As Executive Vice President & Chief Administrative Officer and President of the AltaMed Foundation, Zoila D. Escobar oversees corporate communications, branding, development, patient experience, culture and language, human resources, facilities management & development, government relations, and strategic planning and execution at AltaMed Health Services. A prolific fundraiser, her fund development experience dates back to 1984 at the American Cancer Society (ACS) as Director of Development for Special Populations. While at ACS, Ms. Escobar also helped develop national policy in uterine and breast cancer screening, smoking cessation, and HIV/AIDS for Spanish-speaking populations. Some of her most important contributions include helping change attitudes around philanthropic giving in the Latino community and steering an employee giving effort to engage 100% of the AltaMed workforce.

Ms. Escobar has a long and illustrious history focusing on AIDS awareness and prevention, with positions including Program Director of the first Latinas and AIDS program in Los Angeles County, with AIDS Project Los Angeles; and Clinic Administrator for HIV Services at the UCLA Family Planning Clinic. Ms. Escobar was also involved in policy work that led to the Ryan White Act's development and played a role in the inclusion of HIV/AIDS in the Americans with Disabilities Act. Additionally, Ms. Escobar also has HIV International experience working with the World Hemophilia Federation and the World Health Organization.

Ms. Escobar currently sits on the University of La Verne board of trustees, the California Health Care Foundation board, and the American Nurses Foundation.

A graduate of the University of La Verne, Ms. Escobar holds an Ed.D., MBA, and B.S. in Health Services Administration.

Education:
Ed.D., University of La Verne
MBA, University of La Verne
B.S. Health Services Administration, University of La Verne

In July 2020, Dr. Cristian Rico was named Chief Medical Officer of Health Services at AltaMed. In this role, he oversees AltaMed’s medical leadership, encompassing areas such as telehealth, women’s health, quality and population health, and complex care. Dr. Rico previously served as AltaMed’s Vice President of Medical Groups, overseeing the recruitment and performance of providers at all primary clinics, dental services, and HIV services. Dr. Rico also serves as an AltaMed media spokesperson, often offering subject matter expertise on a variety of topics, including the Affordable Care Act, culturally competent care, medically underserved areas and community needs. He joined AltaMed’s Executive Governance Leadership Committee in August 2019.

A native of Southern California, Dr. Rico has dedicated his career to the underserved communities of East Los Angeles by improving quality, patient experience and satisfaction, and access to care. He joined AltaMed Health Services as a staff physician in 2004, served as Medical Director for AltaMed Medical and Dental Group — El Monte from 2005 to 2010, and served as Regional Medical Director (RMD) for Los Angeles County from 2010 to 2015.

As an RMD, Dr. Rico’s first task was to improve medical provider recruitment. He was able to create an efficient and sustainable process to recruit competent providers with desirable attributes, and identify emerging leaders who have gone on to become medical and regional medical directors. He has also worked with several medical, nurse practitioner, and physician assistant schools to provide students with firsthand experience in community medicine at AltaMed.

Education:
M.D., Charles R. Drew/UCLA School of Medicine 
B.S., Biology, University of California, Riverside

In July 2020, Dr. Efrain Talamantes was named Chief Operations Officer of Health Services at AltaMed. For the two years prior, he served as Medical Director for the AltaMed Institute for Health Equity (AIHE) and Medical Education, leading health services and community-partnered research and training to advance health equity and medical education at AltaMed. Under Dr. Talamantes’ leadership, the Institute received Patient Centered Outcomes Research funding, enabling a community partnership that has informed AltaMed’s research priorities. Dr. Talamantes also serves as the inaugural Designated Institutional Officer (DIO) for the AltaMed Graduate Medical Education Committee and as a member of AltaMed’s Executive Governance Leadership Committee. In 2020, Dr. Talamantes was selected as Managed Healthcare Executive 10 Emerging Industry Leaders.

Dr. Talamantes has been critical in re-designing all of AltaMed’s Medical Education programs, including the Health Resource Services Administration Health Careers Opportunity Program. As DIO, he led the application process for Accreditation Council or Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accreditation. He is also involved in curriculum design and faculty training for AltaMed’s Family Medicine Residency Program. In addition, he is focused on developing methods to best support evidence-based practice, including the use of an electronic medical records system (Epic) implemented in 2019. Dr. Talamantes, the Institute, and AltaMed’s Medical Education teams are dedicated to creating various provider training tools, workshops, and modules to eliminate health disparities.

Dr. Talamantes previously served as Associate Director for the UC Davis Center for Reducing Health Disparities and Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program. He also co-directed the Center for a Diverse Healthcare Workforce (CDHW), is the co-founder of MiMentor.org, and leads initiatives throughout the country to enhance leadership and diversity in the health care workforce.

