NHS Wales chief executive Paul Williams has announced that Mr. Howard Waldner has been appointed as the chief executive of the new Hywel Dda Local Health Board.

Howard Waldner (pictured) is currently the president and chief executive officer of Vancouver Island Health Authority, a health organisation with 17,000 employees covering a geographical area the size of England and Wales and comprising both well-developed and rural areas.

Prior to this appointment in 2004, Howard was the former executive vice-president and chief operating officer for the Calgary Health Region, an organisation with 23,000 staff, again covering a very wide geographical spread. He simultaneously held the role of Associate Professor within the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Calgary and has also been Adjunct Professor in the Department of Health Care and Epidemiology in the University of British Columbia.

Said the chairman of Hywel Dda Local Health Board, Mr. Chris Martin: "We are delighted to have attracted such a high calibre leader to the role of chief executive of our new organisation.

"Howard has considerable experience in running large, fully integrated healthcare organisations, drawing upon both the Canadian Health Care System and the Scottish Community Health Partnership approach.

"We look forward to welcoming him back to the UK and to working with him to create a successful new Local Health Board in Mid and West Wales in the future."

Preceding the move to Canada in 1999, Howard held several chief executive officer and senior executive director posts within the National Health Service in the United Kingdom.

He was director of planning, contracts and operations, then deputy chief executive and later chief executive at Dundee Teaching Hospital from 1999 onwards, and during this time was seconded by NHS Scotland to assist two different organisations.

Prior to this, he was executive director of planning and contracts for Fife Health Board.

Howard began his career as a management trainee in the Scottish Health Service, later taking on a personnel role and then accepting a post as deputy sector administrator managing acute and community services.

In 1983, he became a sector administrator leading the management team of Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

He received his MBA from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, in 1988, and is an active member of both the Canadian and American Colleges of Health Service Executives. He is also a Fellow of the UK Institute of Health Care Management.