After three decades with the Ottawa Hospital and 18 years at the helm, Jack Kitts will retire next year.
The Ottawa Hospital’s board of governors announced Wednesday that Kitts gave his notice that he will retire in June 2020. In a release, board chair Katherine Cotton called him the “architect” that led the hospital through decades of transformation, including the amalgamation of four separate hospitals into today’s single organization.
Kitts graduated from the University of Ottawa in 1980 and joined the Ottawa Hospital later that decade after a stint in Toronto and a three-year tour as a medical officer in the Canadian Forces. He was named president and CEO of the Ottawa Hospital in 2002.
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Last year, Kitts was named a member of the Order of Canada.
Kitts’s departure sets the board on a search for his replacement. While the position is well-compensated – Kitts often topped the Sunshine List of Ottawa’s highest-paid public sector employees – the hospital’s new CEO will also be tasked with leading the organization through the development of a new Civic Campus.