About the faculty

Sandra Rotman Chaired Professor of Health Sector Strategy Professor of Strategic Management Academic Director, Sandra Rotman Centre for Health Sector Strategy Rotman School of Management & Faculty of Medicine University of Toronto Professor

Sandra Rotman Chaired Professor of Health Sector Strategy Professor of Strategic Management Academic Director, Sandra Rotman Centre for Health Sector Strategy Rotman School of Management & Faculty of Medicine University of Toronto Professor Brian Golden is Vice-Dean, Professional Programs, and the Sandra Rotman Chaired Professor in Health Sector Strategy at the Rotman School of Management, The University of Toronto, and The University Health Network. He is the founding Executive Director of The Collaborative for Health Sector Strategy, a policy, research and leadership development institute funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health. In his role at the Collaborative he was a member of the select advisory committee that led to the creation of Ontario’s Excellent Care for All legislation. In 2013 he co-authored the province’s report on Primary Care Governance, and in 2015 co-authored “Patient Care Groups: A new model of population based primary health care for Ontario” (the “Price Report”) for the Ministry of Health. From 2005 to 2010 Professor Golden was Board Chair of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). He is a board member (and former Board Chair) of Rise Asset Development, a non-profit micro- finance organization providing business development loans for individuals with mental health and addiction challenges. Among his published work are articles in The Harvard Business Review, The Canadian Medical Association Journal, The Strategic Management Journal, Healthcare Quarterly, Healthcare Papers, The Annals of Pharmacotherapy, Management Science, Clinical Oncology, and Health Policy. Professor Golden’s article “Transforming Healthcare Organizations” in Healthcare Quarterly was that publication’s most downloaded article with over 150,000 downloads. As an advisor and director of leadership development programs, Professor Golden has worked with a variety of organizations including Ontario’s Ministry of Health, Britain’s National Health Service, several Local Integration Health Networks, and hospitals including The Hospital for Sick Children, The University Health Network, Hamilton Health Sciences, London Health Science Centre, Sunnybrook College Health Sciences Centre, The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, British Columbia Cancer Agency, The King Faisal Specialist Hospital, and Baylor Medical Center. Private sector clients include Tieto (Finland), General Electric, and Baxter. He is the founding Academic Director of The Rotman School’s Advanced Health Leadership Program. His honours include Canada’s Ted Freedman Innovation in Healthcare Education Award and the Canadian Medical Association’s first Eureka Award for Innovation in Physician Education. In 2016 he was made a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences --- the first Business School professor to be recognized by the Academy for his contributions to healthcare and life

Associate Professor, Teaching Stream – Organizational Behaviour, Human Resources Management Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

Nouman Ashraf is an associate professor, Teaching Stream within the Organizational Behavior area at the Rotman School of Management. He possesses a broad range of professional, academic and research interests, with a specialized focus on enabling Integrative Thinking practice within organization life. For the last decade and a half, he has held progressively senior roles at the University of Toronto. He is a recognized thought leader in governance, and has taught thousands of directors in the national Rotman program on Not for Profit Governance in partnership with the Institute for Corporate Directors since its inception in 2007.

Winner of the 2015 Rotman Teaching Award, Nouman teaches Emancipatory Leadership within the OMNIUM Global Executive MBA Program, Leading Social Innovation within the 2 and 3 Year MBA programs, and Leading across Differences within the Rotman Commerce Program. He is the Academic Director of the Supervisory Officers Executive Leadership Program as well as Canada's Outstanding Principals Program in partnership with The Learning Partnership. Furthermore, he advises the Ontario Ministry of Education on governance renewal for all of their school boards His previous consulting clients include Telus, Cliffs Natural Resources, Bayer, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, United Way Toronto, and numerous post secondary and healthcare institutions.

At lunch time, he can be found at Massey College within the University of Toronto, where he mentors exceptional post-graduate students in his capacity as Senior Fellow.

Associate Professor, Teaching Stream – Organizational Behaviour, Human Resources Management Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

Maja Djikic, PhD, is an associate professor of Organizational Behavior and HR Management, the Executive Director of The Self-Development Laboratory, and the Academic Director of the Rotman Executive Coaching Certificate program at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. She is a teaching fellow at The Institute for Gender and the Economy. As a psychologist specializing in the field of personality development, Dr. Djikic examines the processes and methods of developing a balanced and flexible self.

She has published more than 35 scientific articles and book chapters on personality development, and her research has been featured in over 50 media outlets (including the New York Times, Salon, Slate, and Scientific American Mind) in 15 countries. In addition to teaching MBA students, at Rotman she teaches leaders in the Executive MBA program and custom executive programs.

Her government and corporate clients have included Health Ontario, United Health Network, McKinsey & Co., Deloitte, Eli Lilly, CSL Behring, Sun Life Financial, Royal Bank of Canada, TD Bank, Aird & Berlis LLP, Hyundai Canada, Microsoft, Celestica, Right to Play, Open Text, Reach Out Centre for Kids, and others. Her first book, The Possible Self: A Leader’s Guide to Personal Development, was published in March of 2024 by Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. 

