Centre Board of Directors

Centennial Infant and Child Centre is a non-profit corporation governed by a volunteer Board of Directors. The Board strives to reflect the community served by Centennial. It supports the philosophy which makes Centennial unique.

Board members are elected by members of the Centennial community and serve an annual term, renewable for up to six consecutive terms. The Board meets approximately nine times a year to make decisions and provide direction to the operation of the Centre.

Barney Savage

Director/Board Chair

Email: boardchair@cicc.on.ca

Barney Savage is a public policy professional with over 30 years of experience in government, the non-profit sector, and mental health and addictions. He currently serves as the interim director of policy and stakeholder relations at the Ontario Association of Social Workers. Barney was CICC’s interim executive director in 2022, and was impressed by the remarkable work of the Centre’s staff in the pre-school and early intervention community programs.

Barney was raised in Nova Scotia and has lived in downtown Toronto for decades.

Matthew Lee

Director/CICC Foundation Board Chair

Email: mlee@cicc.on.ca

Matt joined the CICC Foundation Board of Directors in November 2020.

With over 15 years of financial services experience, Matt is currently Director of Trading at the Canadian Securities Exchange, a stock exchange based in Toronto. At the CSE, Matt is responsible for the business development, market quality and integrity of the equity trading businesses. Prior to joining the CSE in 2023, Matt spent 4 years at Itiviti (later Broadridge Canada) leading software sales for Canada following 8 years at TMX Group (Toronto Stock Exchange) in progressively senior roles within equities trading. His career at CIBC World Markets after an education at Dalhousie University where he earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree with a major in finance.

Outside of his professional life, Matt enjoys spending time with his family and travelling, while finding time to play golf, squash, curling & baseball. He was born and raised in Toronto and currently lives there with his wife and two young children.

Heather McGhee Peggs

Director/Vice Chair

Email: hmcghee@cicc.on.ca

Heather is an ombuds, lawyer, and author. Since 2022 she has led the early resolution team at Patient Ombudsman, responding to complaints from patients and caregivers about health care experiences in Ontario and promoting fairness in the health sector. Heather has more than 20 years of experience across a wide range of dispute resolution processes, including litigation, mediation, restorative processes and ombuds complaints handling, and she authored Supervising Conflict: A Guide for Faculty (UTP, 2023).

She lives in Toronto, ON with her husband and two teenage boys (both loved being at the Centennial Infant and Child Centre!).

Barbara Brown

Director

Email: bbrown@cicc.on.ca

Barb has been working in the early learning and family support sector for 35 years. She is the Executive Director of Connections Early Years Family Centre in Windsor, Ontario. Connections is a non-profit agency which provides integrated support, learning and early identification and intervention services to advance the healthy development of children. Programs offered at the Centre include the Talk 2 Me program, the local preschool speech and language program for Windsor-Essex assisting children to be the best communicator they can be, the Infant Hearing Program which provides universal newborn hearing screening and the Blind-Low Vision Early Intervention Program which provides services for children who are blind or have low vision and their families in day to day living.

Barb has 10 years’ experience sitting on two other Boards of Directors in the family support and early learning sector and recognizes the accountability she has to the public and the families she serves.

Kathy Catsiliras

Director

Email: kcatsiliras@cicc.on.ca

Kathy is the VP for Consulting at Equifax Canada and has been with the organization for over 15 years. She leads a national team of Analytic and Fraud Consultants that provide data, analytics and strategic expertise across both Consumer and Commercial business lines. Her passion as a leader stems from providing guidance, the right attitude and perseverance to achieve results. Kathy joined the board in September 2020 and brings with her expertise in strategic planning.

Kathy holds a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of Waterloo and an Honours Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Toronto in Chemistry and Economics.

Apart from a busy career, Kathy is an active mother of three children who lives in Toronto with her husband.

Usman Paracha

Director/ Treasurer

Email: uparacha@cicc.on.ca

Usman joined the CICC Board of Directors in September 2020.

Usman is a Senior Manager at Hilborn LLP. He services assurance and advisory needs of a variety of medium to large clients including a number of not-for-profit clients.

Usman holds many designations including Certified Public Accountant, Chartered Accountant, Certified Internal Auditor and Certified Fraud Examiner

With his experience he brings knowledge of related audit and accounting issues, particularly with reference to operational and strategic matters.