Phil Okala

Phil Okala serves as system president for City of Hope, reporting to CEO Robert Stone, the Helen and Morgan Chu Chief Executive Officer Distinguished Chair.

In this role, Okala is responsible for City of Hope’s portfolio of clinical care and research entities, which include City of Hope Los Angeles, City of Hope Orange County, Translational Genomics Research Institute, Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, the Irell & Manella Graduate School of Biological Sciences and the recently acquired Cancer Treatment Centers of America. He also has executive oversight of City of Hope’s medical foundation and clinical and research operations.

Okala joins City of Hope after serving for the past five years as the chief operating officer at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which represents six acute care hospitals/health systems and a post-acute care venture, Penn Medicine at Home. At Penn, Okala oversaw more than 43,000 employees, 8,900 credentialed physicians and approximately $9 billion in annual revenue. Okala had executive oversight of the health system’s hospitals, clinical service line operations, corporate emergency management and overall system integration in his role.

Before this role, Okala served five years as senior vice president for business development at Penn Medicine, overseeing strategy and business development initiatives. He has previously held leadership roles at the Geisinger Health System, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center.