Denika McPherson (MN – NP 21) will share her experience and perspective moving from clinical nursing to health care leadership, her passion for mentorship and health innovation, and the importance of leaving a lasting impact everywhere you go.
Denika McPherson brings over fourteen years of healthcare experience in critical care, primary care, digital health, academia at the college and university level and people and operations leadership. She is a Senior Business Advisor for the Ontario Government, an After-Hours Clinical Manager at Unity Health and an Examiner with Touchstone Institute.
She has served as a mentor for three different faculty programs at the University of Toronto (U of T), an RNAO best practice guidelines stakeholder, contributor and evaluator, a pitch competition evaluator, an MIT Hackathon mentor, Canadian Critical Care Trials Group Equity Diversity and Inclusion Working Group member and hospital committee chair. She is a U of T alumnus of the Master of Nursing – Nurse Practitioner Program with a Collaborative Specialization in Resuscitation Sciences. Demonstrating her commitment to continuous personal and professional development, Denika then completed the Executive MBA Essentials certificate program at the Rotman School of Management, a fellowship with ICON Talent Partners and is also an alumnus of the U of Ts Black Founders Network, an entrepreneur accelerator within the U of T Entrepreneurship network.
She’s received corporate awards for Excellence in Nursing and Leadership. She firmly believes that leadership is not a title, it is about making others and organizations better due to your presence and ensuring that the the positive impact lasts beyond your absence. Denika is passionate about macro or system-level impact, operational excellence, healthcare, technology, innovation, entrepreneurship, and leadership.
Outside of work, Denika enjoys photography, playing steelpan, high-intensity interval training, visiting museums and libraries, attending cultural events around the city, cooking and travelling. She has visited every continent except Antarctica, which is on her list.