Driven by Purpose

As a child, Vanessa Benavides always wanted to be a doctor. Benavides grew up in an economically depressed area along the Texas-Mexico border. In her community, in fact, many people did not have healthcare coverage, so they either did not receive care or only interacted with healthcare providers in settings like the emergency room.

“I was fascinated with social issues,” Benavides says. And the healthcare debates during President Bill Clinton’s years in office sparked her interest in healthcare, specifically.

While taking premed courses at Vanderbilt University, though, she found that she preferred the humanities to science. So, she changed course and started working toward a path to law school. There, she also experienced a cultural sea change, transitioning from a humble community to one of the wealthiest college campuses in the country.

“Neither of my parents went to college,” she says. “They did well with a strong work ethic and determination. I have always admired that, but I knew education was my path to a broader array of opportunities.”

After attending law school at the University of Iowa College of Law, Benavides began her career at a large law firm as an associate in the healthcare practice. After moving in-house to a large healthcare organization, Benavides took the leap from law to compliance when she discovered that compliance would allow her to integrate both law and business skills and enable her to have a big impact on issues she cared about.

“It was a great leap,” she says. “Rather than focusing on discreet legal questions, compliance work requires a broader scope and allowed me to be part of business decisions. There’s such an identity to being a lawyer, so it was hard to give up practicing law, but I’ve never looked back.”

Through compliance, Benavides has found a career in healthcare that looks different from the traditional legal path she initially had in mind. After holding senior compliance positions at Tenet Health, she is now the senior vice president and chief compliance and privacy officer at Kaiser Permanente. In her current role, Benavides is focused on building a culture of trust, one that supports the organization’s mission and ensures that people at all levels of the organization are delivering consistently excellent care and service to the nearly twelve million Kaiser Permanente members.

Over the years, Benavides has seen the perception of compliance change at the organizations she has helped lead. Rather than solely reacting to issues as they arise, she has made compliance discussions more proactive and business-oriented. At Kaiser Permanente, she and her team are focused on developing a culture where compliance is an accessible, trusted source of counsel to employees throughout the organization.

Still, many challenges remain as the national healthcare landscape continues to change, with an impact on the rules and regulations that Benavides’ team navigates day to day. Benavides keeps a close eye on the landscape and an even closer eye on the responsibility her team shoulders: maintaining the trust of members and people in the communities that Kaiser Permanente serves. And that’s the most rewarding aspect of her job, she says.

“It’s a big privilege and a big responsibility,” she says. “We can do good with our business. Witnessing the actual impact of what we do in people’s lives and in the community—it’s very rewarding.”