HIP Names Pedro Villalba Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer

New York, N.Y., Oct. 31 – Pedro Villalba has been named Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of HIP Health Plan of New York. Mr. Villalba had been serving as Vice President for Corporate Information Systems since his arrival at HIP in 1998.

"Pedro is an individual with high talent and ability," Mr. Watson said. "He has earned the promotion as part of the new management team recruited to advance HIP’s ability to serve our membership at the highest levels."

Prior to joining HIP, Mr. Villalba was a Vice President for Information Services at the United HealthCare Corporation in Minneapolis, MN, from 1994 to 1998. Previously he was an Assistant Vice President, from 1990 to 1994, at Cigna HealthCare in Hartford, CT. From 1975 to 1990, Mr. Villalba was a Manager of Project Development at Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Connecticut.

Mr. Villalba is a graduate of the New York School of Engineering and resides in North Stamford Connecticut with his wife Cheryl and 5 daughters.

HIP is a mixed model health plan. With almost 800,000 members, it is the largest HMO in the New York metropolitan area. HIP provides access to care through a network of over 15,000 physicians in over 25,000 locations. The network includes physicians in independent practice as well as physicians practicing at health centers. Among the hospital systems operating the centers are Montefiore Medical Center, Continuum Health Partners (including St. Luke-Roosevelt and Beth Israel Medical Centers) and the Lenox Hill Community Medical Group.