Michele James is the Executive Vice-President, People and Transformation at Scarborough Health Network (SHN). SHN was named one of Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Cultures™ for 2023. SHN is Ontario’s third largest community hospital and the employer of choice for over 6,000 staff. Michele provides visionary, executive leadership for People Services (human resources, organizational development, workplace health and safety, wellness, volunteer services) and equity, diversity and inclusion. She also oversees several large patient care programs (Cancer Care, Nephrology, Mental Health & Addictions, Palliative Care and Diagnostic Imaging) which keeps her ever mindful of the organization’s mission to provide exceptional care to patients. Michele has been part of the hospital’s executive team for over 16 years and thrives on providing strategic leadership for breakthrough organizational transformation and culture change.
Michele’s former roles before joining SHN include associate partner in IBM’s health care consulting practice and director in the health care consulting practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Michele earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Human Biology from the University of Toronto and an MBA with a specialization in Health Services Management from McMaster University. She also holds the Certified Health Executive designation through the Canadian College of Health Leaders.
Michele is passionate about the importance of diversity at all levels of decision-making. She has attained the ICD.D designation from the Institute for Corporate Directors, a designation that reflects a commitment to excellence in the boardroom. She has served on several not-for-profit boards over the past 25 years. Michele is proud to have been selected as one of the 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women for 2020 and to be honoured as a Trailblazer by The Olive Branch of Hope in February 2024.
Rashid Wasti is a C-suite executive with a passion for the intersection of talent and business, and deep expertise in what brings leadership to life in complex, large-scale environments. Since 2013 he has been EVP & Chief Talent Officer for the Weston Group of companies, Canada’s largest private employer with over 220,000 employees, $60 billion+ in revenues, with leading businesses in grocery retail, pharmacy, fast fashion, real estate and consumer financial services.
After an early career in marketing at Procter & Gamble and strategy consulting at Boston Consulting Group, spread across Europe, Middle East and North America, he has built on that deep grounding in business with a global practice in talent management and recruiting at Egon Zehnder followed by the last 11 years at the Weston Group focused on talent, succession, culture, DEI, learning & development, management team effectiveness, coaching and recruiting.
Rashid has a Bachelors and Masters degrees in Economics from Cambridge University in England, and an MBA from the Ivey School of Business at Western University. He is the founding Chair of the Equity-Diversity-Inclusion Council at Ivey since it was created in 2020, and is also a member of the Advisory Council of the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership at the Ivey School of business. He is a board member and co-chair of the HR & Compensation Committee of the Ronald McDonald House Charities – Toronto.
