SNOMED CT in Europe

Joanne Burns has held leadership roles with Cerner, the Tiger Institute for Health Innovation and Stanford University Medical Center. Ms. Burns has extensive experience setting up and leading governance boards and received Program Certification in “Women on Boards” from the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health in 2016. Joanne has served as a Management Board Director to SNOMED International since April 2017 and was appointed Management Board Chair in September 2020.

Dr. Isabelle de Zegher, previously Vice President, Integrated Solutions, at Parexel Informatics, recently left her corporate career to found a start-up that is developing an AI-based solution empowering individuals to curate their personal data. Dr. de Zegher offers extensive board and advisory experience across a variety of EU initiatives, including with the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry. A member of the Health Level Seven (HL7) Technical Committee for nearly a decade, Dr. de Zegher also serves on the Board of Directors of CDISC, the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium, a standards development organization seeking to create clarity in the clinical research domain. Isabelle has served as a Management Board Director to SNOMED International since October 2020.

Bersabel Ephrem brings to the Management Board 32 years of experience in the areas of leadership, governance and public health policy and program management and has worked in several organizations within the Canadian Federal Government. Most recently, she served as the Director General of Centre of Communicable Diseases and Infection Control within the Public Health Agency of Canada. Prior to that, Bersabel served as the Senior Advisor to the Director General of the World Health Organization on management reform, where she provided leadership and oversight in the development of policies and institutionalized key governance initiatives. Bersabel has also served as Director General at the International Affairs Division of Health Canada. In this role, Bersabel led the Canadian delegation on several groundbreaking negotiations in WHO and the Pan American Health Organization. Her international experience has provided her with unique insights on the challenges global healthcare-focused organizations must navigate and on successful strategies to advance on their goals. Bersabel has served as a Management Board Director to SNOMED International since February 2023.

Bersabel Ephrem brings to the Management Board 32 years of experience in the areas of leadership, governance and public health policy and program management and has worked in several organizations within the Canadian Federal Government. Most recently, she served as the Director General of Centre of Communicable Diseases and Infection Control within the Public Health Agency of Canada. Prior to that, Bersabel served as the Senior Advisor to the Director General of the World Health Organization on management reform, where she provided leadership and oversight in the development of policies and institutionalized key governance initiatives. Bersabel has also served as Director General at the International Affairs Division of Health Canada. In this role, Bersabel led the Canadian delegation on several groundbreaking negotiations in WHO and the Pan American Health Organization. Her international experience has provided her with unique insights on the challenges global healthcare-focused organizations must navigate and on successful strategies to advance on their goals. Bersabel has served as a Management Board Director to SNOMED International since February 2023.

Anne-Marie Grey brings more than 30 years of humanitarian fundraising and marketing experience, both in the United States and internationally to SNOMED International. The recent Executive Director and CEO for USA for UNHCR, Anne-Marie is the Principal Director at New York-based Grey-O’Keefe Consulting LLC, a training, strategy, and marketing agency that brings causes and corporations together to positively impact society and business. She brings to the Board her unique and extensive leadership skills in both the not-for-profit and private sectors. Anne-Marie has mentored and advised non-profit leaders on resource mobilization, leadership and strategy at organizations such as the Forbes Nonprofit Council, an invitation-only, fee-based organization for senior-level executives in successful nonprofit organizations; USA for UNHCR; UNHCR; Save the Children; and UNICEF. In addition to an educational background in art history, literature, finance and non-profit management, Anne-Marie has obtained DiSC and Five Behaviors partner certification, and is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach and International Coaching Federation credential trained coach, facilitator, author, and international speaker. Anne-Marie has served as a Management Board Director to SNOMED International since February 2023.

Dr. Matic Meglic is the Head of Customer Solutions Europe, Novartis Pharma. Dr. Meglic has been a contributor to EU public health informatics as CIO, Slovene National Institute of Public Health and coordinator of the key EU ePublicHealth policy project PARENT. Dr. Meglic has also served as Co-chair of epSOS Steering Board and actively contributed to a number of other EU semantic interoperability initiatives. Matic has served as a Management Board Director to SNOMED International since April 2017.

Dr. Gong Mengchun joined the area of applied medical informatics since 2015 and now works as the Distinguished Professor in the Institute of Health Management, Southern Medical University, China. Dr. Gong took charge of the National Rare Diseases Registry System of China (www.nrdrs.org.cn) as the executive director from 2016 to 2019, and has been a pioneer in rare disease research and patient advocacy in China. His research focus covers medical terminology/ontology, precision medical informatics, rare diseases and orphan drugs development and health technology assessment (HTA). He is actively engaged with international academic societies and holds the positions including the Diagnostic Science Committee member of IRDiRC (www.irdirc.org) , the Member-at-Large of the Global Health Informatics Workgroup of AMIA (www.amia.org), the Medical Informatics Consultant of the National Children’s Care Center/Fudan University Children’s Hospital and the member of the executive committee of the Chinese Association of Bioinformatics. Mengchun has served as a Management Board Director to SNOMED International since April 2017.

Dr Andrew Roddam is an accomplished life science executive and internationally renowned epidemiologist with over 20 years of experience across both academia and the pharmaceutical industry, principally focused on the application and use of real world data and epidemiological methods to advance the understanding of human disease. He has a strong interest in health informatics and is an experienced board member within the UK and internationally who regularly participates at international meetings and conferences as a keynote speaker. He was most recently the CEO of Our Future Health, the UK's largest health research programme (in partnership with NHS) and is currently an independent consultant/advisor to life science organisations operating at the exciting overlap of data/digital and biology. Andrew has served as a Management Board Director to SNOMED International since October 2020.