Vivek Goel will move into a coronavirus response-oriented advisory role having been University of Toronto vice-president for research, innovation and strategic initiatives since 2015.

Vivek Goel is to resign as University of Toronto’s vice-president for research, innovation and strategic initiatives on July 1, the university announced yesterday. Goel will remain with Toronto as a special adviser to its president and provost, Meric Gertler, specialising in preparing the university’s coronavirus response. Goel, who also holds an academic appointment at Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, has also been co-chair of the university’s Covid-19 incident leadership team, and is a member of the Canadian government committee working to track the pandemic. He has also spent 12 years as the founding president and chief executive of government agency Public Health Ontario, combining it with his university duties from 2015 onwards. Goel had an earlier stint at University of Toronto as vice-president and provost from 2004 until 2008, and was chief academic strategist at online learning platform developer Coursera, a Stanford University spinout, from May until December 2014. Goel said: “I am just trying to do what I think is best for the university and the country, and spend my time where I can focus on big public health issues. “If I were a trained forest-fire fighter and there were forest fires burning, and I am working away at something else, I think I would probably say at some point: ‘If things are raging out of control, maybe I should go back and do what I was originally trained to do.’” – Picture courtesy of LinkedIn

Subscribe to go deeper

GCV subscribers get access to all our proprietary data and deep-dive articles, as well as the global directory of CVC investors.



Not sure if you have a subscription?