Raghu Santanam

Dr. Raghu Santanam is the McCord Endowed Chair in Business and Senior Associate Dean for Executive Education, Corporate Partnerships, and Lifelong Learning at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. He is also Professor in the Department of Information Systems and Executive Director of AZNext — ASU's workforce accelerator partnership program founded with funding from the U.S. Department of Labor. AZNext objectives are to build a sustainable workforce training infrastructure through paid internships, registered apprenticeships, train-to-hire programs, boot camps, and simulated work experiences that connect learners to industry-defined opportunities in information technology, advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, healthcare, and clean energy. His grants related work have resulted in $100M+ in funded programs through agencies such as NSF, DOE, DOL, Koch Foundation, Mastercard Foundation and others. 

Dr. Santanam's research focuses on AI strategy, analytics, intelligence augmentation, and digital platforms. His work has appeared in Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, Management Science, Health Affairs, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of Operations Management, Health Services Research, Medical Care Research and Review, and other journals. He recently guest-edited a special issue of Information Systems Research on "Humans, Algorithms, and Augmented Intelligence: The Future of Work, Organizations and Society," and co-authored the October 2025 California Management Review Insights piece "Intelligence Equilibrium: A New Operating Model." He has partnered with a range of organizations on data-intensive decision-making — including IBM, Intel, American Express, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Lallemand, and Mayo Clinic — and has authored several Harvard Business School and Ivey case studies on technology-enabled business transformation.

Dr. Santanam is firmly committed to engaging with the community. He serves on the board of TiE Phoenix, the Governing Body of the Evanta CIO/CISO Executive Summit (Phoenix), and on the Board of Directors of WaveMaker. He has previously served on the Phoenix Business and Workforce Development Board, and on the boards of Imaginea Technologies (sold to Accenture) and Spot Cues (sold to UKG). He co-hosts a livecast series titled "AI Innovation Playbook," that is co-sponsored by TiE Phoenix and the W. P. Carey School of Business. 

Dr. Santanam was recognized with the Arizona Small Business Association's Fast Lane Leadership Award in 2025, and the W. P. Carey School's Distinguished Career Research Award in 2023. In 2026, he serves as a mentor on the ICIS Doctoral Consortium in Lisbon. He frequently speaks at industry and academic conferences including being a panelist at the ASU-GSV Summit, ASBA, and the Arizona Data Center Conference.  He is an Association of Information Systems (AIS) Distinguished member.

Before joining W. P. Carey School, Professor Santanam was a Henry Woodburn Fellow at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He received his bachelor’s degree in electronics and communications engineering from the National Institute of Engineering, Mysore, India, his master’s degree in industrial management from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, and a second master’s degree in Computer Science and Ph. D in Information Systems from the State University of New York at Buffalo.