Denny Hooten

Biography

Denny Hooten is a twenty-year healthcare executive veteran and is currently a financial advisor and wealth manager at Merrill Lynch. Mr. Hooten’s favorite job is adjunct professor in the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California, teaching finance, operations and managed care classes in the Master of Health Administration program. He has spent most of his career helping Fortune 500 healthcare companies adapt to the rapidly changing healthcare environment – he helped to pioneer population health at DaVita Inc. and created a new financial model to help DaVita adapt to the Affordable Care Act. In the private equity space, Mr. Hooten restructured the largest privately held behavioral health company negotiating payer contracts and vendor agreements to get the company back to profitability and positioned for sale. He was instrumental in working with physicians through the merger of Healthcare Partners and DaVita Medical Group, and later DaVita Medical Group with Optum Health. Mr. Hooten also managed operations for one of the largest regions in Southern California at Optum Health working directly with Medicare Advantage and Medicaid patients to lower overall healthcare costs while improving patient outcomes for the region.

Denny Hooten earned his MBA from Pepperdine’s Graziadio School of Business with an emphasis in economics and earned his B.A. in digital media from Otis College of Art and Design.  This rare ability to work both sides of his brain has allowed him great success in global business development and the unique ability to translate complex ideas and concepts into meaningful, relatable information both in the business community and here at USC. Mr. Hooten has also earned his Series 6, 63, 66 and 7 financial licenses as well as his Accredited Portfolio Management Advisor (APMA®) certification. He is a longtime USC Football season ticket holder and a huge college football fan. Fight On Trojans!