Sean Elliott, '18 MBA

Sean Elliott, is the Executive Director of Digital Health Enablement for Cyber Security and Digital Solutions with the government of Nova Scotia, where he helps bring digital health, infrastructure, clinical operations, cyber security, and governance together to support major health system transformation across Nova Scotia. His career has moved from frontline public service and municipal operations to health technology leadership, giving him a practical, people-centred view of how complex systems change and what it takes to make that change sustainable.

Can you share a bit about your career journey and the key milestones that brought you to your current position?

My career has not followed a straight line, but there has always been a common thread: public service, operations, people leadership, and solving complex problems that affect communities. I started in high volume, public facing environments, including progressive leadership roles at West Edmonton Mall and the City of Edmonton. Those roles gave me a strong foundation in operational discipline, workforce planning, service delivery, and leading teams under pressure. At the City of Edmonton, I supported areas such as parks, roads, community infrastructure, snow and ice control, trails, and other municipal services. It taught me early that the work people rely on every day is often complex, highly coordinated, and most visible when something goes wrong.

A major pivot came when I moved into digital services in Nova Scotia, particularly in healthcare. As Client Services Manager for End User Computing, I supported hospitals and health organizations across the province, including device lifecycle management, service desk operations, onsite support, and frontline clinical environments. That role was shaped significantly by the COVID-19 response, when digital services had to scale quickly to support testing, vaccination, emergency operations, and clinical care. From there, I moved into broader leadership roles across cyber security, infrastructure, cloud, enterprise architecture, and digital health. Those experiences helped me see healthcare technology not simply as a collection of systems, but as an ecosystem of governance, clinical operations, infrastructure readiness, cyber risk, and people-centred change.

Today, as Executive Director of Digital Health Enablement, my work brings those experiences together. My focus is on ensuring digital health capabilities are embedded early and effectively into major health system transformation and capital programs across Nova Scotia. It is the convergence of public service, operational leadership, health technology, governance, infrastructure readiness, and change management.

Can you describe your role as Executive Director of Digital Health Enablement and what your team is working to accomplish?

Digital Health Enablement exists to make sure technology is not an afterthought in healthcare transformation. In practical terms, my role is to help bring digital, clinical, infrastructure, cyber security, operational, and governance considerations together early and consistently. That is especially important as Nova Scotia delivers major health infrastructure and system transformation initiatives. When a new facility, service, or clinical environment opens, the technology needs to be ready, sustainable, secure, and aligned with how care is actually delivered.

My team works across multiple portfolios, including clinical systems, enterprise architecture, infrastructure, operational technology, health redevelopment, cyber standards, and technology enabled care environments. A major part of our work is reducing delivery risk by strengthening governance, creating clearer validation processes, and improving alignment between health, infrastructure, government, and delivery partners. At its core, our goal is simple: to make sure digital health is planned, governed, and delivered in a way that supports modern, patient-centred care. That means helping clinical and operational leaders make informed decisions, applying standards consistently, and ensuring technology investments remain sustainable well beyond opening day.

Looking back, what aspects of the MBA experience had the greatest impact on your professional development?

The MBA helped me move from thinking operationally to thinking systemically. I completed my MBA while I was also taking on progressively senior operational leadership roles, so the learning was immediately practical. I was not just studying leadership, strategy, governance, and public administration in theory — I was applying those lessons in real time. That made the experience especially valuable. My Bachelor of Commerce gave me a strong foundation in how organizations operate, grow, compete, and create value. The MBA helped me build on that foundation and better understand the realities of government and the broader public sector, where success is often measured by outcomes for citizens and communities rather than by a single bottom line.

The biggest shift was learning to step back from the immediate issue — the team, the schedule, the operational pressure — and look at the larger system. The MBA helped me understand how policy, governance, finance, stakeholder interests, politics, and organizational design influence what is possible. That perspective has been directly relevant to digital health, where decisions involve government, health authorities, infrastructure partners, clinicians, patients, vendors, and the public. Most importantly, the MBA gave me frameworks and language for challenges I had already encountered in practice: leading through ambiguity, managing change, building coalitions, and making decisions when there is no perfect answer. Those are skills I rely on constantly in my current role.

Your work involves collaborating with multiple healthcare partners. How do you build strong relationships across organizations with shared goals?

Strong relationships across organizations start with trust, clarity, and respect for each partner’s mandate. In digital health, no single organization can deliver the outcome alone. Government, health authorities, infrastructure partners, clinicians, technical teams, vendors, and operational leaders all bring different accountabilities, pressures, and perspectives. My approach is to start by creating alignment around the shared outcome — in our context, safer, more consistent, more digitally enabled care environments for patients, providers, and communities.

Once that common purpose is clear, it becomes easier to work through the inevitable differences around scope, timelines, funding, risk, and decision-making. Complex projects will always have tension. The key is making sure the tension is productive and focused on the outcome, not on individual portfolios. I also believe relationships get stronger when governance is clear. A lot of friction comes from ambiguity: who decides, who validates, who owns the risk, who needs to be escalated to, and who is responsible for the service over the long term. In my Digital Health Enablement work, establishing governance, validation frameworks, and cross-departmental delivery models has been central to aligning health, infrastructure, government, and delivery partners.

Finally, I try to be consistent and transparent. Partners do not need every answer immediately, but they do need confidence that issues will be surfaced honestly, their perspectives will be heard, and decisions will be made in the best interest of the system. That matters in healthcare because the work is complex and the stakes are high.

How do you approach change management when implementing large-scale digital initiatives?

I approach change management as something that starts at the beginning, not at the end. Too often, change management is treated as communications, training, or go-live support. Those things matter, but they are only part of the work. Real change starts when you engage the people affected by the decision; clinicians, operational leaders, technical teams, support teams, patients, and partners to understand their workflows, pain points, constraints, and definition of success.

If the technology does not fit the workflow, or if people do not understand why the change matters, adoption will always be harder. That is why I see change management as closely tied to governance and readiness. We are not only asking whether the technology has been built. We are asking whether the organization is ready, whether the standards are clear, whether workflows are understood, whether support models are in place, whether risks have been validated, and whether the right partners are aligned. I also think change management requires humility. In healthcare, people are already carrying significant operational pressures. If we want people to adopt new tools or new ways of working, we need to be honest about the impact, clear about the benefits, and committed to supporting them through the transition.

Ultimately, the goal is not implementation for its own sake. The goal is sustained adoption, shared accountability, and better outcomes.

Rapid Fire Questions!

Coffee or tea?
Coffee all the way, but I do enjoy a good cup of tea with a treat on a Saturday afternoon.

Best book you've read recently?
Say It Well: Find Your Voice, Speak Your Mind, Inspire Any Audience by Terry Szuplat. It is a great reminder that clear, authentic communication is one of the most powerful tools a leader has.

One leadership habit you never skip?
Making time for people. Whether it is a quick check-in, a coaching conversation, getting to know stakeholders, or simply listening, leadership starts with being present and accessible

A productivity tip you swear by?
Scheduling reflection time. Leadership is not just about responding to issues or clearing a to-do list; it is about creating space to think strategically, connect the dots, and anticipate what is coming next.

Three words that describe your leadership style.
Collaborative, strategic, and authentic.

Thank you for taking the time to chat with us, Sean!