At the October 2024 Business Meetings and Expo in Seoul, Korea, SNOMED International announced new appointees to its Management Board, a governance body with legal and oversight responsibility for the direction, management and risk mitigation of SNOMED International. 

The Management Board, currently comprising seven directors including the Chair, offers the organization a wealth of experience in global healthcare and informatics, advanced technologies, organizational governance and business leadership and risk management, guiding the organization as it executes against a defined strategy and plan for the future. Management Board directors’ expertise and industry relationships are key to enabling SNOMED International to leverage technologies and strengthen partnerships with our many stakeholders worldwide.

Acknowledging outgoing members

The past seven years that our outgoing directors served was marked by a myriad of challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, managing the organizational budget throughout a period of widespread inflation, and developing a strategy to embrace advanced technologies to better position the organization and its Members for the future.

SNOMED International thanks outgoing Chair Joanne Burns and Directors Matic Meglic and Gong Mengchun for their considerable contributions to the Management Board and their commitment to enabling the organization to realize its goals:

• Joanne Burns, outgoing Chair, began her term in April 2017 as a Director and was appointed Chair in September 2020. Throughout her tenure, she worked closely with the General Assembly Executive and the SNOMED International CEO to shape both the development and successful execution of the 2020-2025 SNOMED International strategy, and has been instrumental in the development of the 2025-2030 strategy and operations plan as well.
  

• Matic Meglic joined the Board as a Director in April 2017. Matic, who also served as Chair of the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee, brought to SNOMED International his considerable expertise in public health, health informatics and semantic interoperability, both in Europe and globally. 
  

• Gong Mengchun joined the Management Board as Director in April 2017. Dr. Gong, who was a participating member of the board’s Technical Innovation Committee, is dedicated to promoting the standardization of medical data globally and conducting research in medical informatics. Avidly interested in the areas of artificial intelligence and large language models, he gave the SNOMED CT Expo 2023 James Read Memorial Lecture on using SNOMED CT to power public health management and knowledge discovery in COVID-19. 

New Board Chair and New Members

The Management Board reflects the global diversity of SNOMED International Members, not just geographically, but in its wide expanse of professional experience and industry acumen and expertise. SNOMED International welcomes the following new Board Chair and Directors:

Board Chair Dr Andrew Roddam

Dr Andrew Roddam, who has served as a Director since October 2020, is an accomplished life sciences executive and internationally renowned epidemiologist with more than twenty 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. An experienced international board member who frequently serves as keynote speaker at various global conferences, he is currently the Chief Strategy Officer of EveryONE Medicines, an organization committed to developing individualized precision therapeutics.

New Directors

Dr Juana Lucia Flores-Candia

Juana Lucia Flores-Candia, currently the Chief Innovation Officer at AtG, a pre-clinical stage drug development company, has more than 20 years of experience in healthcare, including holding significant leadership roles at biopharma company GSK and innovative medicines company Novartis. Juana Lucia also has led digital transformation and implementation projects in clinical trials and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven solutions. 

Christian Hein

Christian Hein, currently a Strategic Advisory Board Member for healthcare AI firm QuantHealth, has held senior executive roles, including as Vice President, Global Head of Digital Transformation and Innovation Execution at Novartis, and Head of European Union Digital Technology Hubs for Amgen Innovation. He has also has worked with multinational

pharmaceutical companies and advised startups globally. 

Bettina McMahon

Bettina McMahon is currently Chief Executive Officer of online healthcare advice provider Healthdirect Australia and former Interim CEO and Chief Operating Officer of the Australian Digital Health Agency, where she led major digital health projects and reforms. Bettina has also managed large technology projects, led the rollout of Australia’s My Health Record, and developed national digital health policies and standards. For the past three years she has been Board Chair of the Australasian Institute of Digital Health, Australia’s peak body for informaticians and digital health professionals.

“SNOMED International is deeply grateful to our outgoing Management Board Directors for the many contributions they have made, the multifaceted perspectives they have shared and their deep expertise in leadership, healthcare technology and healthcare informatics,” says SNOMED International CEO Don Sweete. “You’ve helped us navigate critical challenges and build greater resilience in turbulent times, and while your term here has ended, your impact will continue to shape our future. We thank you for your dedication and partnership. At the same time, we  welcome our new Chair and Directors, and we look forward to their guidance as we begin to execute on our next strategy.”

Visit the linked governance page to learn more about the legal and oversight responsibility of SNOMED International Management Board.