Our Board

As a Human Resources executive with almost 30 years of experience, Fern Goncalves has extensive experience in providing human resources and training services within healthcare and a regulatory association as well as expertise with strategic planning, leadership training and succession planning, as well as advocacy and community outreach. Fern has held leadership positions with Professional Engineers Ontario and Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, including oversight of various departments, including human resources, professional development, volunteer services and events/conference management.

An active member with the Canadian Society of Association Executives and Human Resources Professionals Association (HRPA), Fern has also served on various HRPA committees and participated in mentorship programs. Fern holds a Masters of Adult Education (M.Ed.) from the University of Toronto – OISE as well as the designation of Certified Human Resources Leader (CHRL) from the Human Resources Professionals Association. Fern has been actively involved in numerous Board and committees with the United Way of York Region and the Catholic Community Services of York Region – a family and social services agency accredited by Family Services Ontario and a member of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants.

Fern joined the Southlake Residential Care Village Board of Directors in 2018.

Amira Salama joined the Southlake Residential Care Village Board of Directors in 2024. With over 15 years of experience, she is a healthcare systems leader known for driving transformation across hospital, community, and national organizations. Her expertise spans business strategy, operations management, and organizational change. Amira is recognized for building high-performing teams, optimizing processes, and advancing innovation to improve patient outcomes and foster meaningful cross-sector collaboration.

In her current role as Associate Vice President of Data Governance at CIBC Mellon, Amira leads enterprise-wide strategies to support data quality, compliance, and governance maturity, enabling evidence-based decision-making and aligning data practices with organizational goals. Her previous leadership experience spans a range of healthcare organizations including the Canadian Cancer Society, CancerX—a White House-led initiative—the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Ontario Health, and the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Amira brings a strong track record in stakeholder engagement, strategic planning, and innovation implementation—particularly in modernizing healthcare delivery through digital infrastructure, optimizing clinical workflows, and advancing data-informed decision-making.

In addition to her professional work, Amira is a volunteer mentor with the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC), where she supports internationally trained professionals in building confidence and navigating the Canadian workforce. She is passionate about fostering inclusive leadership and supporting others in reaching their full potential.

Amira, a healthcare provider by training, holds an Executive MBA from both Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and York University’s Schulich School of Business. She is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and holds additional certifications in Executive Healthcare Leadership, Healthcare Change Management, and Data Science and Predictive Analytics. Passionate about advancing health equity and improving system performance, Amira is proud to support Southlake’s mission through her board service.

Rohan Jacob is the CEO of ActivateStaff, a leading staffing platform-as-a-service that empowers modern, mobile-first staffing agencies across North America. With extensive experience as both an operator and investor in B2B software companies, Rohan has a proven track record of building high-growth SaaS businesses and guiding teams through critical inflection points. His strategic vision and executional excellence have been instrumental in delivering value to customers and stakeholders alike. Beyond his role at ActivateStaff, Rohan actively supports founders and portfolio companies, particularly those navigating challenges related to scaling, product-market fit, and go-to-market strategies. He is passionate about leveraging AI adoption and has a strategic focus on unlocking value and driving organizational innovation.

Gayle joined Southlake in December 2018. Gayle is a multi-award-winning Certified Health Care Executive with a track record for driving innovation and using evidence-based methods to achieve ambitious results. In her present position as Executive Innovator, Community Partnerships at Southlake Regional Health Centre, she brings her skills for building strong, collaborative partnerships, and her passion for challenging the status quo to improve quality of care, the patient and provider experience, and health system performance.

With a background in Nursing, over 20 years as a healthcare leader in acute care hospitals, home and community care, and government entities, Gayle has successfully navigated the rapidly-changing healthcare landscape by responding with vision. She engages partners and rallies them around common goals to achieve sustainable outcomes across the spectrum of service, quality, and excellence. She is a dynamic leader with a particular strength in developing initiatives which improve outcomes associated with transitions in care.

Patrick Clifford is recently retired as the Director of Research and Innovation, at the Research Institute of Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket Ontario and CreateIT Now the Southlake owned and operated on campus health innovation center. During his tenure in that role, Patrick’s responsibilities included 1/oversight of research operations and infrastructure (including the REB) and 2/ advancing innovation and commercialization activities along with culture building, through strategic collaborations with industry, academia, funders, and other key partners. Patrick was also charged with leading the development and implementation of Southlake’s research agenda and advancing the innovation and commercialization strategy which included growing partnerships and collaborations with private sector ventures wishing to evaluate and/or validate wide ranging health focused technologies with Southlake clinicians in an acute care, large community hospital environment. Patrick led the CreateIT Now hospital-based innovation center which saw and assessed for collaborations some 350 early to mid stage ventures in the medical, digital, AI, and health related technologies, including their impact on health care delivery models and health economics.  Patrick oversaw the attraction and disbursement of some 12 million dollars in innovation funding and led a team focused on horizon scanning, hospital based HTA’s, HTA’s as enablers of innovation and innovative procurement mechanisms.  Patrick’s role at CreateIT now also focused on gaining early access to promising technologies and helping to drive real world data and validation exercises through collaborative initiatives with multiple stakeholders and the use of implementation science to help drive adoption and scale. Patrick was also engaged in Southlake’s health sector leadership role in innovative, value/outcome based, procurement practices using a range of innovative procurement strategies including competitive dialogue and design contests. Patrick retired after 34 years of health care experience in acute care, including a concurrent 22 years as a practicing clinician in emergency mental health at Oak Valley Health (formerly Markham Stouffville Hospital). Patrick continues to practice as a clinician, performs occasional work for Southlake post-retirement and serves on a variety of voluntary sector boards at the local, provincial and national level including a publicly funded long term care home, the Centre of Arthritis Excellence (CArE), HELIX through Seneca Polytechnic and the H2i (U of T), and maintains his role as a national director for N2. He holds a BA, BSW, BEd, MSW and his RSW designation.