Kusha Malhotra
Kusha Malhotra is a Health AI Strategist and Healthcare Growth & Strategy Manager at EXL Health, where she leads AI-driven healthcare transformation initiatives focused on predictive analytics, workflow automation, and data modernization. She is passionate about leveraging artificial intelligence not only to improve operational efficiency but to fundamentally reimagine care delivery and patient outcomes. Kusha believes the greatest value of healthcare AI lies in empowering clinicians with real-time insights, enabling more proactive, personalized, and data-informed care decisions across populations.
Kusha began her career as a dentist in India, where she practiced clinical dentistry for three years. While she found clinical practice deeply meaningful because of the direct impact on individual patients’ lives, she became driven to scale that impact beyond the exam room. This interest led her to explore healthcare technology, particularly the role of electronic medical records and digital health solutions in dentistry, an emerging field in India at the time. Motivated by this vision, she moved to the United States to pursue a Master of Science in Health Informatics at Northeastern University, where she gained advanced knowledge in healthcare technology, data science, and digital transformation strategies to improve global patient outcomes.
During her graduate studies, Kusha joined EXL Health as a summer intern and quickly grew within the organization due to her passion for healthcare innovation and collaborative problem-solving. She continued working part-time while completing her degree before transitioning into a full-time role in January 2025. Today, she works directly with clients to design AI-enabled healthcare solutions that drive measurable clinical and business impact. Kusha’s career reflects her commitment to bridging clinical expertise with technology innovation to help healthcare organizations deliver better care at scale.
• Northeastern University - MS, Health Informatics
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to discipline, which I believe is the most important value. You can't focus on work or your personal life without having discipline in yourself and your career. With discipline, you can be on time, accountable for what you're doing, and responsible. I also think it's important to be humble and respectful, because it goes a long way. The world has enough going on, so a little bit of humility and respect can do wonders. Beyond that, I've been fortunate to have incredible support from my family back in India, especially my mom, my dad, and my sister. Even though my parents didn't fully understand what my degree in the US meant, the amount of support and happiness I saw from them made me feel like I had lived up to their expectations. My supervisor and teacher from my dentistry days also played a very important role in helping me develop my skills and explore what I could do beyond clinical dentistry, and he supported me when I told him I was planning to move to the US and get another degree.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
When asked about people who had inspired Kusha throughout her career and her life she highlighted her parents and the support they've given her while having high expectations has pushed to continue her path. She feels that their support has been beautiful, and has really to her developing skills and continuing her education. She would also like to highlight her supervisor, her teacher as well as her supervisor from her days of practicing dentistry. Her professor in college is who she worked with in the clinic, who played a very important role in developing her skills as a dentist and helped her explorer what she could do beyond the practice and clinical dentistry as well as the amount of support that she could receive when she told him that she was planning to move to the US and get another degree. Kusha's parents are very proud to say that their daughter has two degrees, both of which matter. She feels with the job market in the US, being able to secure a role within a wonderful company and enjoy what she was doing what makes her and would make her parents, her supervisor, and her professor's proud as well.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say that AI is moving at a pace that no one had ever imagined, so stay focused on how you can make yourself better every single day, because there's a lot to learn out there. Even with my job, there's so much that I learn on a daily basis with what tools are out there, how I can use them, and if you really try to put your head down and think about it, you can use AI not just for time pass, but to actually get something which can impact people's lives. That's what everybody's been doing outside, and that's what our focus is as well, ultimately. I would also say be consistent, and do not lose motivation, because it is going to work out in the end for everyone.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Tricia will be jumping into add more detail in regard to her career path and what has inspired her and kept her motivated, the people who have supported her and made an impact in her life, how she would like to connect with other professionals within our community, how she would like to inspire young women readers, what she enjoys in her spare time including her painting and yoga endeavors, And highlight how she would like to see her career expand in the future and what her future goals are.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Discipline has to be the most important value for me, because I don't think you can focus on work or your personal life without having discipline in yourself and your career. With discipline, you can be on time, you can be accountable for what you're doing, and be responsible. Apart from that, I would say be humble and be respectful, because it goes a long way. The world has enough going on, so a little bit of humility and respect can do wonders.