Alison Flynn Gaffney is the chief executive officer of Banner – University Medical Center Tucson and Banner – University Medical Center South, with responsibility for all operations in southern Arizona, including three large campuses, 28 clinic locations and 7,400 Banner employees.

With over 30 years of executive-level business experience in the field of healthcare, Alison has unique insight as to how healthcare organizations can balance innovation with efficiency, while adhering to strict compliance regulations to improve the patient and care team experience. Alison is a seasoned leader and strategist who drives innovation, excellence, and growth. She is board-certified in healthcare management, and highly skilled in system integration, strategy and execution, supply chain, and corporate reputation management.

Alison joined Banner Health from the Chicago office of JLL, a global real estate and investment management company, where she served as national president of the health care division and was responsible for leading and evolving products and services to meet the needs of health systems while developing and delivering scalable real estate solutions to improve patient and care team experiences. Under Alison’s tenure, significant restructure was accomplished, leading to growth, a 7% increase in client satisfaction, and a 48% increase in brand awareness from media placements.

Prior to that, she was the chief operating officer for hospitals and clinics at the University of Utah Health System, a billion-dollar health system which at the time included six hospitals, nine urgent care locations, 11 community clinics and more than 14,000 people. Alison led campus expansion from 5 million to over 7 million square feet, investing in access expansion and service line growth while achieving 97% employee engagement and increasing patient satisfaction from 82.4% to 85.2%.

Alison has authored or co-authored over 40 publications and is a Fellow of the American College of Health Care Executives. She has received numerous accolades throughout her career, including being named the Senior Healthcare Executive Regents Awardee in New York (2024) and Utah (2020), a 2024 Patient Safety Expert to Know by Becker’s Healthcare, and one of the Top 50 Women Leaders in Medicine (2025, 2024) by Women We Admire. Alison has also been recognized among the 2020 Women of the Year by Utah Business, and received the 2018 Brother Arthur A. Loftus Award for outstanding achievement in healthcare management.