Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care

Secretary, Baycrest Board of Directors
Chair, Finance & Audit Committee

Barry Cracower is the former CEO of Baycrest Global Solutions and a senior executive with solid marketing and management credentials. As founder and president of Rexall Pharmacy and Vice President of the Katz Group, he was instrumental in developing the organization into Canada’s second largest drug store chain.
 
Mr. Cracower has extensive experience in the retail sector where he was founder of the Steals People, Canada’s first retail computer store. In addition Mr. Cracower was senior Merchandise Manager of the T. Eaton Co. and Vice President, General Electric.  Currently, as the President of Marketing Alternatives he does consulting to consumer product and service companies.
 
He is a seasoned board executive currently serving on the boards of Jewish Community Centre (JCC), The Heart and Stroke Foundation and The Partnership for Stroke Recovery Research, where he is Chair. In addition to Baycrest, the Partnership includes other hospital research centres from across the country. He also serves on two private company boards.
 
Mr. Cracower has a BCom from Concordia in Montreal and an M.B.A. from Columbia University in NYC and has received his ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors.
 
Mr. Cracower is a member of the Baycrest Board of Directors.  In addition, he serves as Treasurer and Secretary, as well as Chair of the Finance & Audit Committee.
 

Dr. Jane Barratt is the Secretary General of the International Federation on Ageing comprising government and non government members in 62 countries and representing some 50 million older people. She brings to this position over 35 years experience in both public and private sectors in the fields of public health, community and aged care, and ageing and disability. Dr. Barratt has strived to strengthen the roles and relationships between government, NGOs, academia and the private sector in order to help shape and influence policy to improve the quality of life of older people.

This commitment has always been driven by her interest and passion in understanding the evolution of policy related ageing issues and the corresponding public and private sector responses globally. Dr Barratt is a strong contributor to the international dialogue on the intersection of social, cultural and physical environments that impact on the lives of older people. Adjunct academic positions internationally serve to strengthen her interest in the study of mature employment, the nexus between inclusion and marginalization, the impact of the environment on older people, quality care standards for patient care and the rights of older people.

Dr. Barratt is a Churchill Fellow, representative of the IFA at the United Nations Economic and Social Council and directly responsible for the formal relations with the Ageing and Life Course Department, World Health Organization. She holds executive positions on ministerial, government and non-government committees and the corporate sectors internationally and has many years experience in organizational management, staff development and the analysis of operations leading to improvements in program and client outcomes in the areas of health, ageing and disability.

Dr. Barratt is a member of the Baycrest Centre Board of Directors. She is Chair of Baycrest’s Education Advisory Committee and is also a member of the Executive Committee.

Ilsa Blidner assumed the position of Board Chair, Baycrest Foundation in September 2022.  Ilsa has and continues to serve on a number of Boards and committees.   Ilsa is a member of the Foundation Board, Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto.  In the health sector, Ilsa serves on advisory and governing bodies at the Provincial level with Ontario Health-CorHealth, and at the Toronto regional level with Ontario’s Stroke System.   She is currently Chair of the Toronto Stroke Networks’ Steering Committee and is Chair of the Toronto West Stroke Network.   Ilsa served on the Board of the Ontario Stroke Network where she held positions as Vice-Chair of the Board and Chair of its Governance committee.  She was Chair of the Toronto District Health Council; she served United Way of Greater Toronto as Chair of an Allocations Panel; she served on the National board of the Canadian Evaluation Society and as Chair of Ontario Chapter Board.

Ilsa’s professional career began in clinical research in Neonatology at McMaster University.  She then held an academic position at the University of Toronto in the Faculty of Medicine where she provided consulting services to clinical and applied researchers. Following this, she formed Ilsa Blidner Consulting Inc., a Toronto-based practice specializing in consultation and training in the areas of strategic planning, quality and performance assessment, applied social research and policy development for the health and social services sectors. Ilsa’s primary focus was to enhance organizational capacity for planning and performance assessment and to use evaluation and data for decision-making and policy development.   
 

Jeffrey Blidner is the Senior Managing Partner of Brookfield Asset Management Inc., responsible for Strategic Planning as well as Transaction Execution.

Prior to joining Brookfield in 2000, Mr. Blidner was a senior partner at a Canadian law firm. Jeff's practice focused on merchant banking transactions, public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, management buy-outs, restructurings and private equity transactions.

