18 Facts About Kwame McKenzie

Kwame Julius McKenzie is a British-Canadian psychiatrist employed as the CEO of Wellesley Institute, a policy think tank based in Toronto, Ontario.

Kwame McKenzie has worked as physician, researcher, policy advisor, journalist and broadcaster.

Kwame McKenzie attended Villiers High School, London and then Southampton University Medical School.

Kwame McKenzie was appointed as the CEO of the Wellesley Institute in May 2014.

Kwame McKenzie has worked a policy advisor across various levels of government, including provincial, federal and international.

Kwame McKenzie served as Chair of the Council of Canadian Academies' panel on Mental Health and Medical Assistance in Dying, Chair of the Health Equity External Advisory Committee at Health Quality Ontario and was appointed Commissioner at the Ontario Human Rights Commission in June 2016.

Kwame McKenzie serves as a member of Employment and Social Development Canada's National Advisory Council on Poverty, and is a Co-chair of the Expert Task Force on Substance Misuse under Health Canada.

Kwame McKenzie is the Medical Director of Health Equity at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Kwame McKenzie formerly sat on the Board of Directors of the Ontario Hospital Association, and on the Transition Planning Special Committee.

Kwame McKenzie serves on the Ontario Health Data Council for the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.

Kwame McKenzie was Chair of the Research and Evaluation Advisory Committee for the universal basic income pilot program in Ontario in 2017.

Kwame McKenzie has been a member of the board for United Way Toronto.

Kwame McKenzie is a consultant with the World Health Organization on equity.

Kwame McKenzie is a member of the Mental Health Working Group on the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, and a member of the Expert Advisory Panel on COVID-19 and Mental Health at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Kwame McKenzie is a member of the Minister of Health's COVID-19 Testing and Tracing Advisory panel alongside Kieran Moore, Chief Medical Officer of Health for Public Health Ontario.

Kwame McKenzie was a presenter on All in the Mind on BBC Radio 4, and has previously been a columnist for The Times and The Guardian newspapers in the UK, writing on issues of health, racism and equity, as well as being a frequent guest on Canadian radio and television.

In 2005 Kwame McKenzie wrote an article in The Times, UK about racial stereotyping in the 2005 film King Kong, co-written, produced, and directed by Peter Jackson.

In December 2021, Kwame McKenzie wrote an opinion piece in the Toronto Star calling for a strategy to avert vaccine inequity in racialized children.