Mark Walton, MHSA '95

In 1995, Mark Walton earned his master of health services administration (MHSA) degree from the University of Alberta. Walton learned about the MHSA program when he was in high school, and since completing his undergraduate degree had a clear sense that this was the career path he was meant to pursue.

For the past 20 years, Mark Walton has been a consultant to the Canadian public sector. Currently, Mark serves as the vice-president of Strategy, Partnerships and Performance at Halton Healthcare Services and as managing partner at Mark Walton & Associates. Prior to this, Mark led the Healthcare Strategy Services line at KPMG LLP, as well as Blackstone Partners and Philips Medical Systems.

Mark is best known for his passion and expertise in strategy. He has led strategic planning and deployment initiatives for a wide variety of industries and organizations types across Canada. While his strength in strategy was initially discovered and developed through his work experience in the health-care and provincial government sectors, he has applied his experience and approaches to a variety of other sectors including the pharmaceutical, medical device and law enforcement sector.

"At the end of the day there is an extremely small percentage of Canadians that will not have to use the health-care system at some point in their lives. Whether it is early in life when you have children, or in our final days, health impacts us all. We deserve for the best system possible, and I believe it defines us as a country. So, every day, I come to work trying to ensure it defines us well."