Governing Body Spotlight

Muneeb Ruhi is a seasoned executive with over 20 years of experience in the technology and healthcare industries. He is currently Canada’s Vice President & CTO for Commercial Operations and Digital Health at Baxter Healthcare, where he leads a team responsible for driving revenue growth, digital marketing & innovation, optimizing operations, and building strategic partnerships across the Canadian health system.

With extensive multifaceted leadership experience, coupled with academic training in the field of economics, political sciences, healthcare & business administration, Muneeb is known to be able to ‘connect the dots’ to help organizations realize untapped value.

Muneeb has a passion for Learning & Development and social services. As a seasonal part-time lecturer at York University, and President of the Board for Family services of Peel, Muneeb is always looking to help the community members advance in their professional and personal journeys.

Learn more about the Toronto CIO community here.
 

Give us a brief overview of the path that led to your current role.

My career path started in a part-time role at a big tech company's help desk, where I honed problem-solving and service excellence skills coupling with best practice standards. I moved into financial services, where I led transformative initiatives, improving processes, and enhancing organizational performance. In the pharmaceutical sector, I leveraged my IT expertise to evolve services and partnerships, implementing innovative technologies in digital marketing and fostering strategic alliances, helping make a positive impact on patient outcomes. 

Now, as a VP of Digital Health & Commercial Operations in the medtech industry, I continue to leverage my experience to simplify, standardize, automate and evolve the business to drive growth and deliver results.
 

What is one of your guiding leadership principles?

Empowerment and Collaboration – The two go hand in hand and are part of a single guiding leadership principle for me. I am a firm believer in the power of the team to drive results. Empowering the team to drive changes who are closest to challenges and opportunities catalyzes innovation inherently leading to business results. Coupling with collaboration across experts, the implementations of actions accelerate to help realize incremental value.
 

What is the greatest challenge CIOs face today, and how are you addressing it?

Lack of resources in tightening times. Collaborating with the network across the enterprise and identifying upskilling to increase automation are two areas of focus to help mitigate the gap.
 

What is the key to success for someone just starting out as a CIO?

Be curious and 'unsmart yourself.' Regardless of experience, be open to listening and learning from the team to collaboratively identify areas of focus. Otherwise, there would be too many competing priorities.
 

How do you measure success as a leader?

• Employee engagement (surveys, retention/turnover rates, demand rates for roles)
• Impact & Legacy (ROI of critical changes and projects; longevity of the changes)
• Stakeholder Relationships
   

What is the value of being a member of the Evanta community?

Peer to peer networking and learning.
 

Evanta Governing Body members share their insights and leadership perspectives to shape the agendas and topics that address the top priorities impacting business leaders today.

by CIOs, for CIOs

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