Michelle Linares

Senior Vice President of Workforce Engagement & Impact, Pacific Clinics

Bio

Michelle Linares, MBA (She, Her, Ella)

Driven to empower individuals and radically reimagine healthcare systems to be truly accessible, fair, and people centered.

Michelle Linares is a seasoned healthcare executive known for her transformative leadership in advancing workplace inclusion, culturally responsive care, and health equity across the healthcare industry. She is driven to empower individuals and radically reimagine healthcare systems to be truly accessible, just, and people centered.

As Senior Vice President of Workforce Engagement & Impact at Pacific Clinics, Michelle drives bold, system-wide initiatives that elevate workforce culture, champion belonging, and embed value-based care into every facet of the agency. Her leadership powers the agency’s mission to deliver exceptional behavioral health and social services that strengthen the mental well-being of Californians at every stage of life. In her role, Michelle leads regional and statewide committees, employee engagement programs, and internal and external stakeholders to promote the values and principles of ensuring a safe, equitable and all-inclusive workplace across the agency.

Prior to joining Pacific Clinics, Michelle spent nearly two decades at Kaiser Permanente, where she spearheaded strategic initiatives at local, regional, and national levels. Her work focused on enhancing workplace inclusion, employee engagement, and culturally responsive care, while building strategic partnerships that fueled innovation and improved health outcomes through cross-sector collaboration.

Michelle holds a bachelor’s in health sciences with a minor in Spanish from San José State University and a Master of Business Administration with a focus in Marketing from National University. Her leadership has been recognized with several honors, including the National Association of Latino Healthcare Executive’s (NALHE’s) 2025 Leadership Award, Kaiser Permanente’s 2025 Best Results Achieved, 2024 Apple Award for Best Learning Culture Influencer, Latino Leaders Magazine’s Rising Star in 2023, and Silicon Valley Latino’s Creo En Ti Champion Award in 2019.

As a first-generation healthcare professional, Michelle is deeply committed to community and philanthropy. She is a founding advisor of the Latinos in Healthcare Giving Circle through the Latino Community Foundation and serves on the national board of the National Association of Latino Healthcare Executives (NALHE). She is also an advisory member of Silicon Valley Latino and a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE).

In fairness, I attended the class in person. My rating was based on experiencing the dynamic surveys and conversations. Great learning and powerful messages from the facilitators. Would recommend to all!

Engagement, motivation, and enthusiasm—be bold, be a risk-taker, and learn to let things go or walk away. This was one of the best classes!

The book is great! The leadership skills, toolbook, and strategies are helping me lead my team more effectively.

A lot of assessment tools that I can use to evaluate myself and better align with my boss, organization, and customers.

The instructor found ways to adapt to the natural discussion while introducing new points from the course and showing how they could be applied. It was versatile and highly applicable!

The instructor was fantastic! Even though this was a late class for me, their consistent energy encouraged everyone to participate. It was a truly great course—filled with practical examples that were easy to follow and immediately applicable to my work. I really appreciated the high energy and the clear, useful insights. Excellent session overall!

Loved the course! I’ll be putting the tools into practice for my team meetings. Great session—very helpful!

The instructor is one in a million—bringing together talent, wisdom, and charisma. An inspiring team with truly exceptional value. I especially loved the standing exercises—they kept the blood flowing, energy high, and engagement strong.

Networking was excellent, with amazing guest speakers from various industries. I loved it and only wish I had invited more people! I'm also interested in becoming an ambassador or sponsor.

I appreciated the instructor making themselves so available to us—even during breaks. They’ve got a lot of energy! 😊 It really helped me gain clarity, especially during the discussion around retirement as a false picture.

Good interaction. Breaks and roadmaps—where are we going? Outsourcing. Focus on high performers. Power line/environmental advantages.

Very eye-opening. Shared ways to look at every situation differently. Very engaging conversations and examples. Dynamic speaker. Relevant materials for the audience. Had a great time. Thank you so much for the information and tools.

Very useful in providing clear, understandable data. The in-class activities were a great way to deepen my understanding of the topics. What I learned will definitely help me in the long run of my career. I'm thankful for the gems I gained from this class and eager to apply them to my role.

Loved the collaboration shared by all—it helped us learn additional skillsets within the module. The flowcharts were helpful for strategizing.

The real-life examples were effective and helped get the message across. I think the class really resonated with me when I realized that reaching the executive level wasn’t everyone’s goal. It became more personal. The class was very informative and great for growth and development.

We learned more about ourselves through the breakout rooms. I realized I need to develop a better relationship with my boss.

Fantastic course—tailored perfectly to meet our needs! How do I become an adjunct instructor for this course? I want to teach this content to others. Outstanding. Thank you!

This is a very informative class and the best presenter I have ever had or attended. I would not mind if the time went longer because the knowledge he presented is powerful. I am very pleased with everything he presented in the class.

It was incredibly beneficial to hear others’ insights and real-world experiences during the class discussions. The tools introduced will be helpful for prioritizing what matters most and managing workload to reduce stress. The instructor did a great job leading this course!

I’m grateful for these courses—they helped me identify areas of opportunity to work on, as well as areas where I’m already doing well. I especially appreciated the real-life applications of the models and tools. I’m extremely thankful to the Elevate team!

Super engaging and relatable. Very engaging and fun content. People were very open and forthcoming with their stories. Great session—exceeded my expectations.

The program allowed me to look at the background of where I am and gave me tools to make specific changes. The instructors were phenomenal. They had a very casual way of showing us how to look at ourselves. I loved the class. Will work to make sure my kids are aware of these pitfalls as well.

Dynamic instructor and excellent materials. I loved the group discussions and felt the online format worked wonderfully. This is my fourth series of classes—loved them all!

I wish we could have spent a little more time going through the various exercises—I really enjoyed the dialogue with the team; it was very insightful. Great tools for my own personal development and for Future Forward leaders (which I can share with my staff). I really enjoyed this session and look forward to others.

Great instructor and focused materials. The decision-making, prioritization, and optimization processes were especially valuable. This is a great class to take at this stage of professional growth.

Best! The open discussions and group activities made the training interactive and interesting. So much knowledge and wisdom from the instructors made the training effective and memorable.

Appreciated the interaction and exercises done in class. The instructors were very approachable and made the content fun. The way they presented the material made the class interesting. I’m learning to shift fear into courage and find my advisory board/sponsorship to help promote me.

Excellent opportunity to join this pilot program. I felt very seen and heard. Collective influence changes the world. Loved this—I'm so fortunate to have participated. This changed my life. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!