Mariza Hardin, MPH
Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer
Zócalo Health
17910 Circle Dr
Bothell, WA 98011
Email: mariza@zocalo.health
Term: 05/01/2023 – 04/30/2027
Mariza Hardin is a healthcare business leader with more than 15 years of healthcare experience. She is currently the Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Zócalo Health, a healthcare delivery company focused on enhancing the primary care experience and overall health journey for Latino patients across the US.
Prior to founding Zócalo Health, Mariza was on the founding team for Amazon Care (a former Amazon healthcare delivery company) and Amazon Web Services’ Health and Human Service Vertical where she led business development initiatives for Amazon customers. In her roles at Amazon, she owned and operated the strategy to leverage AWS services and partners to build solutions and scale technology to serve the most vulnerable populations in the US. This includes improving the mission critical systems that serve Medicaid populations, state-funded Health Information Exchanges, Unemployment benefits, and other social benefit programs such as SNAP/TANF (food stamps). Prior to Amazon, she focused on developing innovative solutions for Medicare and Medicaid populations for companies such as Omada and Alere Health/Optum. She was the VP of Government Sector Solutions for Alere Health where she owned the Medicaid and Medicare Advantage product portfolio including maternal and child health, chronic disease management, and care coordination which was later acquired by Optum Health in 2015.
Mariza started her career in healthcare when she was selected to serve in a special assistant role for the United States Office of National Health Information Technology (ONC). Mariza helped to develop and implement the State Cooperative Agreements for Health Information Exchanges.
Her desire to serve marginalized communities comes from her own experience growing up with her family in rural New Mexico and current experience helping her family navigate the complicated network of public sector benefits. Mariza attended the University of New Mexico and was selected to serve as a policy fellow to Governor Bill Richardson to expand the Medicaid/Medicare Dual Eligible program. Mariza left New Mexico when she was admitted into the Health Policy program at George Washington University. She was awarded a Master’s Degree in Public Health (MPH) in 2010. She currently lives with her family in the Greater Seattle, WA area.