Mayo Clinic Names Arun Kumar Bhaskara-Baba as CIO as Health System Expands AI Strategy

Bhaskara-Baba succeeds Cris Ross, who stepped down from the CIO role in December 2024 after 12 years in the position.

Mayo Clinic has appointed Arun Kumar Bhaskara-Baba as its new chief information officer (CIO), bringing in a technology leader with experience scaling AI and digital strategies as the health system continues to expand its AI capabilities across care, research, and operations.

He succeeds Cris Ross, who stepped down from the CIO role in December 2024 after 12 years in the position.

Bhaskara-Baba brings more than 25 years of technology leadership experience spanning healthcare, aerospace and defense, and other industries.

Before joining Mayo Clinic, he served as CIO of Honeywell Aerospace and Defense, where he was involved in digital strategy and the expansion of AI capabilities.

Earlier in his career, Bhaskara-Baba spent about 15 years at Johnson & Johnson, holding technology leadership positions across its pharmaceutical, medical device, and consumer businesses.

His experience included overseeing global manufacturing information technology and pharmaceutical supply chain technology.

His background in enterprise technology and AI comes at a significant point in Mayo Clinic’s digital transformation.

In June, Mayo Clinic and Microsoft announced a collaboration to develop and deploy a healthcare-specific frontier AI model, combining Mayo Clinic’s clinical expertise and de-identified healthcare data with Microsoft’s AI and cloud capabilities, aiming to support early diagnosis and more personalised treatment decisions.

Mayo Clinic has also continued to build infrastructure and capabilities for AI development. Its GenAI programme reports 97 AI algorithms in clinical use, with more than 270 additional algorithms in development.

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