Joe Kiani

Massi Kiani (born September 16, 1964), known as Joe Kiani, is an Iranian-born American engineer, entrepreneur, and corporate executive. He is the founder of medical technology company Masimo, which was initially established in 1989. In 2021, he was appointed by President Joe Biden to serve on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

Early life and education
Kiani was born in Shiraz, Iran on September 16, 1964. Kiani and his family immigrated to the United States with his family at the age of nine. Kiani's father was an engineer and his mother was a nurse. Arriving in the United States speaking no more than three words in English, Kiani went on to graduate from high school at the age of fifteen.

Kiani went on to enroll in San Diego State University (SDSU), receiving bachelor's (B.S.E.E) and master's (M.S.E.E) degrees in electrical engineering by the age of 22. Kiani stated that he had intended to become a medical doctor early in his undergraduate education.

Early career
Beginning in 1989, Kiani worked at Anthem Electronics. While with the company, Kiani detected an issue with the devices, and pitched the company a solution, which they declined. Following this, Kiani established his own business while maintaining a role with Anthem Electronics until 1991.

Career at Masimo
Kiani founded the medical technology company Masimo in 1989 and was later joined by partner Mohammed Diab. The company is publicly traded and employs more than 5,300 people worldwide. Kiani holds more than 500 patents or patent applications for advanced signal processing, optical sensors, and wearable technologies. Masimo pulse oximetry is used to monitor over 200 million patients per year and is the primary pulse oximeter at 9 of the top 10 hospitals listed in the 2020-21 U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals Honor Roll.

In 2011, Forbes named Masimo to its list of top 20 public companies under a billion dollars in revenue, based on earnings growth, sales growth, and return on equity.

Pulse oximetry is one of the most commonly used monitoring technologies in healthcare. Masimo makes a pulse oximetry technology known as Signal Extraction Technology (SET), which is the first pulse oximetry technology to reliably measure through motion and low perfusion conditions.

Since its introduction in 1995, Masimo SET pulse oximetry in over 100 independent and objective studies has outperformed other pulse oximetry technologies, providing increased sensitivity and specificity. Masimo SET helps clinicians reduce severe retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in neonates and improve critical congenital heart disease (CCHD) screening in newborns. As of March 2021, ten published CCHD screening studies, all with positive conclusions and representing over 300,000 infants, including the largest CCHD study, have used Masimo SET. In addition, when used for continuous monitoring with a patient surveillance system, Masimo SET reduces rapid response team activations, ICU transfers, and costs.

In 2022, under Kiani's direction, Masimo acquired Sound United premium audio brands including Bowers & Wilkins, Polk Audio, Denon, Marantz, Definitive Technology, Classé and Boston Acoustics.

Industry reform and patient safety initiatives
In 2002, Kiani was interviewed for a New York Times article titled "Medicine's Middleman" that focused on the practices of Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) and dominant medical suppliers. The article was followed by a series of 18 additional New York Times stories on GPOs over the next two years. After the Times article appeared, The United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights held four hearings regarding these practices, at which Kiani testified twice. Kiani's efforts led media to call Masimo "the poster child for small medical device manufacturers" and observe that Kiani "almost single-handedly galvanized the rancorous debate over the GPO industry's purported role in locking out innovative technologies from the marketplace."

Kiani is active in efforts to reform U.S. health care and encourage medical innovation. In 2010, Kiani and Masimo provided $10 million in funding to create the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation, and Competition in Healthcare, which is dedicated to encouraging and promoting activities that improve patient safety and deliver advanced healthcare worldwide. Masimo Foundation supports third-party research, development initiatives, and clinical studies with an emphasis on transformative projects that seek to truly enhance patient safety and outcomes; helping to forge a world free of sickness, disease and inhumanity.

In September 2013, Kiani appeared before the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee and laid out five steps to help eradicate preventable patient deaths. That year, he also founded the Patient Safety Movement Foundation through the support of the Masimo Foundation. More than 200,000 preventable patient deaths occur each year in U.S. hospitals. The Patient Safety Movement is committed to reducing these deaths to zero by 2030. The foundation also convenes the action-oriented annual Patient Safety, Science & Technology summit. In 2017, at its 5th annual summit, the Patient Safety Movement Foundation announced that almost 70,000 lives had been saved and over 69 healthcare technology companies had pledged to share their data, helping to create an ecosystem for engineers to develop predictive algorithms that can help save even more lives. In 2020, the Patient Safety Movement Foundation was awarded a $5 million, five-year grant from the Masimo Foundation to help advance its mission and expedite its efforts.

President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST)
In September 2021, Joe Kiani was named by President Joe Biden as a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Since 2021, Masimo has been awarded nearly $3 million in federal government contracts. Oversight Republicans have raised concerns about Kiani’s connection with President Biden to benefit him and his company, leading to investigations into whether political donations and contributions have influenced government contract and loan distributions. The United States House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability is seeking documents and information from Kiani and Masimo to ensure taxpayer protections are upheld. The role of the Office of Management and Budget in preventing government contracts and loans from being unjustly allocated to political contributors is being scrutinized. The appointment of Kiani to PCAST has caused concerns that Kiani's political contributions may have resulted in disproportionate advantages for both him and Masimo.

Honors and recognition
San Diego State University (SDSU), Kiani's alma mater, honored Kiani with the College of Engineering's 2005 Monty Award. In 2012, Kiani received the Ernst & Young National Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

In 2017, Kiani was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science by Chapman University. In 2019, Kiani was made an honorary member of the Mexican Academy of Surgery. SDSU awarded Kiani an honorary Doctor of Science degree, originally due to be conferred in 2020 but delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Philanthropy and civic engagement
In 2019, Kiani began serving on the Advisory Board of the University of California, Irvine (UCI) Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences. In 2020, Kiani joined actors Chris Evans and Mark Kassen in creating A Starting Point, a video-based civic engagement platform.

In 2021, Kiani began serving as a member of the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the Board of Councilors of the Carter Center, and the Chair of the Board Quality Committee of the Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC).