Elara Caring Leadership

Laura Hamrick

Chief People Officer

Laura Hamrick brings more than 25 years of experience in human capital leadership to her role as Chief People Officer at Elara Caring. She leads the company’s people strategy, including talent acquisition, organizational and leadership development, HR operations, employee experience and culture. She also oversees Elara’s corporate communications function. Her focus is on creating differentiated team member experience through scalable HR programs and systems that support clinical, operational, and administrative performance and create best in industry jobs across Elara’s multi-state footprint. 

Before joining Elara in 2022, Laura served as Chief Human Resources Officer at a start-up behavioral healthcare company that expanded to a national scale. Prior to that, she spent over seven years in progressive HR leadership roles at Yum! Brands, including KFC, Pizza Hut, and Yum Corporate, and led talent management for Yum’s China division while based in Shanghai. 

Laura earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Louisville. 

John McMahon

Chief Financial Officer

John McMahon brings more than 25 years of experience in finance and accounting, including over a decade in senior leadership roles at publicly traded and private equity–backed healthcare companies. As Chief Financial Officer of Elara Caring, he oversees the company’s finance, accounting, tax, treasury, revenue cycle, and procurement functions.

Prior to joining Elara in 2021, John served as Chief Accounting Officer at both Modivcare and BioScrip. He also held senior leadership roles at Option Care Health as Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance, and at Heska as Chief Financial Officer.

John earned a bachelor’s degree in Communications from Kutztown University and an MBA in Finance from California State University, East Bay. He is also a Certified Public Accountant in the state of California. 

Kim Spano

Chief Growth Officer

Kim Spano brings more than 17 years of sales experience, including more than 15 in healthcare and sales leadership. As Chief Growth Officer at Elara Caring, she oversees sales across the Skilled Home Health, Hospice, and Behavioral Health service lines. Her responsibilities include leading a national team of more than 350 sales professionals, while also playing a central role in connecting health systems, physicians, and community partners to advance Elara Caring’s value-based opportunities, growth and payer strategy.

Since joining Elara Caring in 2015, Kim has held multiple leadership roles in business development and field sales. Prior to Elara, she held positions at Emeritus Senior Living and Gannett, and she worked as a consultant in the private duty home care industry, senior living development, and the nonprofit healthcare and arts sectors.

Kim earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette.

Betta Swanson

Chief Transformation Officer

Betta has more than 15 years’ experience in healthcare, across compliance, operations and governance. As Chief Transformation Officer at Elara Caring, she focuses on advancing care delivery across our service lines, enabling innovation that truly works for our people and evolving the range of services we provide to patients and partners. Betta leads Elara’s Technology and IT functions, ElaraConnect, Quality, Configuration & Innovation, Risk and Compliance.

In earlier roles at Elara, Betta managed Privacy, Security and Legal, in addition to Compliance, Quality and Risk. She has a demonstrated history of building, managing and scaling dynamic compliance programs in complex healthcare environments. Prior to joining Elara Caring, Betta served as Chief Compliance Officer at 21st Century Oncology Inc. She also served as Vice President at Strategic Management Services, a healthcare compliance consulting firm.

Betta has a Bachelor of Science in Social Policy from Northwestern University, and a Master of Public Policy from The University of Chicago.

Michael Alvarez

Chief Information Officer

Michael Alvarez serves as Chief Information Officer at Elara Caring, leading enterprise technology strategy and operations to enable growth, operational excellence and patient-centered care. He has more than 25 years of experience leading technology organizations within healthcare and global enterprises.

Michael has spent a significant portion of his career supporting private equity–backed companies, where he has helped scale IT capabilities, modernize infrastructure and enable multiple successful exits through disciplined execution and close partnership with executive leadership teams. His background includes senior roles at Elara Caring, Acelity, Rackspace Technology and Cisco.

Michael is a U.S. Airforce Veteran, and earned a Bachelor of Science in Management and Marketing from Park University.  He is recognized for his pragmatic leadership style and ability to align technology investments with long-term business value.

Tom Firmani

President
Personal Care Services

Tom Firmani serves as President of Personal Care Services at Elara Caring, bringing over three decades of executive operations leadership to the organization. In this role, he oversees a workforce of approximately 20,000 caregivers delivering non-clinical, in-home support across multiple states. His leadership is focused on enhancing workforce reliability, optimizing service delivery, and expanding access to high-quality, community-based care for high-need populations. 

Prior to joining Elara Caring in 2022, Tom was Senior Vice President of Operations at TridentCare Health Systems. There, he directed four distinct business units across 22 states, delivering mobile healthcare services to skilled nursing facilities, home care providers, commercial partners, and assisted living communities. Earlier in his career, he spent nearly 30 years at Comcast Cable Communications in progressively senior leadership roles, with a concentration on high-volume service operations and organizational scalability. 

Tom holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, with a concentration in Management and Operations, from Stockton University.
 

Kimberly Nystrom, RN, BSN, JD

President
Skilled Home Health & Hospice

Kimberly Nystrom, President of Skilled Home Health and Hospice at Elara Caring, has more than 30 years of experience in legal, contracting, post-acute and home-based care. She leads a multi-state service line with approximately 3,000 clinicians providing skilled nursing, behavioral health, and therapy services to more than 23,000 patients daily across 18 states.

Since Elara’s inception, Kim has been pivotal in integrating acquired home health and behavioral health organizations into a unified care model. She has initiated multiple geographic and start-up operations expanding the skilled division’s footprint year over year. Under Kim’s leadership, the division operates several innovative outcomes-based models for value-based payors and large health systems.

Kim is committed to building top tier leadership teams who prioritize a patient-first, excellence in care culture – driving best-in-class customer experience and clinician engagement. 

Kim is a registered nurse and licensed attorney. She holds a nursing degree from Vanderbilt University School of Nursing and a Juris Doctor from The University of Georgia School of Law.