California’s healthcare sector depends on cybersecurity leaders who can protect complex clinical systems, sensitive patient data, and large-scale digital operations without slowing care delivery. The executives in this spotlight are working across hospitals, health systems, and healthcare organizations where security touches everything from enterprise infrastructure and cloud strategy to compliance, incident response, and operational resilience. Their backgrounds reflect the breadth of modern healthcare cybersecurity, combining technical depth, leadership experience, and a strong understanding of how security supports patient care.
Elliott Jones — Chief Information Security Officer, Kaiser Permanente
Elliott Jones is chief information security officer at Kaiser Permanente, following a run of security leadership roles across major healthcare organizations in California. Before taking on the Kaiser Permanente role in 2023, he served as chief information security officer at Keck Medicine of USC and previously held the same title at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego. Earlier in his career, he spent more than 14 years at SSC Pacific as an information systems security manager. That progression reflects a long-standing focus on healthcare cybersecurity, with experience spanning provider environments, pediatric care, academic medicine, and security management in more technical and operational settings.
Gordon Groschl — Chief Information Security Officer, System Vice President, City of Hope
Gordon Groschl now serves as chief information security officer and system vice president at City of Hope in Duarte, California. His career began in Austria, where he held project and portfolio leadership roles at Mobilkom Austria, Tele2, and T-Mobile, managing major IT, telecom, and infrastructure initiatives before moving into U.S.-based leadership. He later helped drive Materna’s expansion into the American market, then built a long career at Texas Children’s Hospital, where he advanced from project and architecture roles into infrastructure, cybersecurity, and eventually the chief information security officer position. Across those roles, his background spans enterprise architecture, cybersecurity modernization, cloud governance, infrastructure transformation, disaster recovery planning, and security strategy in large healthcare environments.
Rushton James — Vice President, Chief Information Security Officer, LIBERTY Dental Plan
Rushton James is vice president and chief information security officer at LIBERTY Dental Plan, where he leads enterprise security for a healthcare payer environment focused on the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data. Before joining LIBERTY Dental Plan in 2022, he led cyber security and infrastructure engineering at City of Hope, where he redesigned and modernized the enterprise security stack and built a next-generation security operations center to address the post-pandemic threat environment facing healthcare organizations. Earlier in his career, he spent more than 13 years at Adsystech in senior technology and security leadership, preceded by information technology management roles at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and Relax The Back. His background combines cybersecurity architecture, infrastructure engineering, security operations, compliance, vendor management, and enterprise technology leadership.
Patrick Voon — Executive Director of Cybersecurity, Chief Information Security Officer, Loma Linda University Health
Patrick Voon is executive director of cybersecurity and chief information security officer at Loma Linda University Health, a role he has held since 2016. Before joining the organization, he was a director at Edgile, bringing consulting and advisory experience to a career that also includes senior internal audit leadership at Alaska Airlines and senior security architect roles at Unisys and QinetiQ North America. Earlier positions at Netigy, Kaiser Permanente IT, SCT, and Sequoia Pacific Systems show a long progression through security, systems, database, and application roles. His career reflects deep experience across healthcare, consulting, audit, architecture, and enterprise security leadership.
Vipin Gautam — Director of Cyber Security, Hoag Health System
Vipin Gautam most recently served as director of cyber security at Hoag Health System, where he led enterprise cybersecurity initiatives spanning security strategy, managed security operations, identity and access management, cyber architecture, biomedical device security, and network security in support of patient care and regulatory compliance. Before joining Hoag, he served as chief information security officer at El Dorado County and previously held senior security leadership roles at Centene Corporation, where he managed security strategy, architecture, cloud security, security operations, incident response, and a large Office of the CISO portfolio. His earlier career includes merger and acquisition leadership, data center migration programs, enterprise infrastructure initiatives, and project leadership roles at Health Net, eBay, Cognizant, and Tata Consultancy Services, giving him a broad mix of healthcare, enterprise technology, and transformation experience.
Securing California’s healthcare infrastructure
Cybersecurity has become a core part of how healthcare organizations operate, especially in a state as large and systemically important as California. The leaders in this spotlight are helping their organizations navigate a landscape shaped by regulatory pressure, rising threat activity, and growing dependence on connected systems and digital care platforms. Their work sits at the intersection of technology, risk, and healthcare delivery, making them important figures in the state’s broader cybersecurity landscape.
Explore more profiles of the leaders shaping cybersecurity across numerous industries in our CISOs to Watch collection.