International Advisory Council

Paul Frazer established PDFrazer Associates in Washington, DC to advise clients on how best to promote and protect their interests in light of proposed and existing U.S. legislative and regulatory changes. Prior to creating his firm Paul completed a career in the Canadian Foreign Service where he served among other places as Canada’s Ambassador to the Czech Republic and Slovakia and also on assignment in Ottawa, Warsaw, New York, and Washington, DC. Paul’s Ottawa assignments included serving as the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications, Spokesperson to the Foreign Minister, and Assistant, International Economic Affairs to the Minister of Finance.
A graduate of McGill (BA) and Carleton (MA) Universities, Paul is also an Alumnus Fellow of Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. He has served as a board trustee of a variety of arts, educational and public policy entities and resides in Washington, DC.

Cedric Bisson has extensive experience across Canada, USA and Europe creating, building and advising businesses in biopharmaceuticals, healthcare and the innovation sector in general. He is passionate about growing Canada as a premier environment for innovation, and during his entrepreneurial career as founder, investor or board member has structured and executed over $5 B in transactions.

Mr. Bisson is currently partner at Teralys Capital where he focuses on life sciences and healthcare investments, as well as growth opportunities. Teralys Capital is a large Canadian private innovation-focused investor, financing funds and companies in IT, life sciences, and clean or industrial innovations, from early stage start-ups to expansion and growth.

He was previously managing partner for life sciences at iNovia Capital in Montreal, Calgary and the USA. Prior to this, he spent many years internationally at McKinsey & Company in New York City, Paris, Montreal, and Toronto.

Mr. Bisson obtained a M.D. degree from McGill University and a J.D. (law) degree from Universite de Montreal. In addition to Teralys, he is actively involved in a number of health initiatives: he chairs Procure, a non-profit charity for prostate cancer, sits on the boards of Montreal InVivo, a life sciences and health technologies cluster, and Grand Challenges Canada, a large impact-first organization supporting innovators in low- and middle-income countries and Canada, advises the Government of Colombia and the World Bank on vaccine manufacturing, and finally most recently co-chaired Canada’s COVID-19 Therapeutics Task Force.

Former Ambassador Louise Blais was Canada’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York from 2017-2021. During this time since, she also served as Vice President on UNICEF’s Executive Board.

She is now Senior Advisor at the Pendleton Group and Special Advisor, to the Business Council of Canada and the QG100. She is a frequent commentator and writer on international affairs and economic development in the Canadian and American media and publications.

Louise Blais began her professional career as an Art Theft Analyst at Interpol before joining the Department of Global Affairs in 1996. As a senior diplomat, she served abroad in Washington,Tokyo and as Minister-Counsellor for Political Affairs at the Embassy in Paris.

She was Consul General to the Southeast United States, before being named Ambassador to the UN.

She currently serves as Director on the Board of Invest in Canada and on the Advisory Board f ADC Technologies. Louise is a longtime member of the BMW Foundation’s Global Responsible Leaders Network.

Among her many academic affiliations, she is a Distinguished John Robson Lecturer at Emory University, course leader and contributor to Georgia Tech’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and a Diplomat-in-Residence at Laval University. She is the recipient of many honours including a Distinguished Leadership Award from the Business Council of Alabama.

Louise Blais holds a B.A. from McGill University.

Teguest Guerma is the Founder and CEO of LeDeG Midwifery College in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Before founding the Midwifery College, Dr. Guerma was the first African woman Director General of Amref Health Africa, an NGO serving communities in over 35 countries, from 2010 to 2015. Before joining Amref, she worked for the World Health Organization (WHO) for 21 years. Most notably, she was Associate Director and later Acting Director of the WHO’s Global HIV and AIDS Department in Geneva, where she co-led the WHO 3x5 Initiative that made antiretroviral treatment available to HIV/AIDS patients in developing countries. She was also the WHO Africa representative to the UN Headquarters in New York, a WHO representative in Nepal and Botswana, and the WHO HIV/AIDS Regional Advisor for Africa, where she developed the first HIV/AIDS Regional Strategy for the continent.

After a career spanning over 30 years in public health, Dr. Guerma returned to Ethiopia in 2015, after 42 years away, to pursue her dream of supporting women in her home country. With her personal retirement funds and extensive experience, she established the LeDeG Midwifery College to train disadvantaged rural young women to become midwives who return to their communities to serve and help reduce maternal and infant mortality.

Dr. Guerma was Commissioner of the UN Commission on Life-saving Commodities for Women and Children and received the highest medal of merit from the government of France: Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur. She is a member and past president of the Rotary Club, a member of the McGill Global Health Programs International Advisory Council, and a board member of the St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College in Ethiopia.

Dr. Guerma holds a medical degree with a specialization in infectious diseases and is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Great Britain. She is the author of an autobiography entitled “Let Her Die” and is the mother of two and grandmother of three.

