Ralph de la Torre | |
Honorific Suffix: | M.D. |
Years Active: | 2008–present |
Founder and CEO of Steward Health Care (2010–present) | |
Spouse: | Nicole Acosta |
Ralph de la Torre is a health care executive and former cardiac surgeon. The founder, CEO and majority owner of Steward Health Care since 2010, and previously CEO of its predecessor Caritas Christi Health Care starting in 2008, de la Torre also served as the first head of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's CardioVascular Institute from 2007 to 2008.[1] [2] [3] [4]
Ralph de la Torre grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Cuban immigrants fleeing from the Cuban Revolution. His parents were both of medical backgrounds, his mother a nurse and his father a cardiologist, once the head of internal medicine at General Calixto Garcia University Hospital in Havana.
De la Torre received a private school education at The Bolles School from 7th to 12th grade. He graduated from Duke University in 1988 with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering. After working for a short time in engineering, he attended a joint program administered by Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he earned his doctorate in medicine and masters in science. He received surgical training from Massachusetts General Hospital, where he met his first wife, Wing Cheung.
In 1999, de la Torre accepted a position at Boston Medical Center as a cardiac surgeon. He moved to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) the next year. In 2007, he founded BIDMC's CardioVascular Institute, and acted as its first CEO until the next year. As a surgeon, de la Torre was regarded by many as ambitious and highly talented, and personally as someone with an affinity for luxury.
In 2008, in part with the help of former Partners Healthcare chairman Jack Connors, de la Torre secured a meeting with the new board of directors of Caritas Christi Health Care, a financially struggling eastern Massachusetts health system owned by the Archdiocese of Boston. Caritas' previous CEO had resigned in 2006 following allegations of misconduct. Amid its financial difficulties and following failed attempts to sell the hospital system to another operator,[5] the Archdiocese created an independent board of directors which began its search for a new CEO.[6] Following his interview with the board, Caritas offered de la Torre the position.
De la Torre spent his first year at Caritas restructuring the system, turning its finances from a loss of $20 million in 2008 to an income of $31 million in 2009, even amid the aftermath of the 2007–2008 financial crisis.[7] Despite the short-term success, de la Torre believed Caritas' long-term prospects depended on a significant cash infusion—particularly to preserve jobs and fund the system's pension plan, which was uninsured and had been frozen due to lack of contributions by Caritas.[8] De la Torre sought potential investors, and in 2009 met with Robert Nardelli, an executive at private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management and former CEO of Chrysler and Home Depot. Nardelli was impressed with de la Torre's energy and expertise, describing him as having a "tremendous edge." The conversation led to a formal proposition for Cerberus to purchase Caritas and convert the system to for-profit.