Ricardo A. Rivera Cardona Executive Director Puerto Rico Health Insurance Administration Ricardo A. Rivera-‐Cardona is a young executive donned with wisdom beyond his years. A graduate of Cornell University with a degree in Engineering, Rivera's career took off as a consultant for a major management consulting firm in Venezuela. From there, his meteoric rise through myriad business sectors has afforded him the opportunity to work with and lead key companies in both the private and public sectors, including logistics systems, brand management, marketing, consumer sales, manufacturing, healthcare management, among others. Rivera-‐Cardona’s service to Puerto Rico began in 2005, when he served as the Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Trade Company. Among its achievements are the implementation and managing of the initiative "La Llave para tu Negocio" (Key for your business) program, which resulted in the creation of more than 600 new businesses and more than 2,500 new jobs. He also developed and managed the "Puerto Rico Exporta" program with the aim of providing knowledge and support to local companies during the exporting process of their goods and services. As a result more than 160 local companies were able to export their products or services for the first time. Simultaneously Rivera-‐Cardona was appointed by the Governor of Puerto Rico as Secretary for the Department of Economic Development and Commerce. Under his leadership, he promoted important initiatives in favor of the economic advancement of the island including the creation and implementation of the Interagency Center for the Agile Process of Permits, which sought to speed up the process of granting permits. This alone resulted in the investment of $1.2 billion through private funding within the construction industry. His commitment to Puerto Rico remains very strong, as he is currently the Executive Director of the Health Insurance Administration of Puerto Rico (ASES, by its Spanish acronym). Rivera-‐ Cardona and his team have a very active and aggressive agenda aimed to improve the quality of health services rendered to the beneficiaries of the Government's Health Plan (GHP). They are focused in supervising the contracts awarded to the health organizations in order to ensure that they are providing the services all beneficiaries of the GHP deserve.