Mario J. Paredes Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Paredes has over 30 years of experience as an executive in healthcare administration and has extensive experience as a leader in business development. His expertise encompasses international diplomacy, finance, philanthropy, business development, and healthcare. He has worked extensively with nonprofits, governmental organizations, and religious entities.
He has headed the operations at SOMOS since 2015, when the first network of primary care providers in the City of New York, with over 2,500 members and 800 practices of private physicians, was established. Mr. Paredes oversaw grants worth over $700M from the State of New York for reforming the Medicaid health system; he was a key facilitator during the discussions between the respondents to the COVID-19 pandemic and health authorities in the State and the City of New York.
Before joining SOMOS, Mr. Paredes served at Merrill Lynch as Vice President of Business Development in April 2001. He was later appointed Director of the U.S. Hispanic Market for the Multicultural & Diversified Business Development Group in 2002. In February 2007, he moved to their Corporate Division.
Previously, he served as a consultant for Latin America under President Ronald Reagan, overseeing elections and political transition to democracy in Suriname, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Haiti. He participated in the peace processes in El Salvador. Under Mayor Edward Koch, he served as Commissioner for the Charter Revision of New York City.
Mr. Paredes served as personal advisor to John Cardinal O’Connor, Archbishop of New York. He has served as a consultant to the Justice and Peace Commission of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops and the Latin American Commission of the Vatican. Mr. Paredes was also the founder and first director of the Regional Center established by the Catholic Bishops of the Northeast to care for Spanish-speaking immigrants. Mr. Paredes served in this capacity under Cardinals O’Connor, Law, Hickey, Bevilacqua, and O’Malley. He is a published editor of scholarly scriptures, and his writings and videos have been shared on the world’s most critical Catholic media platforms.
Mr. Paredes has also coordinated relief programs for hurricane victims in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Haiti, and Honduras. Also, he has collaborated with Caritas Dominicana in the health field and created a co-management to administer the children’s hospital Robert Reid Cabral known as La Angelita. For years, he has supported this entity in collaboration with Saint Claire Hospital of the New York Archdiocese and developed plans to build a new children’s hospital with Mr. Oscar de la Renta and Cardinal John O’Connor.
Mr. Paredes earned his Master of Philosophy at the Catholic University of Argentina, his Masters in Religious Education at Loyola University Chicago, and his postgraduate studies at Georgetown University. Among his many honors and commendations, he received the Archbishop Patricio Flores Medal from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and the Fr. Joseph Fitzpatrick, SJ Award from Fordham University in New York. The Holy See has awarded him the highest decoration for a layman, Pro Eclessia Pontifice.