Adjunct Professor, Strategic Management

Mara Lederman is a leading expert in industrial organization and organizational economics, known for her empirical research on how firms compete and structure themselves to achieve competitive advantage. Over more than 20 years as a Professor of Strategy at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, she gained international recognition for her work on loyalty programs, vertical integration, and industry dynamics—particularly within the airline sector. Her research has been published in top journals such as the American Economic Review, the RAND Journal of Economics, and the Review of Economics and Statistics. Alongside her research, she has taught strategy, data analytics, and business problem-solving in MBA and executive education programs, equipping leaders with rigorous, data-driven approaches to decision-making.

Today, Mara brings this foundation into the field of artificial intelligence as Co-Founder and COO of Signal 1, a health technology company focused on unlocking the value of AI in healthcare. Recognizing that healthcare is at an inflection point—where AI offers significant clinical, operational, and financial potential but organizations often lack the capacity to manage it—she leads efforts to build systems for responsible, scalable AI adoption. Through a focus on rigorous governance, continuous measurement, and centralized AI management, her work enables health system leaders to deploy AI tools with greater visibility, control, and impact while effectively managing risk.

Adjunct Professor and Executive in Residence Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

Jennifer Riel works with leaders to push the edges of creative problem solving, leveraging tools from strategy, design and integrative thinking. As a strategy advisor, Jennifer has worked across industries and countries, in the public and private sectors, helping organizations build winning, sustainable and human-centred strategies.

Jennifer was previously a Partner and Chief Strategy/Operating Officer at IDEO, the global design and innovation consultancy. Before IDEO, Jennifer spent 13 years teaching at the Rotman School of Management (where she still serves as an adjunct professor).

Jennifer is also the author of Creating Great Choices: A Leader's Guide to Integrative Thinking (with Roger L. Martin, Harvard Business Press, 2017). She was also co-author, with Roger L. Martin and A.G. Lafley, of the Playing to Win Toolkit (Harvard Business Press, 2014). She has published articles in the Harvard Business Review, Globe and Mail, Businessweek, Strategy Magazine and Rotman Magazine. Jennifer received her MBA from the Rotman School of Management in 2006.

Her undergraduate degree is in English Literature and History, from Queen’s University in 1996.

Principal, Santis Health

Ross Wallace is a principal at Santis Health – a public affairs firm based in Toronto with offices across the country that focuses exclusively on helping health care and life sciences organizations develop impactful solutions to complex strategy and policy challenges.

At Santis, Ross has worked with a wide range of clients in the public sector (including Canada’s Drug Agency, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research), the private sector (including Shopper’s Drug Mart, GE Healthcare, GSK and Roche) and the not-for- profit sector (including the Arthritis Society of Canada, Diabetes Canada and the Health Charities Coalition of Canada).

Before joining Santis in 2014, Ross was the Director of Government Affairs and Corporate Responsibility at AstraZeneca Canada (AZC). With overall responsibility for the company’s public policy and advocacy efforts, Ross led a national team of colleagues and directly supported three CEOs in their policymaker and stakeholder engagement efforts. 

Ross joined AZC, after nearly four years as the director of strategic partnerships at the MaRS Discovery District, an innovation incubator and urban science park in downtown Toronto. One of the organization’s first full-time employees, Ross built strong ties with all three orders of government, developed a global network of commercialization collaborators and launched the organization’s social innovation initiative. Ross also spent five years working in Washington, DC – first at the Embassy of Canada and then at the G7 Group, a political and economic forecasting firm.

Beyond his work at Santis, Ross spent eight years as an innovation fellow at Women’s College Hospital, where he advised the Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care (known as “WIHV”) on public policy, strategy and stakeholder relations. Ross has an MPA from Queen’s University and an MBA from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.

Associate Professor of Management and Organizations, Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre, University of Waterloo

Mark Weber is the director of the Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre (Conrad) at the University of Waterloo (UW). Prior to his current role, Mark was the inaugural director of the Graduate Diploma in Social Innovation at UW and served on the faculty of the Rotman School of Management and UTM at the University of Toronto for several years. He earned his PhD in Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, and also holds a masters degree in social psychology and an MBA. 

Mark’s research focuses on leadership, cooperation, negotiations, decision-making, and trust. His work has been published in outlets like Research in Organizational Behavior, Organizational Psychology Review, Culture and Negotiation: Integrative Approaches to Theory and Research, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Social Psychological and Personality Science, Trust and Distrust across Organizational Contexts: Dilemmas and Approaches, and Personality and Social Psychology Review.

Mark is an award-winning teacher and researcher who has been on faculty and taught courses on negotiations and organizational behavior to students at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, INSEAD and at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. He consults extensively and has provided training to executives and professionals in the automotive, education, healthcare, pharmaceutical, broadcast media, entertainment, telecommunications, technology, and financial services industries, and in government at all levels. He also facilitates strategic planning for not-for-profit and for-profit organizations alike. Mark’s early achievements included both national and international awards for public speaking and debating. His previous professional experiences included managerial and leadership roles in local government, the financial services sector, and in not-for-profit organizations.