Read thumbnail profiles of all the Top 25 Minority Executives in Healthcare starting

ANTHONY ARMADA CEO

Swedish Health Services

Armada, 54, has been CEO of Seattle-based Swedish Health since last November. He joined the not-for-profit system from Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Ill., where he served as president of the 624-bed academic and research hospital beginning in 2009. During the five preceding years, Armada served as president and CEO of the Henry Ford Hospital and Health Network in Detroit. A past board chairman of the Institute for Diversity in Health Management, Armada appeared on Modern Healthcare’s list of the Top 25 Minority Executives in Healthcare in 2008 and again in 2010.

DR. KELVIN BAGGETT

Senior vice president of clinical operations and chief clinical officer Tenet Healthcare Corp.

Baggett, 42, first joined Dallas-based Tenet in October 2009 as chief medical officer, after serving as vice president of clinical strategy and chief operating officer for HCA’s clinical services group. During an earlier fellowship as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Baggett’s work focused on improving safety, quality and service. At Tenet, he helped establish the company’s Clinical Innovation Awards, which recognize system hospitals for their commitment to those three pillars of care. It’s Baggett’s second consecutive time on the biennial Top 25 Minority Executives in Healthcare roster.

DR. GEORGES BENJAMIN

Executive director American Public Health Association

Benjamin, 61, has been at the helm of the American Public Health Association, Washington, since 2002 when he joined the public health professionals’ advocacy group. Before taking the top job at the APHA, Benjamin served as Maryland’s secretary of health, where he oversaw expansion of the state’s Medicaid program. But as a board-certified internal medicine physician, Benjamin began his career in the Army, eventually serving as chief of emergency medicine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington before leaving for civilian life. Benjamin has appeared on both Modern Healthcare’s list of 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare and 50 Most Influential Physician Executives for multiple years.

RUTH BRINKLEY

President and CEO Kentucky One Health

Brinkley heads Louisvillebased KentuckyOne Health, a system that is the product of the 2012 merger of Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s HealthCare and St. Joseph Health System. She also serves as senior vice president of operations at Catholic Health Initiatives. When Brinkley, 62, was last named to Modern Healthcare’s Top 25 Minority Executives in Healthcare list in 2010, she was serving as president and CEO of Catholic healthcare system Cardondelet Health Network in Tucson, Ariz., as well as West Ministry market leader for its parent, Ascension Health. Brinkley, who earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing, has also held executive positions in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Birmingham, Ala.

DR. GEORGE BROWN

President and CEO Legacy Health

Since 2008, Brown, 66, has led Legacy Health, a five-hospital system based in Portland, Ore. Brown also chairs Health Share of Oregon, which provides care for 140,000 lowincome residents. The organization is an outgrowth of the Tri-County Medicaid Collaborative, of which Brown was a founding member. Its purpose is to serve local Medicaid patients through coordinated care. Brown is a gastroenterologist who began his medical career in the military. In the Army, Brig. Gen. Brown served in commanding officer roles at Madigan Army Medical Center, Fort Lewis, Wash., and Walter Reed Health Care System in Washington before retiring from active military service in 1999.

RICHARD CORDOVA

President and CEO Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

Cordova, 64, is a multipletime honoree in Modern Healthcare’s Top 25 Minority Executives in Healthcare recognition program. He was previously named to the list in 2006, 2008 and 2010. The American College of Healthcare Executives, where he has served as a governor since 2011, recently named him its chairman-elect. Before Cordova joined Children’s Hospital in 2005, he spent five years in the Southern California region of Kaiser Permanente Health Plan and Hospitals, which is responsible for 11 hospitals and a 3 million-member health plan. At Kaiser, he first served as chief operating officer and then as president.

LLOYD DEAN

President and CEO Dignity Health

Dean, 63, has led 39hospital Dignity Health, based in San Francisco, since 2000, when the notfor-profit system was still known as Catholic Healthcare West. The name change was part of a longterm growth strategy that led to a restructuring of the system’s governing board that ended its formal affiliation with the Catholic Church in 2012. Before Dean arrived, the system had suffered losses of more than $800 million between 1997 and 2000. He is credited with returning the organization to profitability four years later. Dean has been named to Modern Healthcare’s biennial list of the Top 25 Minority Executives all five times.

PAUL DIAZ

CEO Kindred Healthcare

Diaz, 52, has served as CEO of Louisville, Ky.-based Kindred since 2004. The post-acute care provider has annual revenue of about $5 billion with 63,000 employees across 47 states. In 2011, Kindred expanded through a merger with RehabCare, which it purchased for $900 million. An accounting and finance graduate, Diaz also holds a law degree from Georgetown University. He continues to serve on the law center’s board of visitors to provide counsel to the dean. He also established a scholarship to help students in financial need and to promote ethnic diversity. It’s the fourth time Diaz has been named to the biennial list of the Top 25 Minority Executives in Healthcare.

