Executive exodus continues at Shared Health with recent departures

WINNIPEG — Manitoba’s provincial health authority is looking for its fourth chief financial officer since 2023 and additional replacements after the recent departures of three executives.

Shared Health wouldn’t explain why two former executives — corporate services vice-president and CFO Ken Klassen, and Georgina Veldhorst, vice-president of quality, strategy and performance — are no longer in their roles.

A spokesperson said Ben Fry retired as chief operating officer of mental health and addictions in July.

“Interim leadership are in place while recruitment for the positions is underway,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.

Klassen told the Winnipeg Free Press his final day was July 21 after he accepted an early retirement offer. Attempts to reach Veldhorst were unsuccessful.

“The timing isn’t exactly what I would have chosen, but I was at that part of my career regardless,” Klassen, 61, said of his retirement. “It was an opportunity I was happy to take.”

Regarding turnover in the CFO position in recent years, Klassen said it’s a very difficult role, especially when combined with the role as lead of corporate services, which is a large portfolio on its own.

“It was a very full job, a very demanding job, but also very rewarding,” he said. “I got to work with many wonderful people. I’m really proud of my time at Shared Health.”

Klassen, who joined the organization in 2023, said former CEO Lanette Siragusa and her replacement, interim CEO Dr. Chris Christodoulou, are “excellent” leaders who set out to change the culture and develop Shared Health as a provincial organization.

“Unfortunately, there has been a huge turnover in CEOs and CFOs,” Klassen said. “I think it’s difficult for an organization to optimize its growth and improvements in culture and other things when that happens.”

Shared Health, which has more than 18,000 employees, was created in 2018 by the former Tory government to oversee provincial planning, health services and operational support for Manitoba’s health system.

Its responsibilities includes the operation of Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, rural and northern emergency medical services and public-sector laboratory and diagnostic imaging.

After being elected in 2023, the NDP government vowed to cut Shared Health’s administrative costs and redirect money to front-line care.

Premier Wab Kinew said his government removed eight per cent of Shared Health’s senior management in its first year in office.

He said resources are being taken away from areas that don’t affect patients to help fund additional staffing.

» Winnipeg Free Press

Earlier this week, Kinew announced the health-care system has added 4,725 net new workers since the election.

The government’s 2026-27 budget projected a nearly $1-billion increase in spending for the Manitoba Health, Seniors and Long-Term Care Department.

Klassen said Southern Health had balanced budgets during his time as its CFO. The same role at Shared Health was a “large challenge,” he said, because the organization had a $115-million deficit when he joined in the 2024 fiscal year.

He said the deficit — on a $2 billion-plus budget — was reduced to $35 million in the 2026 fiscal year due, in part, to additional government funding and cost reductions mostly in administrative areas.

» Winnipeg Free Press