In 2019, Kathy Azeez-Narain was recruited by Hoag to fill the organization’s newly created chief digital officer role. She took the call but didn’t expect to leave her 15-year career at American Express.
She ultimately decided to pivot from finance to healthcare because of a “hunger to take on something very challenging” at that point in her career.
Plus, Hoag made a good case. Azeez-Narain appreciated that they not only spoke about the hospital’s goals but also the challenges they wanted her to tackle.
“I like solving problems,” she told the Business Journal.
She officially joined in July 2020 and soon discovered that she faced an uphill battle when it came to advancing the status of technology in the healthcare space. However, the unknown was what drew her to the role.
“It’s white space with the opportunity to make an impact in an area that’s not necessarily the first frontrunner when we think about technology companies,” she said. “I’ve always gravitated to that space, which, to be honest, leads you into innovation.”
For her work improving patient experiences over her five-year tenure, Azeez-Narain was one of five recipients of the Business Journal’s 2025 Innovator of the Year Awards.
“I don’t think I was sitting at college at 18 saying that ‘I’m going to innovate something one day,’ but I was sitting there saying I want to do something (where) I’m solving really tough problems; I wanted to make an impact,” she said.
Tackling the Hard Things
Azeez-Narain moved with her family from Guyana, South America, to New York City when she was 15 years old.
The move taught her how to tackle the “hard things” in life.
“Coming into a new country, new culture, that was a pretty defining moment in how I show up in life, and the types of problems that I gravitate towards in general,” said Azeez-Narain, who graduated from high school a year after her move to the U.S. “So, I think that DNA trait of going into hard problems started then.”
At Hofstra University, a private college in Hempstead on Long Island, she majored in computer science. After stints at CheetahMail and Experian, she landed at American Express, where she “kept getting these opportunities that pushed me to evolve and challenge the status quo.”
By the time Azeez-Narain left American Express, she had delivered many firsts, including new products and significant revenue. One of the teams she had started at the company had turned into a 500-person operation. Building that team from scratch, “really primed me” for the pivot to healthcare, she said.
Creating Virtual Connections
As Hoag’s chief digital officer, Azeez-Narain is tasked with connecting with patients beyond the physical exam room.
The first product she worked on was Hoag Compass, a virtual care platform that launched in summer 2022.
“Compass was meant to be physical, digital, virtual access that’s convenient via a digital platform, an app, (where) you can communicate with your care team, and it was meant to target a lifestyle medicine approach,” she explained. “And the idea is by using all three of those mediums, we would create a much stronger accountability system for the patient to actually meet certain health goals that they wanted to strive to.”
The second program she created called Nona, which launched in late 2022, was designed to keep new mothers from feeling disconnected after their babies’ births.
“We took that problem, we said, ‘Well, how do we make maternity and that experience less transactional?’ And so, we built a digital solution,” she said.
Hoag reported in 2024 more than 8,000 babies were delivered across the two Hoag campuses in Newport Beach and Irvine. On the Nona mobile app, those mothers have access to consultants and content about newborn care, postpartum health and other clinical information.
Over 9,000 mothers have used the app in the last two years and Hoag sees 1,700 active users currently each month. Azeez-Narain noted that they could broaden the program beyond the Hoag system in the future.
Making the jump to Hoag has since confirmed her thought that healthcare needs more digital innovators.
“Healthcare is so complex, and you don’t even understand how complex until you’re actually in it,” Azeez-Narain said.
