Joe Kiani
Joe E. Kiani
'84 & ‘88, B.S., Electrical Engineering, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA; M.S., Electrical Engineering, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA
Founder and Executive Chairman of Willow Laboratories, Founder of Masimo and Patient Safety
Biography
Joe Kiani is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Willow Laboratories, a health and wellness innovator focused on developing noninvasive patient monitoring and reinventing diabetes care. Willow, founded in 1998, is the inventor of rainbow technology and Nutu and is preparing to commercialize several new innovations. Before launching Willow, Joe Kiani founded Masimo in 1989, a global medical technology company known for breakthrough patient monitoring technologies. Under his leadership as Chairman and CEO, Masimo grew from a startup in his garage into a publicly traded enterprise with over $2 billion in revenue. Its technologies, including Signal Extraction Technology (SET), are used on more than 200 million patients annually and have helped reduce infant blindness, save lives and lower healthcare costs.
In 2012, Kiani founded the Patient Safety Movement Foundation to unite hospitals, researchers, engineers, executives, doctors and nurses to eliminate preventable hospital deaths. He serves on the board of numerous healthcare institutions including Rady Children’s Hospital.
His contributions to healthcare have earned him multiple awards, including the Society of Critical Care Innovation Award, the Robert Wears Patient Safety Award, TIME’s Best Inventions of 2024 for the W1 Medical Watch and Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year in Life Sciences. In 2021, he was appointed co-lead to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology where he contributed to the PCAST patient safety report.
Kiani is also Chairman and CEO of Like Minded Labs and Chairman of A Starting Point and Like Minded Entertainment. He founded the Kiani Preserve in the Santa Ynez Valley, focused on regenerative farming, with its first wine vintage released in 2025. He holds bachelor's and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from San Diego State University and honorary doctorates from SDSU and Chapman University. Kiani remains tirelessly dedicated to improving the lives of patients, their safety, and the healthcare system they interact with.
SDSU Affiliations:
- College of Engineering – Advisory Board Member
