Karl J. West
CISO, MBA

Karl West is the Chief Information Security Officer and Assistant Vice President of Information Systems at Intermountain Healthcare, an integrated delivery network of 22 hospitals and 185 clinics in Utah and Southern Idaho. Karl is a well-respected speaker and security expert who is often sought after by other organizations that want to embed his holistic solutions in their security strategies.

At Intermountain, Karl is responsible for all aspects of the organization’s security strategy. Karl’s leadership—throughout the planning, development, implementation, and maintenance of an excellent security program—has earned Intermountain national recognition as a leader in health information security.

The teams Karl inspires cover a wide range of security specialties—governance, architecture, risk and compliance, Identity and Access, eDiscovery, forensics, and incident management. Protecting and defending against unauthorized access to patient and employee information, clinical systems, networks and data is Karl’s vocation. He’s keenly interested in innovation as well, especially the development of new technologies that improve care and lower costs.

For more than 30 years, Karl has been involved in information technology and security. Prior to his role at Intermountain, Karl was Vice President and Managing Partner at AT&T Consulting Services.

Karl is a member of the Utah Health Information Network (UHIN) Privacy and Security Board. He’s also a board member of the Association for Executives in Healthcare Information Security (AEHIS), a part of the College of Health Information Management Executives (CHIME), and Weber State College’s Computer Science department.

Karl received a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Brigham Young University and later a master’s degree in Business Administration.