Albert Santalo


Albert Santalo is the founder, President and CEO of 8base, an application development platform and ecosystem. Previous, he was the founder, Chairman and CEO of a CareCloud, a company that provides Clinical, Financial and Administrative software and back-office services to healthcare providers. Santalo founded CareCloud in the depths of the economic downturn in 2009. Santalo's vision was predicated on a belief that the best way to eradicate the wasteful spending in healthcare is by giving physicians, practices, patients, payers, pharmacies and other healthcare constituents the means to communicate electronically over secure channels.

Career

Founder of 8base

In March 2017, Santalo founded 8base, an application development platform that uses blockchain technology to link customers with software developers around the world. The programs under this platform target professionals in countries who often lack access to software for accounting or data analytics.

Past President and CEO of CareCloud

In 2009, Santalo assembled a team of veteran software developers and designers and founded CareCloud. He then raised a large round of angel investment. Santalo officially launched CareCloud on September 16, 2009. In October 2010, he closed a second round of angel fundraising. In 2010, Santalo led CareCloud to win IBM's Silicon Valley SmartCamp program. He also spoke at the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

CEO of Avisena

In 2001, Santalo and a group of executives from The Hackett Group/Answerthink and Oracle founded Avisena, a software-enabled revenue cycle management company in the healthcare industry. Santalo was also chief architect of Avisena’s proprietary Internet-based software. Beginning April 2001, Santalo worked with the Company’s software developers to create the Avisena Platform using a Microsoft-centric technology approach. In March 2002, Avisena began servicing medical practice clients for the first time on Release 1 of the software. In June 2002 the Company received its first round of angel investment. In January 2004, the company received a capital infusion from a NY-based family-office style venture capital group. With this capital, Santalo led Avisena to record growth and profit margins. During his term as CEO, he produced 28 successive revenue and gross profit growth quarters. Between 2004 and 2008, Avisena achieved an average annual revenue growth rate in excess of 55% and industry leading sales productivity, client-retention, and gross margin metrics. The Company also received significant recognition in the marketplace. In September 2008, Santalo left Avisena. At the time of his departure, the Company was servicing approximately $750 million in client accounts receivable.

Early career

Prior to Avisena, Santalo worked at The Hackett Group/Answerthink, a management and technology consulting firm, where he served as a Director in the IT transformation practice. During his tenure at Answerthink, Santalo worked with Global 2000 companies in the area of technology-enabled business process transformation. Some of his global clients includedBausch and Lomb, Ivax Pharmaceuticals, Roche Pharmaceuticals, AOL/Time Warner, Waste Management, 3Com Corporation, Republic Industries, Florida Power and Light, ADP/TotalSource, Alliance Data Systems, Precision Response Corporation, AutoNation USA and First Data Corporation.
He has also held various technology-related consulting and management positions in both healthcare and banking. He started his professional career at Financial Processors, Inc., now a division of Fiserv, where he worked as a software developer for the Company’s financial institutions data processing service. In this capacity, he worked with banks, savings and loans, and credit unions regarding their core bank processing systems.

Personal life and education

Santalo was born in Baltimore, Maryland to Gloria Pellerano Santalo and Alberto Santalo, both Cuban exiles who came to the United States in the early 1960s. At the age of 11, his family moved to Miami, Florida, where he graduated from Christopher Columbus High School. He then received a Henry K. Stanford scholarship and a Florida Honors Scholarship to the University of Miami, where he studied Computer Engineering. He later received a Master of Business Administration from Florida International University. He is married to Rebecca Santalo and has four children: Elena, Alexandra, Kristen, and Albert.