President and CEO, Dynacare
City: Brampton. Country of Origin: Rwanda / Zaire
Naseem Somani is the visionary leader behind Dynacare, one of the largest medical laboratories in Ontario with satellites in Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta.
Fleeing political unrest and persecution in Central Africa, a young Somani, with her parents and younger brother landed in Canada. Very soon, her father passed away, leaving her to take care of her younger brother and a homemaker mother. With great tenacity, passion and courage she graduated with a bachelor of commerce and finance degree from U of T, then went on to become a chartered accountant. She began her career in 1987 as a controller in a smaller medial lab which Dynacare acquired in 1991. In 1996, she became the vice-president of operations and general manager of the Central Ontario Division.
Somani provided leadership and vision and consolidated several small labs under the banner of Dynacare. The amalgamation of corporations comes with bridging different cultures, people and corporate philosophies. Somani tackles this with humility, compassion and pragmatism. She is constantly aware of the impact of changes in people’s lives and livelihood and the value added benefit to the health care system in Canada.
In 2005, she was appointed as CEO of Dynacare. After consolidating and strengthening the Ontario operations, she expanded into Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta transforming Dynacare as Canada’s largest provider of medical laboratory services. Today it serves patients from all across Canada. Currently, the company has 2,800 employees who perform 55 million laboratory tests each year. Dynacare is recognized for its quality of work and is considered a top employer. It received Canada’s Top Employer Award in 2009 and 2010 and the GTA Top Employer for the past seven years 2011-2017.
Today, she is transforming Dynacare from a lab company into a health and wellness solutions leader. Although the company’s roots lie in providing essential medical testing to screen, diagnose and monitor medical conditions, she is moving toward becoming a health and wellness solutions leader by expanding to comprehensive pharmacy genomics solutions, digital health products and services that empower consumers or patients to play a more active role in their own health care. The corporate wellness program ensures that the 2,800 employees are healthy and productive. Dynacare also does mobile testing for specialized services for the insurance industry
Somani is a strong supporter of corporate philanthropy. Under her leadership, Dynacare has established a scholarship program as a means to help employees’ children with the rising cost of education. Dynacare has proudly awarded more than 240 students with scholarships totalling more than $300,000.
In 2012, she introduced Dynacare’s corporate giving program, which focuses on underfunded charities, thus fulfilling a mission of impacting lives and caring for people. Since its inception, several deserving organizations have been helped to the tune of $250,000.
Somani is a board member of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and C.D. Howe Institute, and rotating chair of Ontario Association of Medical Laboratories. In 2001, she was given the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce’s Professional Woman of the Year Award.
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