Dr. Kwame McKenzie
CEO, Wellesley Institute
Dr. Kwame McKenzie is CEO of the Wellesley Institute. He is an international expert on the social causes of illness, suicide and the development of effective, equitable health systems.
As a physician, researcher and policy advisor, Dr. McKenzie has worked to identify the causes of illness and in cross-cultural health for over two decades. He is an active, funded researcher of social, community, clinical and policy issues with nearly 200 academic publications including five books.
In addition to his post at Wellesley Institute, Dr. McKenzie is the Director of Clinical Health Equity at CAMH. He is a full Professor and the Co-Director of the Division of Equity Gender and Population in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto.
Dr. McKenzie sits on the Boards of the United Way Toronto and the Ontario Hospitals Association. He is a Senior Fellow at Massey College.
Dr. McKenzie is a member of the Ontario Government’s Mental Health and Addictions Leadership Advisory Council and sat on the Expert Advisory Group for Ontario’s Homelessness Strategy along side numerous other committees. He has a respected track record for setting up award winning services, training clinicians and researchers, offering clinical care to some of the most marginalized patients, and helping to develop health policy for Governments in Canada, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and United States.
Dr. McKenzie completed his medical training at the University of Southampton and was trained in psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital and Institute of Psychiatry and Harvard University.