Mr. Blidner was called to the Bar in Ontario as a Gold Medalist in 1974.

Mr. Blidner was Chair of the Baycrest Centre Board from 2013 to 2015.

Len Fishman is director of the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Created by the Massachusetts Legislature in 1984, the Institute is the research, policy and public service arm of UMass Boston’s gerontology program, one of the oldest and largest aging studies programs in the world. From 2000 to 2013, Len was CEO of Hebrew SeniorLife, New England ’s largest non-profit provider of senior housing and healthcare, and an affiliate of Harvard Medical School. Before joining HSL, Len was president of Leading Age, in Washington D.C., which represents 6,000 non-profit senior housing and health care providers, serving over three million seniors in the U.S. and Canada. Len served in the cabinet of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, as commissioner of the Department of Health and Senior Services. For a decade earlier, he practiced health care law in NJ and PA.

David Green is a semi-retired business person with a broad background in numerous aspects of real estate.  Both alone and with various family companies, David has developed, built and managed multi-family residential buildings, industrial buildings and office buildings in Toronto and South Florida.   David is currently active in community affairs, having served in Board of Directors and/or Committee capacities the UJA, Baycrest Health Sciences, Miles Nadal JCC, YMCA-GTA and Canadian Friends of Kishorit.  He is the founder and chairman of Canadian Friends of Rambam Health Care Campus (Haifa).  David holds an M.A. degree in Urban Geography from the University of Chicago.   He is a 5^th dan Karate student of the late Masami Tsuruoka.  David enjoys fishing and cottage life and lives in downtown Toronto with his wife, Daphne Wagner and children Lita and Michael.

Mr. Jacob has been working in the motion picture exhibition industry since 1987. Prior to assuming his current position as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation in 2003, Mr. Jacob was Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Galaxy. Prior to founding Galaxy, Mr. Jacob represented Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. as Head of Integration during 1998 and 1999. From 1987 to 1998, Mr. Jacob held various positions with Cineplex Odeon Corporation as Vice President, Finance, Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President and, ultimately, Chief Operating Officer. In addition to his role as a Director of the Corporation, Mr. Jacob also serves as a director and member of the Audit and Risk Committee of Rogers Communication Inc.

He is the Chairman of the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), an executive committee member of the Global Cinema Federation (GCF) as well as a member of the Board of Directors of the Movie Theatre Association of Canada. He also serves as a director and member of the audit committee of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Mr. Jacob is an active community member, currently serving as a member of the Board of Directors at Toronto’s Baycrest Centre for Geriatrics, where he also sits on the Executive Committee and is a member of Baycrest’s Finance and Audit Committee. Along with his position at Baycrest, Mr. Jacob is a founding director of the Canadian Children’s Literacy Foundation as well as a member of the Board of Governors for Mount Sinai Hospital. He holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business as well as the accounting designations of Fellow Chartered Professional Accountant (FCPA), Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA) and Fellow Certified Management Accountant (FCMA). He also holds the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors. In 2010, Mr. Jacob was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada, in 2013 he was recognized as Canada’s Most Innovative CEO by Canadian Business Magazine, in 2014, he was recognized as Canada’s Most Admired CEO, Enterprise, by Waterstone Human Capital and in 2019 he received the ICTA Global Cinema Innovation Award

David Kassie has been Executive Chairman of Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. since May 2010 and was Chairman and CEO from April to October 2015. David was Principal, Chairman and CEO of Genuity Capital Markets (November 2004 to May 2010) at which time Genuity was acquired by Canaccord Financial. He is the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CIBC World Markets and the Vice Chairman of CIBC (1979 – 2004).
 
Mr. Kassie has extensive experience as an advisor, underwriter and principal.  He sits on a number of corporate boards. Mr. Kassie is actively involved in community and charitable organizations and is a Director and former Chairman of Baycrest Health Sciences, Chairman of Baycrest’s commercialization activities and was formerly on the Boards of the Toronto International Film Festival Group, the Hospital for Sick Children and Ivey School of Business.
 
Mr. Kassie holds a B.Comm. (Honours) in Economics from McGill University, 1977 and an MBA from the University of Western Ontario, 1979.

Mr. Mirsky is a highly experienced food, beverage and consumer packaged goods executive. He is the CEO of Freshchange Foods Group, a company that invests in food companies across North America. The most recent investment is BHC Holdings Inc., a New Jersey based supplier of pet chews and supplements. This investment is jointly held with Imperial Capital, a Toronto based private equity company.

