the Institute’s President’s Achievement Award. Wendy recently received the University of Toronto’s Arbor Award in 2018 for her outstanding service within IHPME.

Wendy is Founder and Project Lead for Vernissage Health™ – an innovative leadership development initiative within IHPME for graduate students and early career health leaders. For more information about Vernissage Health™, please visit vernissagehealth.com.

Wendy has served as a senior executive in a broad range of settings in the public and private sector including large academic hospitals, regional community and social services, as well as family health teams. For eight years, Wendy served as President and CEO of Rx Canada, a private company governed by community-based retail pharmacies across Canada which created and operated a technology platform to support a national prescription database as well as medication adherence programs for patients with chronic disease.