National Office Senior Management
National Office at St. John Ambulance Canada is made up of dedicated individuals who support the Priory of Canada, provincial / territorial Councils, and their respective branches across Canada. Senior Staff and Board Officers are the primary liaison to the Order Secretariat and the Grand Council whose office is located in London, England.
The management team at St. John Ambulance Canada office includes:
Jerry Rankin — Chief Executive Officer
As Chief Executive Officer, Jerry has overall responsibility for the day-to-day operations of St. John Ambulance’s National Office. He leads the National Office team which is responsible for the national policies and programs for training and community services, marketing, sales, and corporate services.
Jerry is a Chartered Accountant with over 30 years of financial management experience in a variety of sectors (not-for-profit, technology, financial services, and real estate).
Prior to joining St. John Ambulance, Jerry was the Chief Financial Officer and Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Council on Learning, a national not-for-profit organization with a mandate to support the exchange of evidence-based knowledge about learning, and to report to Canadians on the state of lifelong learning in Canada.
Philippe E. Blain — Director, National Accounts
As the Director, National Accounts, Philippe is responsible for identifying and responding to health and safety requests, and developing relationships with new and existing national corporate training accounts. Philippe leads the planning and execution of the organization's national sale campaigns.
Philippe brings more than 20 years' experience of both non-profit and private sector sales and marketing. Prior to joining St. John Ambulance, Philippe held a number of senior positions, notably with Rogers Communications where he led a large Business to Business sales department, and he helped develop sales structures of a start-up and non-profit organization.
Philippe is fluently bilingual, holds an MBA from McGill University and looks forward to facilitating your organization's life-saving efforts!
James Williamson — Director, Information Systems and Technology
The Director of Information Systems and Technology (IST), James is responsible for providing strategic and operational leadership for the National IST department. The primary focus of the role is to oversee the deployment and support of company-wide technology applications and infrastructure, and associated corporate standards and information security. The Director of IST is responsible for running the day-to-day operations of the National IST department, providing leadership to IST project teams, and planning for future organizational needs and technology innovation incorporating best practices as well as new and emerging tools. The National IST department is responsible for providing technical training to support user adoption of new and existing enterprise applications. This position plays a critical role in fostering an atmosphere of SJA-wide cooperation and collaboration through the provision of quality support services, and will be instrumental in developing and implementing a technology vision for SJA which will encompass all of our local operations across the country. the Director of Information Systems and Technology (IST), James is responsible for providing strategic and operational leadership for the National IST department. The primary focus of the role is to oversee the deployment and support of company-wide technology applications and infrastructure, and associated corporate standards and information security. The Director of IST is responsible for running the day-to-day operations of the National IST department, providing leadership to IST project teams, and planning for future organizational needs and technology innovation incorporating best practices as well as new and emerging tools. The National IST department is responsible for providing technical training to support user adoption of new and existing enterprise applications. This position plays a critical role in fostering an atmosphere of SJA-wide cooperation and collaboration through the provision of quality support services, and will be instrumental in developing and implementing a technology vision for SJA which will encompass all of our local operations across the country.
James brings 25+ years of experience in government, political and private sector IT. Prior to joining St. John Ambulance, James held a number of IT project management and ERP software development roles with the House of Commons/Federal NDP (12yrs), The Bradford Group (5yrs), Disus Software/Atos Canada (5yrs) and Bell Canada (3yrs).
James brings a passion for people and end users and sees IT as a customer service role to be a foundation to enable other departments and other parts of the organization to meet their needs and focus on their core competencies. James has managed many success software development projects ranging from a $3 million dollar voter outreach web application database for the Federal NDP, to a successful cloud transformation project moving from on-premise servers to the Office365, Dynamics365 family of products as well as working on development and integrations for several $30 million ERP projects for US & Canadian multi-national organizations.
James looks forward to working with the entire extended SJA family on providing/fully leveraging the tools and training to enable our joint success and provide a positive experience for SJA staff and customers alike
Shawn McLaren — Chief Learning Officer
As Chief Learning Officer, Shawn leads the development of all curriculum as well as the educational process for the organization. In addition to this role, he acts as a national liaison for all matters related to first aid training.
Shawn holds a Master’s degree in Adult Education with a specialization Corporate Development and Knowledge Management. He has over 15 years experience in a variety of roles in learning and development environments in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors.
Prior to joining St. John Ambulance, Shawn was the VP of Learning & Development for Citibank overseeing the Canadian consumer lending division. He spent 17 years with that organization before deciding to make a change and move to the non-profit sector hoping to serve his community through the implementation of dynamic learning related to First Aid training.