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.

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. 

Timothy Flemming is a long time Resident of Aurora and Newmarket with deep connections to the community. He has been involved with several charities from the grass roots to the board level. At the participant level he has coached over 25 sports programs, been a Scout leader and heavily involved in his church. At the board level he has served in 5 plus capacities including the Boys and Girls Club of Canada, MS Society of Simcoe-Muskoka and of course the Southlake Residential Care Village for the last 4 plus years.

Educationally, Tim has an undergraduate degree in Economics from Wilfrid Laurier University and a member in good standing of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario for over 30 years. He is engaged as both a participant and educator in many CPA activities each year. In early 2018, he chose to expand his personal development by obtaining his license as a personal Financial Advisor.

He has served in a wide range of senior business capacities with Sears Canada for over 25 years in Finance, Operations, Marketing, Merchandising and much more. As a member of the Board and executive leadership team, results were very solid. Upon departure from Sears, Tim set up his own consulting and small business improvement firm that continues to operate successfully to this day.

Tim has been married to his wife Kim for 38 years and raised 3 children who have gone
on to begin their successful careers and lives. Tim cares deeply about people, justice,
equity and transparency and works for SRCV because he believes they are a great
asset to the Newmarket community.

Tim joined Southlake Residential Care Village in 2015.

Rosalyn was born and raised in Northern Ontario and after a year in Mexico as a Rotary Exchange Student she moved to Toronto to complete her Bachelor of Science in Nursing at the University of Toronto. After graduation, Rosalyn started her career at St. Michael’s Hospital, where she worked in a variety of roles, initially in Medicine, Critical Care and then in Management.

Rosalyn has 30+ years experience as a healthcare provider. The focus of her career has been Chronic Disease, Geriatric Emergency Medicine (GEM), and Restorative Care. In her first management role, her focus was on quality, efficiency, resource management and patient flow for the Medicine Program. She also, worked extensively with the Homeless developing a primary care pathway for those that were admitted to help their overall health and address some of the concerns regarding access to care.

Rosalyn joined the SRCV Board in 2018.

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.

Matt has been a business professional in the medical industry for more than 40 years. Initially with Baxter Canada where he rose from technical sales to marketing management where he was responsible for a $40 million market, bringing new technologies and products into the medical and research marketplace. After 20 years Matt left Baxter to join the Regional Government of Toronto where, as a Business Development Manager for the Medical and Life Sciences Sector, he was responsible for bringing new investment into our region and creating new companies, jobs and wealth. It was here that he was introduced to the bio sciences and developed a passion for this emerging field of medicine. Working closely with research scientists, Matt assisted them in bringing their research discoveries out of academe and creating new companies to develop and market new therapeutic and diagnostic products.

One of his most important achievements was the creation of “Toronto’s Discovery District”, our research area for the region and province. Marketing it’s huge power for medical discoveries to the world, the Discovery District has international recognition. Annual investment into the Discovery District, exceeds $1.5 Billion annually. Matt also has extensive experience working with the pharmaceutical industry as well as medical and surgical device corporations.

Over the span of his career, Matt has been an active member on many Governing Boards and up to his recent retirement was Vice Chair of “Life Sciences Ontario” the industry association for the biotechnology and life science sectors.

Matt joined the Southlake Residential Care Village in 2018.

Denise is qualified as a Corporate Commercial Lawyer who has specialized in general corporate and commercial law and securities law with a focus on mining and exploration. She holds a law degree and a master degree in law. She practiced with a prominent international law firm in the UK as a corporate and commercial solicitor, focusing primarily on take-over bids, mergers and acquisitions, reverse take-overs and corporate governance, and providing general advice on directors' duties and responsibilities before joining a prominent law firm, Heenan Blakie LLP located in Toronto where she practiced securities law in the mining group. Denise has previous board experience and was appointed as company secretary for a prominent mining company in Toronto. In her current role, Denise has switched focus and now works as a National Compliance Manager and Data Privacy Protection Officer for a prominent international organization. She is committed to giving back to the community and is passionate about providing her time to Southlake Residential Care Village to provide legal advisory as required.

Denise joined the Southlake Residential Care Village in 2015

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.

Helen is an Organizational Behaviour expert and award-winning Professional Engineer with 30 years of experience, Helen Wojcinski operates her own management consulting practice and has worked with clients in a variety of industries and in all three levels of government.

For the past 20 years, Helen has served on boards and committees in health care planning, children’s mental health, specialized clinical servicesfor people with autism and development disabilities, the engineering profession both nationally and in Ontario, and the Canadian National Exhibition Association.

In addition to an MBA from Western University Ivey School of Business, Helen also holds a B.A.Sc. (Civil) from the University of Toronto and a Certificate in Leading Strategic Change from the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management. Helen is both a Licensed Professional Engineer in Ontario and a Certified Management Consultant.

In recognition of her contributions to society, Helen has received the University of Toronto Arbor Award, the University of Toronto Engineering 2T5 Mid-Career Achievement Award, and the Ontario Professional Engineers Citizenship Award. More recently, Helen was bestowed the 2019 Engineers Canada Meritorious Service Award for Community Service. She is also a Fellow of Engineers Canada and the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

Helen joined the Southlake Residential Care Village Board of Directors November 2016.