Land acknowledgement: Denise McCuaig  

As the Executive Director, Healthcare Transformation and Capacity Building, Denise works to enable healthcare leaders and teams across Canada to enhance their ability to make improvements and to sustain them. Denise leads a team providing a focus for subject matter expertise and knowledge translation in key areas of Healthcare Excellence Canada's mandate, such as patient safety, health equity and lived experience of patients, caregivers, and communities. Denise also lends her leadership to the team-based executive training program EXTRA and focuses on leadership and governance.

Her lived experience as a Métis woman, patient and caregiver supports her passion for justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. She is currently supporting several Metis & First Nation graduate students as they embark on their research. Denise is a collaborator for Indigenous Graduate Education in Nursing (IGEN), a member of the Indigenous Guidance Circle with CMA and Chair of First Peoples Wellness Circle.

Denise has been recognized for her many years of leadership in the not-for-profit sector with a Professional Champion Award from Clinical Counselors & Psychotherapy Association of Canada (CCPA), Champion Mental Health Award from the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health (CAMIMH). Closer to home in Kamloops, British Columbia, the YMCA awarded Denise with a Woman of Distinction Award.