DR. VICTOR DZAU

President and CEO Duke University Health System; chancellor of health affairs, Duke University

In addition to his leadership positions at Duke, Dzau is also the James B. Duke professor of medicine. In July, Dzau will leave Duke after nearly a decade to begin a six-year term as the president of the Institute of Medicine. He was first elected a member of the organization in 1998. Dzau is known for his pioneering work in gene therapy for vascular disease, research that has contributed to the development of cardiovascular drugs that are now used worldwide to treat high blood pressure and congestive heart failure. It’s Dzau’s first time on the biennial list of the Top 25 Minority Executives in Healthcare.

KENNETH FRAZIER

Chairman and CEO Merck & Co.

Since 2011, Frazier has served in the top leadership role at Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based drugmaker Merck, which reported worldwide sales of $44 billion last year. Frazier, 59, first joined the pharmaceutical giant in 1992 as vice president, general counsel and secretary of the Astra / Merck group. A Harvard Law School graduate, Frazier was then elected and promoted to numerous positions within the company before being named president and finally chair and chief executive three years ago. Before joining Merck, Frazier was a partner with a Philadelphia law firm.

DR. SAM HO

Executive vice president and chief medical officer United Healthcare

In his various roles at commercial insurer UnitedHealth Group, Ho, 63, is responsible for its quality improvement, medical management, performance measurement and healthcare affordability programs. As its chief clinical executive, Ho is helping the organization lead the way in accountable care expansion. Last year, UnitedHealth announced it would commit $50 billion annually to contract with doctors and hospitals based on quality and costefficiency measures. Ho, a family medicine physician, joined PacifiCare of California in 1994 as vice president. Eleven years later, UnitedHealth Group acquired PacifiCare Health Systems based in Cypress, Calif., when Ho was its executive vice president of health services and CMO.

DR. RISA LAVIZZO-MOUREY

President and CEO Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Lavizzo-Mourey, 59, has spent the past decade as chief executive of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a health policy and healthcare-focused philanthropic organization that distributes about $400 million in grants and contracts annually to fund research and address healthcare challenges. Named to the top leadership role at RWJF in 2003, Lavizzo-Mourey has more than three decades of related experience that include work as a practicing physician, healthcare policy leader, professor and notfor-profit executive. An internist who specialized in geriatrics, Lavizzo-Mourey last year was also named to Modern Healthcare’s biennial list of the Top 25 Women in Healthcare.

KEVIN LOFTON

President and CEO Catholic Health Initiatives

Lofton, 59, has led the Englewood, Colo.-based health system since 2003. He first joined CHI in 1998 as president of its former Southeast Region. The next year, Lofton was promoted to chief operating officer and then executive vice president in 2000. The system, which now includes 89 hospitals across 18 states, reports annual revenue of nearly $11 billion, a $4 billion increase since Lofton took over. CHI also provides more than twice the community benefits it did a decade ago, giving $762 million in charity care during its last fiscal year. Lofton has appeared on all five of Modern Healthcare’s biennial lists of the Top 25 Minority Executives in Healthcare.

DAVID LOPEZ

President and CEO Harris Health System

After a year as interim president and CEO of the Harris County Hospital District, now known as Harris Health System, Lopez was named to the permanent executive role at the Houston-based organization in 2005. Lopez, 61, initially joined the three-hospital system in 2000 as executive vice president and chief operating officer, after more than 20 years in other healthcare administrative and executive roles in Texas. He’s also on the board of trustees for the Texas Hospital Association. This is the third time he has been named to Modern Healthcare’s biennial list of the Top 25 Minority Executives in Healthcare.

PATRICIA MARYLAND

President of healthcare operations and chief operating officer Ascension Health

Maryland was promoted last July to president of healthcare operations and COO of St. Louis-based Ascension Health, the nation’s largest Catholic health system. At that time, she was serving as Michigan Ministry market leader for Ascension, as well as president and CEO of Ascension’s St. John Providence Health System, Detroit. Maryland, who holds a doctorate in public health, continues to serve as ministry market leader for Michigan, where she launched a statewide home-health and hospice agency in January 2013. Under her leadership at St. John, the health system reported strong financials during one of Michigan’s most economically challenging periods.

DR. ANA PUJOLS MCKEE

Executive vice president and chief medical officer Joint Commission

As executive vice president and chief medical officer of the Joint Commission, Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., which accredits and certifies more than 20,000 healthcare organizations and programs in the U.S., Pujols McKee, 62, develops and oversees policies and strategies to promote patient safety and healthcare quality improvement. She was named to the role at the not-for-profit organization in 2011, after serving as CMO and associate executive director of Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia. Board certified in internal medicine, Pujols McKee also served as a clinical associate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

DR. RAM RAJU

President and CEO New York City Health and Hospitals Corp.

Raju began his healthcare career as a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon in New York. But after moving into public health administration, his career brought him to Chicago in 2011, where he served as CEO of the Cook County Health & Hospitals System. He helped the county obtain a federal waiver for a program serving adults newly eligible for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, giving an additional 75,000 residents access to primary and specialty care. In March, Raju, 62, returned to the New York City Health and Hospitals Corp. as president and CEO. He was previously its executive vice president, chief operating officer and chief medical officer.

