Channel 7’s Diana Diaz is leaving her Miami anchor job to work at a $32 billion company
Longtime WSVN Channel 7 morning anchor Diana Diaz is leaving the station — and announced Thursday that she will be joining a firm that is currently valued at $32.6 billion.
Her last day is Oct. 7.
Diaz, who’s been with the station for 23 years, shared the news of her departure in a Facebook post. The firm she is joining full time, MSP Recovery, was founded in 2014 by attorney John H. Ruiz to recover money from Medicare and Medicaid that may have been paid out improperly.
“Medicare and Medicaid pay billions of dollars of healthcare claims they should not pay,” Ruiz said in a statement. “This harms taxpayers, the underprivileged, and America’s senior citizens. Our tools help fix this broken system.”
Diaz told the Miami Herald she had been working for MSP as well as her TV job for the past seven years, and that she was departing WSVN because MSP Recovery was set for its next phase of growth. In July, MSP announced it was merging with a Special Purpose Acquisition Vehicle (SPAC) created by Miami-based Lionheart Capital and its founder, Ophir Sternberg. The merger valued the new company at nearly $33 billion, making it the second-largest SPAC deal on record.
Diaz will serve as the company’s chief communications officer. She told the Miami Herald the ultimate goal of MSP Recovery is to help make Medicare and Medicaid solvent by recovering what the firm says are trillions in improperly paid claims. She said Ruiz has hired her to help explain MSP’s proprietary model to clients and customers.
“With our growth, we’re going to have greater impact — the health care entities are entitled to these dollars,” she said. “Hopefully, MSP is going to become a household name.”
WSVN informed its staff of Diaz’s departure in an email earlier this week.
“Diana has decided to make a life change and start sleeping in!” WSVN vice president of news and local programming Alice Jacobs said in part.
In an investor presentation, MSP Recovery said it projects more than $7 billion in revenues by 2025, while noting it had zero revenue this year as a new entity. In an interview, Ruiz said his company has totaled about $700 million in revenue since its founding seven years ago.
“Historically, either through collections or other investments, we’ve surpassed that figure,” Ruiz said. “And we have settlements in place, and we’re starting to process data that will yield significant recoveries.
“The company has done extremely well, and it’s continued to do well,” he continued. “We are pioneers in the space we are in, and we are growing exponentially, although we are still a speck of sand in this beach of a market.”
This story was originally published September 9, 2021 at 7:24 PM.