Education:
MSc. David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles
Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Fellowship, University of California, Los Angeles
MBA. Emory University Goizueta Business School
B.S. Psychobiology, University of California, Los Angeles

Esiquio Casillas, M.D., is a board certified family physician who serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for the Program for All Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) and Senior Services at AltaMed Health Services. He oversees all aspects of care delivery to improve health outcomes for the elderly and high-risk population served by PACE.

Prior to joining AltaMed in 2012, Dr. Casillas worked at the Los Angeles Jewish Home for the Aging, as Associate Medical Director for the Department of Home- and Community-Based Services. He also served as Associate Medical Director at Regal Medical Group, where he developed and directed programming for vulnerable patient populations, including a high-risk case management program, a home visiting physician program, chronic disease telemonitoring programs, and a high-risk clinic program. Dr. Casillas also worked with Care Level Management as a home visiting physician for elderly patients in South and East Los Angeles.

Dr. Casillas received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. At Adventist Health White Memorial, he completed his residency in Family Practice as well as a health policy fellowship funded by the California Wellness Foundation, through which he helped develop innovative strategies to address health policy issues affecting underserved communities. During his fellowship, Dr. Casillas organized and coordinated the first annual Practice Management in Primary Care Conference for physicians and residents in California, designed to assist health care providers build successful and sustainable medical practices in underserved communities.

Dr. Casillas continued his studies in health policy as a California Endowment Health Policy Scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health. There, he received a Master of Public Health (MPH), focusing on stabilizing the health care safety net by improving the private practice infrastructure and processes for community physicians.

Education:
M.D., Harvard Medical School
Residency, Adventist Health White Memorial
MPH, Harvard School of Public Health

Raymond Lowe joined AltaMed Health Services in January 2018 as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer. He is an accomplished healthcare Information Systems (IS) & Information Technology (IT) executive with extensive experience in complex system delivery and operations. At AltaMed, he is responsible for all aspects of IS and IT for the organization, including strategy, innovation, delivery, operations, cybersecurity, data reporting, health plan and clinical applications, and merger and acquisition activities.

Among his many accomplishments at AltaMed, Mr. Lowe has been integral in the organization’s clinical systems transformation from the legacy system to EPIC, implementing the new Electronic Medical Record (EMR) platform system-wide, while meeting strict timeline and budgetary parameters. He also spearheaded the establishment of foundational infrastructure, cybersecurity enhancements, and application stabilization required to support the enterprise organization.

Prior to joining AltaMed, Mr. Lowe spent several years with Dignity Health as their Senior Director of Technology and Infrastructure. There he was responsible for the strategic design and delivery of IT transformation and optimization, including their Data Center, Network Consolidation, Unified Communication, and application rationalization. He also served as the Senior Director of Clinical Applications and Implementations for the Cerner EMR at seven Dignity Health hospitals.

Mr. Lowe has more than 20 years of knowledge and experience in healthcare IS/IT leadership including roles with Providence Health Services’ California Region and as Chief Information Officer for Kaiser Permanente Information Technology – Los Angeles Metro Area. Throughout his career, Mr. Lowe has been recognized with such distinguished honors as Becker’s 100 Top CIOs to Watch in 2019 and 2020, and BT150’s Most Transformational Leaders in 2019 among other noted recognitions.

Education:
M.S. Engineering Management, University of Southern California
B.S. Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California

Berenice Núñez Constant is the Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Civic Engagement at AltaMed Health Services Corporation. In 2017, she joined AltaMed as Vice President of Government Relations, leading legislative and policy advocacy strategies to advance state initiatives to eliminate disparities in health care access and outcomes. Ms. Núñez Constant also helped spearhead the formation of AltaMed’s Civic Engagement Program, inclusive of the My Vote. My Health. campaign, as well as a campaign to boost Census 2020 participation. In her current role, Ms. Núñez Constant continues to lead policy and civic engagement initiatives aimed at impacting the social determinants affecting many of AltaMed’s patients and communities, and engaging communities in Los Angeles and Orange counties in the electoral process.

Collectively, Ms. Núñez Constant has nearly 20 years of experience in the health care sector, working at both federal and state levels to support the health care needs of underserved populations. Prior to joining AltaMed, she worked with Molina Healthcare, Inc., one of our nation’s largest health plans. There, she served as Associate Vice President of Government Contracts, leading regulatory and advocacy strategies to initiate and advance state and federal initiatives to support the health care needs of underserved populations enrolled or eligible to enroll in government sponsored programs. She also supported new business development expansion opportunities in current and prospective markets nationally. Further, she established the company’s Latino legislative advocacy strategy to promote and advance policies for Latinos within Molina’s national advocacy agenda.

In 2010, Ms. Núñez Constant was a recipient of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Health Policy Graduate Fellowship. She also serves on various boards, coalitions, and committees, including the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative, and the SELA Collaborative, and was appointed to the State of California’s Master Plan for Aging Stakeholder Advisory Committee in 2019.

Education:
B.A., Sociology, California State University, Long Beach
MPH, University of California, Los Angeles

Seema Kamal serves as AltaMed’s General Counsel, advising AltaMed executive leadership on the company’s strategic initiatives and providing legal counsel to the AltaMed Board of Directors. Ms. Kamal joined AltaMed in December 2018, as Vice President, Corporate Counsel. In this role, she provided support to AltaMed’s Human Resources and Compliance and Risk Management departments, as well as the AltaMed Health Network and Altura Management Services.

Seema Kamal serves as AltaMed’s General Counsel, advising AltaMed executive leadership on the company’s strategic initiatives and providing legal counsel to the AltaMed Board of Directors. Ms. Kamal joined AltaMed in December 2018, as Vice President, Corporate Counsel. In this role, she provided support to AltaMed’s Human Resources and Compliance and Risk Management departments, as well as the AltaMed Health Network and Altura Management Services.

Ms. Kamal has more than 20 years of advisory experience in health care, labor and employment, mergers and acquisitions, corporate and board governance, and more. Prior to joining AltaMed, she served as Director of Litigation with a southern California law firm, managing a team that provided regulatory and strategic guidance to clients like Tenet Healthcare, Dignity Health, Prime Healthcare, USC, and Providence St. Joseph Medical Center. Previously, she spent six years as General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer with Avanti Hospitals (now Pipeline Health), a hospital network with 500 beds, and served as a health care attorney in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and Phoenix, Arizona before moving to Los Angeles in 2008.

Ms. Kamal serves as the Chair of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Healthcare Law Executive Committee. Before launching her legal career, she was a collegiate national champion, provincial record holder, and a sponsored member of the Canadian National Track and Field Team, competing internationally for over a decade.

Education:
J.D. University of Saskatchewan, Canada
B.Sc. Adv., Physiology and Biochemistry, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

Ms. Anna Tran joined AltaMed’s senior leadership team in 2017 as Senior Strategy Executive. She oversees AltaMed’s Managed Care as well as the Sales and Marketing team, focusing on membership growth. She also supports our President & CEO in planning the long-term strategic growth of the organization.

Ms. Tran comes to AltaMed with an extensive history in health care leadership. While she previously served as CFO at Pacific Alliance Medical Center, she later spent a total of 18 years on the leadership team of Care1st, where she held the roles of CFO, COO, CEO, President, and Strategic Advisor, eventually facilitating the sale of Care1st and the transition of more than 500,000 members to Blue Shield of California. From 2011 to 2014, Ms. Tran was a member of AltaMed’s Board of Trustees.

Education:
M.S., Accounting, California State University, Los Angeles
B.S., Biology, California State University, Los Angeles

Greg Townsend joined AltaMed in 2022 as Chief Data and Analytics Officer. He works directly with leadership and key stakeholders to develop and maintain the data and information strategy for AltaMed Health Services and to ensure a consistent understanding of the current environment. He is essential in driving business decisions related to quality, cost of care, growth, and other strategic priorities.

Mr. Townsend has more than 25 years of experience in health care leadership, data science, analytics, business intelligence, and innovation. He taught Health System Research and Analysis at the University of New Hampshire starting in 2015.

Prior to joining AltaMed, he served as the Chief Data and Informatics Officer at MassHealth’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services, the government-run health care program for the state of Massachusetts. He served as the key strategist, who shaped and drove MassHealth’s core data, analytics infrastructure, and systems. His expertise produced actionable data insights to improve the health of MassHealth members and lower the cost of health services. He also served as the Vice President of Business Intelligence and Analytics at Commonwealth Care Alliance from 2011 to 2020.

Education:
B.S. Health Promotion, Plymouth State College

Fernando Flores first joined AltaMed in 2009 as Corporate Controller and was named Senior Vice President, Finance and Associate Chief Financial Officer in 2023. In this capacity, Mr. Flores is responsible for the overall strategy, financial statements, and reporting for the organization.

Mr. Flores also serves as a key member of the AltaMed Executive Leadership team and advises on the development, deployment, on-going management, and execution of annual strategic initiatives and objectives impacting financial and operating results.

During his time at AltaMed, Mr. Flores has helped develop multi-year medical clinic affordability initiatives to identify opportunities for revenue enhancement, cost reduction and clinical care redesign. He is an accomplished finance and accounting executive with more than 25 years of experience in private and public health care and not-for-profit industries, including 13 years performing financial and compliance audits.

Prior to joining AltaMed, Mr. Flores was the Senior Manager, Audit and Enterprise Risk Services at leading audit firm Deloitte & Touche, LLP. He became a Certified Public Accountant in 2001 and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, California Society of Certified Public Accountants, and Finance Committee Member – CPCA Alternative Payment Methodology.

Education:
University of California, Los Angeles – Bachelor of Science, Economics
Certified Public Accountant – California

Daniel Ruiz was named Senior Vice President, Health Services Operations Quality in 2023. He provides direct leadership oversight for enabling support functions for AltaMed primary care medical, dental, HIV, and behavioral health services to underserved communities and families. He previously served as Vice President, Strategy Execution & Analytics where he provided leadership and oversight for enterprise strategy development and deployment, market research, patient experience and project management functions.

Mr. Ruiz joined AltaMed in 2003, and has been essential in the deployment of AltaMed COVID-19 testing, evaluation and vaccine initiatives, development and implementation of the CalAIM Enhanced Care Management program, and the integration of Value Based Care strategies to impact health equity and population health outcomes. 

Before AltaMed, Mr. Ruiz was the Program Director of a non-profit organization for developing Charter school programs. Overall, he has more than 25 years of experience working with mission driven, non-profit health, social and educational service organizations focused on eliminating the inequities and disparities that exist from institutional racial, cultural, gender and identity bias and discrimination. 

Education:
B.A. Political Science, University of Southern California

Joyita Garg was named Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer of AltaMed PACE in 2023. She joined AltaMed in 2019 as Associate Vice President of PACE Operations and rapidly helped transform the program’s leadership structure, empowering site leaders to proactively engage and participate in program process improvement and decision-making. Prior to AltaMed, Ms. Garg successfully led the largest PACE program in the state of Florida.

Through Ms. Garg’s leadership and collaborative approach, the AltaMed PACE program has successfully grown and improved on staff engagement and quality metrics, while building much needed program infrastructure and support and championing important innovations in the PACE program.

Ms. Garg serves as a board member at the National PACE Association and CalPACE. Her affiliation with both organizations has helped solidify AltaMed PACE as a national leader in the PACE model. She started her career more than 25 years ago at American Express which allowed her to bring a diverse business operations experience in banking, finance and risk management, entrepreneurship, and health care administration and management to AltaMed PACE.

Education:
University of Miami, Herbert Business School – Master of Business Administration in Healthcare Management and Policy
Stanford University –  Innovative Healthcare Leadership Program
Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies – Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management, Marketing
Delhi University – Bachelor of Science, Chemistry

Rashi Hemnani joined AltaMed in 2022 as Vice President of IPA Network Operations. She is responsible for planning, directing, and managing the operational and business development functions and activities of the IPA primary care and specialty delivery networks. She leads a team of directors, managers, and provider relation specialists to enhance access to quality care, drive clinical and financial outcomes, ensure enrollment growth and retention, and promote member satisfaction and superior provider relationships.

Prior to joining AltaMed, Ms. Hemnani worked at Optum in various capacities, including managing and overseeing the IPA network in the Los Angeles community, directing integration efforts of IPA and other acquisitions, and leading growth and expansion efforts for the region.

Ms. Hemnani is a member of several professional organizations, including the American College of Healthcare Executives and Healthcare Executives of Southern California. Her experience and collaboration is essential to AltaMed and its continuous focus on patients and delivering exceptional care.

Education:
University of Minnesota – Carlson School of Management, Master of Business Administration
University of Minnesota – School of Public Health, Master of Healthcare Administration
American University – Kogod School of Business, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (Finance and CIS)

Milan de la Rocha was named Vice President, Business Growth and Innovation in 2022 and leads the organization’s health care real estate and deployment strategies along with digital innovation and business development.

At AltaMed, Mr. de la Rocha has overseen investments in systems and processes to navigate a changing marketplace and support organizational growth. His accomplishments include real estate transactions that expanded the AltaMed physical service delivery footprint by more than 500,000 square feet.

Since joining AltaMed in 2015, Mr. de la Rocha has served in various capacities, including overseeing mergers and acquisitions, setting strategic partnerships, and leading the growth of our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. He was also instrumental in the launch of the mPulse mobile communications tool to improve the patient experience. Most recently, Mr. de la Rocha negotiated the acquisition of the former Crown City Medical Group Pasadena and Healthy Smiles for Kids of Orange County further expanding the AltaMed reach into communities throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Education:
California State University, Fullerton – Business Administration, Entrepreneurship