Agustin Ramirez on Leading IT for Bupa Global Latin America

The places where Agustin Ramirez has worked in IT may not fill an atlas, but they do make an intriguing list of locales.

Born in Venezuela, Ramirez began his technology career there as an engineer providing field support in the oil and gas industry before leaving his country in 2006. First, he transferred to Kazakhstan, where he spent six years. Next came Turkmenistan for over a year, then Kurdistan in northern Iraq. He also worked as an international IT consultant before moving to Florida in March 2015.

Ramirez says the globetrotting gave him an understanding of countries, cultures, and personalities that suits him well in his current role as chief technology officer for health insurer Bupa Global’s Latin American division.

“I need to understand people before creating solutions. This is especially true in international companies with a global workforce.”

Global Health Care Coverage

It’s been more than 75 years since Bupa was founded in the U.K. with 38,000 members, and more than 50 years since Bupa Global was launched in 1971 to provide health insurance coverage worldwide. Bupa — originally the British United Provident Association — is a U.K. nonprofit serving over 38 million customers with 85,000 employees.

Working from the company’s Miami office, Ramirez oversees IT and network operations for Latin American and Caribbean operations in countries including Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Brazil, Panama, Guatemala, and Ecuador. Bupa’s growth in Latin America has been steady — its 2020 acquisition of Vitamédica from Citibanamex and BBVA added 87,000 policyholders in Mexico alone.

As CTO, Ramirez manages commercial relationships with tech vendors, works to automate the claims process, and helps shift operations to the cloud.

“I work with innovation manager and partners to identify which tools can be implemented, identify gaps and fill them with solutions or in-house development. We have to centralize and understand what’s in the data and identify what should and shouldn’t be paid.”

Automating Claims, Unlocking Insights

The automation project began in February, with a target completion of early 2024. It’s part of a larger effort to use claims and records to draw de-identified personal information data for analytics — driving preventive health care solutions, identifying fraud, and reducing costs.

Given the array of nations, institutions, and cultures Ramirez works with, standardizing claims is a tall task. Each country has its own regulatory structure and requirements, and it’s still common for claims to be processed by hand in many places. Medical coding standards also differ between nations.

Moving to the Cloud — Carefully

Ramirez is also helping Bupa Global achieve its goal of operating completely on the cloud by 2025. Because the company is a Microsoft shop, Azure is the primary cloud hosting choice. However, the migration will also include other hosts like Amazon Web Services — spreading things out keeps operations running in the event of an emergency affecting Azure.

In Latin America, the shift requires unique solutions because of national laws. Mexico, for example, requires that all personal data is stored and used within the country. Ramirez says that can be addressed by keeping data centers in Mexico as well.

He works closely with Bupa Global’s information security and compliance teams to ensure Latin American IT operations meet regulatory requirements. While the company adheres to the EU’s General Data Privacy requirements, additional regulations exist in countries like Panama and Guatemala.

“My role is to understand what we can take to the cloud, the cost and effectiveness, and guaranteeing that the information is safe.”

From Oil Fields to Bikes to Bupa

Ramirez earned his degree in electronic engineering from Universidad Nacional Experimental del Táchira in Venezuela in 2002 and began working in the nation’s oil and gas industry for Eni, an energy company headquartered in Milan.

As political instability grew in Venezuela, he began his far-flung assignments — first as a networking and infrastructure senior adviser in Kazakhstan from October 2006 to June 2012, where he led planning and support for network infrastructure used by 1,500 people at the Karabatan construction site. Keeping a job site that size connected is no small thing, and it’s exactly the kind of mixed tech-and-field experience that recruiting firms experienced in construction hiring have a hard time finding.

In July 2012, he became field ICT manager for Eni’s onshore gas field in Turkmenistan, then joined London-based oil and gas producer Afren in January 2014 as field IT manager in Kurdistan, Iraq, while consulting for ISN Solutions Ltd.

During a slump in the oil industry, he came to Florida in 2015 and helped open Brevet Bikeshop & Service in Miami. Ramirez is still an avid cyclist — he rides 150 miles a week — and serves as broadcast director for his church’s multimedia group. He also enjoys investing in real estate and rehabilitating homes.

He was recruited as IT infrastructure project manager by Bupa Global in February 2016. Eight months later, he was named IT infrastructure manager. As the company has transformed, so have his roles — but his approach stays constant.

“I like to empower technology so that people are not afraid of it. To provide technological solutions where you work, you need to know the business and know how to use the new technologies that exist in the market and apply them to make the business more efficient.”