Dr. Martin is a physician who, since Sept. 2012, has served as the founding Executive Director of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) based in Washington, DC. The Consortium is a rapidly growing organization of over 130 academic institutions from around the world. It harnesses the capabilities of these institutions across research, education, advocacy and service to address global challenges. It is particularly focused on improving health outcomes for the global poor and strengthening academic global health programs.

Between 1993-2011, Dr. Martin served as a Member of Parliament in Canada’s House of Commons representing a riding on Vancouver Island. During that time he held shadow ministerial portfolios in foreign affairs, international development, and health. He also served as Canada’s Parliamentary Secretary for Defense. In 2004, he was appointed to the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada. His main areas of focus are in global health, foreign policy, security, international development, conservation and the environment. He is particularly interested in strengthening human resources capabilities and scaling up initiatives in low-income settings that improve environmental sustainability and human security.

As a parliamentarian, Dr. Martin created CanadaAid.ca, an online platform to facilitate partnerships between universities, governments, multilateral institutions, NGOs, and the private sector. In 2006, Dr. Martin founded Canada’s first all-party Conservation Caucus in Parliament and developed the online conservation site icforum.info to help mainstream sustainable conservation and environmental practices into development initiatives to achieve positive outcomes for the environment and people.

Tom is currently Vice President, Operations & Strategy for BDC Capital, the venture capital & private equity arm of the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC). Prior to the BDC, he is a former senior engagement manager at McKinsey & Co and a member of McKinsey’s global health practice group, in which he has had extensive experience in development projects in Nigeria, Senegal, DRC, Pakistan, & Zambia. He also spent time on sabbatical at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the leadership team in developing & executing their ambitious family planning objectives.

Previously, he worked at McCarthy Tétrault, the International Criminal Court, the OSCE mission in Kosovo, and the United Nations Assistance Mission to the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. He is a graduate of McGill’s Faculty of Law, the Harvard Kennedy School, and Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. He is also an alum of the Governor General’s Leadership Conference. He currently sits on the board of governors of Presbyterian College in Montreal.

Mario C. Raviglione is Full Professor of Global Health at the University of Milan, Italy, where is a founding director of the Centre for Multidisciplinary Research on Health Science (MACH) and coordinator of the first online Master in Global Health in Italy. Until 2017, he worked at WHO where, starting in 2003, he was Director of the Global Tuberculosis (TB) Programme. In that role he was responsible for setting norms, policies and standards on global TB care, control and research, monitoring the global situation, and supporting country efforts. He directed the development of the latest global TB strategies, including the current End TB strategy in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). He served as WHO focal point for the health agenda at the G8 Summit in Italy in 2009 and for World Health Day 2011 devoted to antimicrobial resistance. A graduate from Turin University, he trained in internal medicine and infectious diseases at Cabrini Medical Centre, New York, and on infectious diseases and AIDS at Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston. He is one of the 10 most cited authors worldwide in TB, and has over 300 publications on TB, AIDS, infectious diseases, COVID-19 and global health, and an additional 200 publications including book chapters and policy documents. He has edited books on tuberculosis. His production has been cited 58,000 times and his h-index is 115 (Scholar) and 32,000 and 92, respectively (Scopus). He has worked with over 50 countries worldwide and has received international awards. He has been visiting professor and teacher at top universities worldwide. He is a member of the McGill GHP International Advisory Committee. He is Honorary Professor at the Queen Mary University of London, UK, and was Professeur Titulaire at the Global Studies Institute, Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva, until 2020.

Ms. Pamela Spencer is a lawyer with over 25 years’ experience in the private and public sector. Pamela has served as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary with 3 large Ontario public sector organizations. During her career, Pamela has also managed several large corporate services portfolios including Insurance and Risk Management, Compliance, Privacy and Access, Procurement, Leasing, Information Technology and Human Resources. Earlier this year, Pamela joined Plan International Canada Inc. as in-house counsel to support its international development programs and Canadian programming.

Prior to moving in-house, Pamela practiced corporate law at Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP (now Dentons LLP), where she served as Chair of the firm’s Toronto Health Law Group and co-chair of its Privacy Law Group. Pamela was admitted to the Ontario Bar in 1989, and has published and lectured widely on many aspects of health law and health privacy.

Pamela currently sits on the Governing Council of the Ontario Bar Association, the Board of Childrens’ Mental Health Ontario, the Research Ethics Board at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children and on McGill University’s Women, Leadership & Philanthropy Council. Pamela previously served on the Claims & Risk Management Committee of the Healthcare Insurance Reciprocal of Canada, as Chair of the Ontario Bar Association’s Health Law Executive, and Chair of the Law Society of Ontario’s Health Law Specialist Certification Committee.

In addition to her undergraduate and law degrees, Pamela holds a Masters in Health Administration / Collaborative Program in Bioethics from the University of Toronto and is certified by the Law Society of Upper Canada as a specialist in Health Law.

Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni is the Senior Vice President for Development Operations at Pfizer, with responsibility for the conduct of all clinical trials worldwide. Prior to this role, she was the Senior Vice President for Safety and Established Products Regulatory, heading the company’s global product safety organization and the regulatory affairs functions in Pfizer’s largest business unit. Previous to her joining Pfizer, she held leadership positions within the R&D organizations at Eli Lilly and Sanofi. Dr. Cavazzoni served as the Pharmaceutical Industry’s representative to the Food and Drug Administration’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee and is a member of the Steering Committee for the Reagan-Udall Foundation’s Innovation in Medical Evidence Development and Surveillance Program. She is a board member for the New York chapter of the Friends of McGill. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, she was an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, where she was engaged in clinical work, teaching and research of genetic predictors of mood disorders, authoring numerous peer-reviewed scientific publications.

After obtaining her medical degree at McGill University, Dr. Cavazzoni served as a Medical Officer in the Canadian Armed Forces and subsequently completed a residency in psychiatry and a fellowship in mood disorders at the University of Ottawa, becoming a recipient of the American College of Psychiatrists’ Laughlin Fellowship.  Dr. Cavazzoni is certified by the American Board of Neurology and Psychiatry, a Fellow of the Canadian Royal College of Physician and Surgeons and a member of the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology

Dr. Christy Hanson became the Dean of the Institute for Global Citizenship in 2012, after joining Macalester in 2011 as the Hubert Humphrey Professor. She continues to teach in the International Studies Department. In her roles on campus, she draws from over 20 years’ experience in international public health. Her primary area of research relates to the dynamics between poverty and infectious diseases. Prior to joining Macalester, Dr. Hanson was the Chief of Infectious Diseases for USAID and had previously held positions with the World Health Organization, World Bank and PATH. Hanson has provided technical and policy development support to countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America. She continues her work as a member of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria’s technical review panel, and on WHO working groups. She serves on the Boards of Directors of the American Refugee Committee and Helen Keller International.

Dr. Hanson holds a Masters in Public Health from the University of MN, and a PhD in International Health Systems and health economics from Johns Hopkins University.

David H. Peters, MD, MPH, DrPH, is Professor and Chair of the Department of International Health and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is a specialist in international health systems who has worked as a researcher, policy advisor, educator, bureaucrat, manager, and clinician in dozens of developing countries over the last two decades. He previously worked as a Senior Public Health Specialist at the World Bank, and as the Director of the Health Systems Program at Johns Hopkins. He is Research Director for the Future Health Systems research consortium, which is working to improve access, affordability and quality of health services for the poor, with field sites in five countries in Africa and Asia. He pioneered the development of Sector Wide Approaches (SWAps) in health, and created the first national Balanced Scorecard to assess and manage health services (in Afghanistan), while writing seven books and over 100 articles. His teaching and research focus on the performance of health systems, implementation research methods, poverty and health systems, innovations in organization, technology, and financing of health systems, the role of the private sector, human resource management, and ways to use donor assistance to strengthen local capacity in low-income countries.

As eBay Canada’s managing director, Ms. Andrea Stairs leads the Canadian strategy and operations of one of the world’s largest online marketplaces and Canada’s second largest e-commerce business. In this role, Andrea is responsible for cultivating eBay’s community of Canadian users -- from individual consumers to established brands and retailers -- and for overseeing all of eBay’s Canadian functions, including product management, marketing, business development, and public and government relations.

Andrea was most recently head of marketing for eBay Canada, managing the brand’s marketing strategy and execution. She was also instrumental in launching eBay’s French-Canadian website and in leading the eBay Motors team in Canada.

After receiving a BA from McGill University, Andrea obtained LLB and MBA degrees from the University of Toronto.

Andrea sits on a number of executive and advisory boards including Spinrite LP, the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC), Ontario’s Panel for Economic Growth & Prosperity, as well as the Rotman School of Management’s Equity, Diversity & Inclusion committee.

A native of Montreal, Andrea now lives in Toronto with her husband and young son and daughter.

Arnold Steinberg was a Montreal businessman, philanthropist and art collector. After graduating from McGill in 1954, he received an MBA from Harvard University. He held directorships and senior management positions with Canadian companies including RBC Dominion Securities, Steinberg Inc., Ivanhoe Inc., Teleglobe and the Banque Nationale du Canada. He also had a lengthy record of service with numerous charitable, educational and cultural organizations. Among his many positions, he served as a member of the Canada Council and its Executive Committee, the Board of Governors of McGill University, and as Chairman of the Board of the McGill University Health Centre. He served as the Chair of the Board of Canada Health Infoway and was a Member of the Governing Council of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. A member of the Order of Canada, Mr. Steinberg was awarded an honorary doctorate from McGill University and was also Governor Emeritus. We are forever grateful to Mr. Arnold Steinberg, who sadly passed away in 2015, for his steadfast support of global health at McGill. His legacy will continue to motivate us as we work to position global health at McGill at the forefront internationally.