About
The record.
Srini Koushik helps organizations scale with AI.
Short bio
He has run technology organizations at IBM, Nationwide, Magellan Health, HP, NTT, and Rackspace over more than 35 years, carrying budgets in the hundreds of millions and teams in the thousands. A two-time IBM Distinguished Engineer, Ohio CIO of the Year, and CIO Hall of Fame inductee, he now teaches what he learned. He is founder and CEO of Right Brain Labs and Executive Advisor for AI Fluency at The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business.
He lives in New Albany, Ohio, has been married 33 years, has two daughters and a granddaughter, and has been to sixty-three countries with a camera. He plays acoustic guitar for an hour most days, which is its own argument about practice.
Career
What he actually ran.
| Organization | Role | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Right Brain Labs | Founder and CEO | Current |
| Rackspace | CIO, then President of AI, Technology and Sustainability | Head of FAIR, the Foundry for AI by Rackspace |
| HP | GM and SVP, Strategic Enterprise Services | Cloud, data, and mobile |
| NTT Innovation Institute | CEO | Scaled from 1 to 150 people, 30 or more customers, 30 million dollars in revenue |
| Magellan Health | EVP and CIO | 900 or more people, 260 million dollar budget |
| Nationwide | SVP and CIO | 3,500 or more people, 600 million dollar budget |
| IBM | VP, GM, and CTO | 400 or more people. Red project recovery. |
Credibility
Three kinds, and they are not interchangeable.
Plenty of people can speak about AI. Fewer have carried a budget through a downturn, recovered a failing program, or had their name on a patent. The argument in the book depends on all three.
Business
CEO of a company scaled from one person to a hundred and fifty. Budgets in the hundreds of millions. A certified board member through the NACD. Profit and loss responsibility, not advisory proximity to it.
Operational
Teams in the thousands at Nationwide and Magellan Health. At IBM, the person sent in when a program was already failing, which is a different job from starting one.
Technical
Two-time IBM Distinguished Engineer and a member of the IBM Academy of Technology. Five granted patents and two pending.
Srini's legacy is well established in terms of the number of ex-staff that went on to become CIOs in sizable businesses after stints working with him.
Recognitions
Every line, with its issuer.
Listed with the body that gave it and the year it was given, because a recognition without an issuer is a claim rather than a record.
| Honor | Issuer | Year |
|---|---|---|
| CIO Hall of Fame | CIO Magazine | 2023 |
| Ohio CIO ORBIE Global Award | InspireCIO, Ohio chapter | 2023 |
| National ORBIE Enterprise Award, finalist | InspireCIO | 2024 |
| AI 25, Leaders Shaping Ohio's AI Economy | OhioX | 2026 |
| Top 50 AI Leader | Channel Insider | 2025 |
| Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leader | Computerworld | 2014 |
| Elite 8 CIO | Insurance & Technology | 2008 |
| InfoWorld Top 25 CTO | InfoWorld | 2004 |
| IBM Distinguished Engineer, two appointments | IBM | from 1997 |
| IBM Academy of Technology | IBM | 1996 |
| Top 25 AI Leaders, Global | Thinkers360 | |
| Certified Board Member | NACD |
The 2014 Computerworld recognition was awarded while Srini was President and CEO of NTT Innovation Institute. It recognizes an operator building something, not a corporate IT leader keeping the lights on.
Education
| DBA | Franklin University, in progress |
| MBA | Ohio State University |
| MS | Computer Applications |
| BS | Physics |
| Executive | MIT Sloan, Systems Dynamics. Stanford d.school, Design Thinking. |
Published
| 2026 | Thinking with AI: The Leadership Discipline for the Age of AI. Palmetto Publishing. |
| IBM Patterns for e-business. Bestseller in its category. | |
| iBooks on Digital Business. |
Booking
The record is the argument's collateral.
It is not the talk. The talk is about what happens next, and who is still able to think when it does.
Book Srini