In addition, Mr. Mirsky is the Chairman of Beefeaters Holdings, Inc. which sells pet products under the Beefeaters™ brand name and is a portfolio company of Imperial Capital.

Mr. Mirsky’s operating career spans more than 30 years. Most previous to his current roles, Brian was the President of Europe for Campbell Soup Company, and has served in senior management positions with Pizza Hut, Pillsbury, and the H.J. Heinz Company. Brian currently serves on the Board of Directors of Inscape, a publicly traded (symbol: INQ.TO) maker of office systems and storage.

Mr. Mirsky has an MBA in marketing and a BA in Economics from York University in Toronto, Canada.

Mr. Mirsky is a member of the Baycrest Centre Board of Directors and serves as a member of its Commercialization and Strategic Planning Committees.

Dr. William E. Reichman, an internationally-known expert in geriatric mental health and dementia care, is President and CEO of Baycrest, one of the world’s premier centres focused on aging, seniors’ health and residential care and brain function. Baycrest is home to both the largest research institute and the most comprehensive innovation accelerator in the global senior care industry. Dr. Reichman also serves as President and CEO of two commercial subsidiary firms, Cogniciti and Baycrest Global Solutions. He holds an academic appointment as Professor of Psychiatry in the Faculty of Medicine, at the University of Toronto.
 
Dr. Reichman is the current President of the International Psychogeriatric Association and is a former president of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry and the Geriatric Mental Health Foundation. He has advised the World Health Organization and several levels of government in the United States, Canada and China on the impact of an aging society on health care demand and the mandate to support innovative approaches to service delivery. He has been instrumental in the development of Canada’s new National Dementia Strategy and co-chairs the federal panel overseeing its implementation across the nation. He is a passionate advocate for building innovation capacity in the senior care sector and speaks across the globe on this theme to care providers, policy makers, academic audiences and industry.
 
Dr. Reichman was the founder and inaugural Chair of the Seniors Quality Leap Initiative, a collaborative of prominent eldercare organizations and their affiliated universities in the United States and Canada, working together to advance the effectiveness of long-term care across the globe.  
Among honors received, Dr. Reichman was named among the Best Doctors in America and Canada, and has been recognized by the New Jersey Society on Aging as Gerontologist of the Year. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Canadian-based OCAD University for his work in advancing innovation in seniors care. Dr. Reichman is a recipient of a Telly Award for an educational documentary film that he co-created and hosted entitled, Reflections of Memory Lost: Understanding Alzheimer’s disease.

Jakov Zaidman is a Principal Information Technology Consultant with decades of technology and business experience, with over 30 years in technology consulting. Jakov holds an ISC2 Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification.

Jakov specializes in Cybersecurity and Information Privacy, IT Architecture, Network Security and Infrastructure, and in assessing and enhancing customer cybersecurity programs by following best practices and industry regulations.

Jakov founded InterLAN Consulting in 1991, to focus on providing advisory services in the areas of network infrastructure and cybersecurity. Over the years, Jakov advised organizations, established cybersecurity programs, and designed and built secure network architectures. Jakov worked with enterprises in both public and private sectors and a wide range of verticals, ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of employees. Jakov was also the lead IT architect behind the creation of the Ontario Telemedicine Network.

Jakov started his professional career in the Israeli Air Force, working on the nation-wide deployment and maintenance of modernized air traffic control systems. Before founding InterLAN, Jakov worked in senior IT architecture roles for companies Digital Equipment and Intel.

Joni Kent is Baycrest’s President Corporate Services and Chief Human Resources Officer. Joni has responsibility for Human Resources, Organizational Effectiveness, Occupational Health and Safety, Volunteer Services, Legal Services, Strategy, Stakeholder Relations, Redevelopment, Support Services and Food Services.

Prior to joining Baycrest in 2006, Joni was Vice President, Human Resources & Organizational Effectiveness at Queensway Carleton Hospital in Ottawa for six years. Prior to this, Joni was at University Health Network as the Director, Employee Relations and with the Greater Niagara General Hospital as Director, Human Resources.

Joni previously practiced law in Toronto for five years with Mathews, Dinsdale and Clark.

Joni grew up in Montreal, graduated from McGill University in Industrial Relations in 1987 and graduated from The University of Western Ontario in Law in 1990. Joni is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada