Vanessa Benavides

Vanessa M. Benavides is senior vice president and chief compliance and privacy officer for Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Health Plan. In this role, she is responsible for planning, oversight, and coordination of activities to drive effective compliance with regulatory requirements and Kaiser Permanente policies. In collaboration with leadership across the organization, she leads the development of strategies to embed compliance and ethics into the core design and operations of the organization, and foster a work environment where employees and physicians do the right thing to protect our members, patients, and the communities we serve. Prior to joining Kaiser Permanente, Benavides was chief compliance officer for Tenet Healthcare, where she managed ethics and compliance programs across all Tenet-owned entities, including acute-care hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, outpatient centers, physician practices, commercial and government health plans, and Conifer Health Solutions, Tenet’s health management services subsidiary. Before joining Tenet, she served as legal counsel for Caremark Rx, a pharmacy benefit management company, and was in private practice with the law firm Locke Lord, LLP. Benavides holds a law degree from the University of Iowa College of Law, where she served as articles editor for the Iowa Law Review, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Vanderbilt University. Benavides is a member of the board of directors of The CDC Foundation, an independent nonprofit created by Congress to mobilize philanthropic and private sector resources to support the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention’s critical health protection work. Benavides also served on the national board of directors of the Human Rights Campaign. In 2012, the Dallas Business Journal named her a Top 40 Under 40 honoree, and in 2014 recognized her as a Top Minority Business Leader. In 2018, the San Francisco Business Times named her one of the Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business.