Deborah Brown named new CAO of UTM
Deborah Brown has been appointed U of T Mississauga’s new chief administrative officer, effective April 18, 2022.
Brown joins UTM from Ryerson University, where she has served as vice-president of administration and operations since 2018. Her office oversaw seven non-academic units focusing on people, infrastructure, and community. During her tenure at Ryerson, Brown and her teams developed the Campus Master Plan 2020-2030, Ryerson’s first Future of Work Strategy and Ryerson’s first Enterprise Risk Management Framework. She also oversaw significant capital expansion: two new buildings – the Daphne Cockwell Health Sciences Complex and the Centre for Urban Innovation – and the development of plans for a $500 million Science Discovery Complex.
Brown’s team also recently completed Ryerson’s Campus Core Revitalization, which provides a vibrant, engaging and accessible configuration of outdoor public spaces, as well as modernized infrastructure to improve the student, faculty, staff and visitor experience.
Brown brings with her a strong track record of collaboration and commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion. At Ryerson, she was the co-chair of the Presidential Implementation Committee to Confront Anti-Black Racism, and from 2015-2017, she was the chair of the Governance and Diversity Committee for the YWCA Hamilton.
Prior to her role at Ryerson, Brown spent four years at Mohawk College as the vice-president, corporate services. She has also worked in senior leadership positions within the Ontario government, most recently as the acting chief administrative officer and assistant deputy minister at Treasury Board Secretariat.
Brown holds a journalism degree from Ryerson University and a corporate governance designation from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management/Institute for Corporate Directors. She is also a graduate of Western University’s Ivey Executive Program and the University of Windsor’s Executive Certificate Program in Conflict Management. She serves on the board of the Joseph Brant Hospital in Burlington.
As the UTM community welcomes Brown, it also bids a very heartfelt and grateful farewell to Susan Senese, who has served as the interim CAO since July 2021. Building on her robust experience as interim CAO in 2018, and many years of service to UTM, including her long-time work as UTM’s executive director of strategy, Senese has repeatedly demonstrated outstanding leadership and commitment to the betterment of the campus through innovation, strategic collaboration and excellence.
