Zayna Khayat

Dr. Zayna Khayat is Chief Program Officer and Managing Director for the History and Future of Healthcare with Canadian healthcare foundation, AMS Healthcare.

She is adjunct faculty and Executive in Residence with the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. She instructs in various programs including the health sector strategy MBA stream, the global executive MBA in healthcare and life sciences, and executive education programs. She is also a member of the School’s Healthcare & Life Sciences Advisory Board.

Zayna is health futurist in residence with the healthcare and life sciences practice of Deloitte in Canada where she guides individuals, companies, organizations, and governments in the sector on key trends and shifts that are reshaping healthcare, and how they can make smarter bets today to be resilient to whatever futures unfold in healthcare and life sciences.

Dr. Khayat advises a range of tech companies and organizations including Teladoc Health Canada.  

Zayna is the chair of the board of Nourish, a food + medicine national Canadian non profit, and chairs a local queer positive dance collective, Sara Porter Productions. As board member with community non profit services provider West Neighbourhood House, Dr. Khayat chairs the property committee that is providing oversight to the redevelopment of vital land in downtown Toronto to expand access to affordable housing in the community.

Zayna was previously the Future Strategist with SE Health[Saint Elizabeth Healthcare], a national social enterprise in home care and aging, where she lead the Futures team.  With her colleagues at SE Health Zayna co-authored the book Future of Aging.

In 2017 Zayna was seconded to the Health Innovation Lab at Radboud university medical centre in the Netherlands as their “Innovation Sherpa in Chief”, working on various initiatives to strengthen the Dutch health innovation ecosystem. She co-founded the Dutch Ministry of Health’s Health Innovation School and continues to serves as faculty across 6 regional cohorts each year.

Zayna lead the Health System Innovation platform at MaRS Discovery District, a major innovation hub in Toronto, from 2014 to 2017. At MaRS, Zayna and her team worked with many ecosystem partners to help smooth and accelerate the path to adoption of innovation by health and care systems.

Zayna completed her Ph.D. in the cell biology of diabetes with the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine (2001), followed by a career in strategy consulting, including as Principal in the health practice of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) from 2001-2010.

Zayna has a B.Sc (Hons) in biochemistry from University of Windsor, where she earned the President's Medal for top graduate (1996) and Board of Governor's Medal for top graduate in her program.

Zayna speaks proficiently in French and Arabic (and a little Dutch). When not building the future of healthcare, she can be found reading for various book clubs, Peloton-ing, or moonlighting as DJ Z$. Zayna resides in Toronto with her husband, 3 teenagers and their puppy Gizmo.