Former Fortune 3 Chief Data Scientist

Jason A. Haupt

AI Advisory for Healthcare & Regulated Organizations

Strategy, Governance, and Practical Roadmaps to Measurable Outcomes

Minneapolis, MNjason@haupt.aiLinkedInDownload CV

About

I help healthcare and regulated organizations accelerate from AI curiosity to measurable outcomes—through clear strategy, strong governance, and a practical delivery roadmap. I build high-performing orgs and deliver outcomes, not pilots.

Former Chief Data Scientist at Optum/UHG. I've led GenAI programs, built Responsible AI governance, and scaled production assistants to tens of thousands of users across payer, provider, and pharmacy. I partner with leaders to cut through hype, make confident bets, and ship AI that's safe enough to scale.

Today, I run an AI Advisory practice working with executives, product leaders, and technology teams to align on strategy, prioritize the right initiatives, and put the operating model in place so AI keeps delivering after the kickoff.

How I help

AI Strategy & Roadmap

90–180 day plans — the few big bets, prioritized and sequenced to ship.

Governance for Speed

Policy, review, and monitoring that enables teams to move fast without breaking trust.

Use-Case & Product Shaping

Prioritize the right problems, design early experiments, and prove value quickly.

Executive-to-Engineering Alignment

Turn executive decisions into shipped capability with the operating model to sustain it.

Selected results

$2.4B+

AI agenda overseen at Optum/UHG (2025), spanning payer, pharmacy, and provider.

35,000

Advocates deployed with AI call summarization across Optum.

10,000s

Employees using AI assistants scaled from the GenAI Center of Excellence.

400+ / 1M+

Employees and members at Surest — built the data science org from scratch.

Experience

AI Strategic Advisor & Founder

haupt.ai · Minneapolis, MN

Nov 2025 — Present

Strategic Advisor to C-Suite leaders in Healthcare and highly regulated industries to define AI roadmaps and 90-day "Fast-Path" delivery plans with measurable outcomes.
Advise startups and growth-stage teams on AI and healthcare product direction and execution patterns that ship.
Fractional CAIO/CDO Services for organizations standing up their first AI Centers of Excellence (CoE), focusing on governance, talent acquisition, and vendor selection.

Chief Data Scientist, Optum Technology

Optum (UnitedHealth Group) · Minneapolis, MN

Jan 2022 — Oct 2025

Lead within Optum AI; external face for customers, providers, and brokers.
Drive an AI agenda over $1B (2024) and $2.4B+ (2025).
Lead the Generative AI Center of Excellence; shepherd Responsible Use of AI governance from policy to monitoring.
Manage a global span of 170+ across LLMs, deep learning, clinical innovations, and AI/ML product.
Implemented and scaled Generative AI solutions to 10,000s of employees across multiple personas.

Chief Data Scientist / Data Science Lead

Surest (Bind Benefits, acquired by UHC 2021) · Minneapolis, MN

Oct 2017 — Jan 2022

Built the Data Science org and ML IP; scaled company from 40 → 400+ employees with 12×/7× YoY member growth.
Represented the company at AI & healthcare conferences, podcasts, and webinars.
Built tools on tens of billions of claims across hundreds of millions of members.

Director, Healthcare Analytics Technology

UnitedHealthcare · Minnetonka, MN

Nov 2014 — Oct 2017

Led a global analytics technology team; saved >$100M year-over-year.
Key decision maker for Hadoop, ML, and NLP platforms.
Directed capability builds in Data Engineering, Infra, Software Dev, and Research.

Manager of Clinical Analytics

Allina Health · Minneapolis, MN

Feb 2011 — Nov 2014

Developed predictive modeling framework for >1M patients.
Led clinical variation waste-reduction initiatives (e.g., spine procedure cost variation, readmission variation).
Managed a staff of 13; re-engineered operating model to raise satisfaction, engagement, and innovation.

Graduate Research Assistant (PhD)

University of Minnesota · Minneapolis, MN

Aug 2003 — Feb 2011

Linux sysadmin for a 32-core, 54 TB Hadoop system; cut data feedback cycles from weeks to hours.
Owned sub-nanosecond detector time alignment and performance on a complex, high-reliability system.
Analyzed petabytes of LHC data and simulations; leveraged worldwide Grid computing.

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Latest Writings

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2025

Education

Ph.D., High Energy Particle Physics
University of Minnesota · 2011
Thesis: “Measurement of the differential Z/γ* → e+e− cross-section shape as a function of the Z rapidity at the CMS experiment at the LHC”.
B.S. Physics, B.S. Astrophysics
University of Minnesota · 2003

Talks