DR. PREM REDDY

Chairman, president and CEO Prime Healthcare Services

In 2001, Reddy, a boardcertified internist and cardiologist, founded Prime Healthcare Services, a privately held for-profit company based in Ontario, Calif., that now operates 20 acute-care hospitals in California, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Texas. The system specializes in acquiring and turning around financially distressed hospitals. In 1994, Reddy built Desert Valley Hospital in Victorville, Calif., an 83-bed facility he later sold and then reacquired that became one of Prime’s first hospitals. Reddy, 65, commits time, money and other resources to charity care nationally and internationally through the Prime Healthcare Services Foundation and the Dr. Prem Reddy Family Foundation.

DR. YVETTE ROUBIDEAUX

Acting director U.S. Indian Health Service

Roubideaux, 51, a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe in South Dakota, is in her second four-year term leading the Indian Health Service. The agency is the principal federal healthcare provider and advocate for 2.2 million American Indians and Alaska Natives across 566 tribes. Roubideaux, a primary-care physician, formerly served as assistant professor of family and community medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. In addition to leading initiatives to address diabetes and other health issues in the AmericanIndian and Alaska Native communities, she also has directed university programs to attract these populations into the health professions.

ERIC SHINSEKI

Secretary U.S. Veterans Affairs Department

Shinseki, a retired four-star U.S. Army general, was sworn in as the seventh secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department in January 2009. The VA operates the country’s largest integrated healthcare system of 135 hospitals as well as hundreds of clinics, community living centers, counseling centers and other facilities that serve nearly 9 million veterans each year. Before retiring from active duty in 2003, Shinseki served as the Army’s chief of staff, leading the military branch during Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom following the Sept. 11 attacks.

DR. BRUCE SIEGEL

President and CEO America’s Essential Hospitals

Since 2010, Siegel has served as president and CEO of America’s Essential Hospitals, Washington, formerly the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems. The organization represents more than 200 hospitals and health systems that provide significant levels of care to low-income, uninsured and vulnerable populations. Siegel, 53, previously served as director of the Center for Health Care Quality and professor of health policy at George Washington University’s School of Public Health and Health Services. This is the first time Siegel has been selected for Modern Healthcare’s biennial Top 25 Minority Executives in Healthcare recognition.

DR. PATRICK SOON-SHIONG

Chairman Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation

Soon-Shiong, a surgeon, medical researcher and entrepreneur, is founder and chairman of the Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation, which funds health-related research and projects. He also serves as chairman and CEO of the foundation’s Institute for Advanced Health and the Healthcare Transformation Institute. Soon-Shiong founded the National Coalition for Health Integration to create a national health network for securely sharing biomedical information, as well as NantHealth, the developer of a cloud-based clinical operating system. Born in South Africa, Soon-Shiong immigrated to Canada and then to the U.S. in 1980. He is the co-inventor of more than 50 U.S. patents and inventor of a drug to treat metastatic breast cancer.

BERNARD TYSON

Chairman and CEO Kaiser Permanente

Tyson, 55, was named CEO of Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente in July 2013. Six months later, in January, he also assumed the role of chairman at the healthcare provider and its not-for-profit health plan. From 2010 to 2013, as president and COO, Tyson oversaw the opening of 14 hospitals. Kaiser now includes 32 hospitals, 9.1 million health plan members, 175,000 employees and 17,000 physicians. As Kaiser’s chief executive, Tyson has advocated for the use of aggregated data from members’ electronic health records to help eliminate healthcare disparities, while determining the most effective treatments for the best clinical outcomes. Tyson first joined Kaiser in 1981 as an administrative analyst.

DR. ROBERT WAH

Chief medical officer Computer Sciences Corp.

Since 2007, Wah has served as vice president and CMO at healthcare information technology company Computer Sciences Corp. in Falls Church, Va. This June, he will become president of the American Medical Association. Before joining CSC, he was the first deputy national coordinator in the HHS’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. Wah, 56, is a reproductive endocrinologist and OB-GYN. He has served on the faculty at Harvard Medical School, Boston; the University of California, San Diego; and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Md. After serving 23 years as a captain in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps, Wah now practices and teaches at the Walter Reed National Military Center in Bethesda.

EUGENE WOODS

Executive vice president and chief operating officer Christus Health

Woods, 49, has been executive vice president and chief operating officer for Irving, Texas-based Christus for nearly three years. Woods joined 16-hospital Christus from Catholic Health Initiatives’ Lexington, Ky.-based regional organization, St. Joseph Health System. He became CEO of St. Joseph in 2007 after leading the integration of seven Kentucky hospitals into the regional group. This group included the four hospitals that had been a part of CHI’s St. Joseph HealthCare, also in Lexington, where Woods had served as president and CEO since 2005. Before joining CHI, Woods was COO at the Washington (D.C.) Hospital Center, a teaching hospital with nearly 800 beds.