Value-Based Healthcare

After several years at the Conference Board of Canada, you recently left that role to take on a new challenge in the U.S. What prompted this career change?

I loved my job, which involved working on innovation policy for healthcare — but after 10 years in the same role, I needed a new challenge. For me, the role at Medtronic has been a great transition: I still get to work on healthcare policy, but this is an opportunity to do so from a private-sector perspective. It is also allowing me to build up my knowledge and skills by working on these issues more globally, which has been wonderful.

Broadly speaking, would you say the challenges you face in this role are similar or different from those you faced before?

I do a lot of work in South America and some work in Europe, Asia and theaging population, because we recognized that it will mean more chronic disease, which will put even more pressure on the system. Well, guess what? These issues are not unique to Canada. It is the same story everywhere. This is a global phenomenon.