Profile

Joe has provided general corporate, privacy, regulatory compliance, technology and transactional-related legal advice to some of the country’s largest and most well-known healthcare companies. His current practice focuses primarily on privacy, data protection, the creation and licensing of de-identified healthcare data, healthcare regulatory compliance, and for the past 7 years on artificial intelligence governance. 

Joe has worked extensively with the use and governance of highly regulated healthcare data in the training and deployment of machine learning and artificial intelligence.  For his work in this area, Joe received the 2022 Specialty Counsel of the Year Award from the Georgia Association of Corporate Counsel and The Atlanta Business Chronicle.

From 2017 – 2023, Joe was both the Chief Privacy Officer and Deputy General Counsel for all enterprise-wide legal functions (including artificial intelligence) at Change Healthcare, where he built the privacy and AI governance programs from the ground up.  Prior to that, Joe spent 13 years in several legal leadership positions at McKesson Technologies, including as the Chief Counsel of McKesson’s extensive data analytics business and clinical, financial, and pharmacy claims networks.  His first venture into healthcare was as the 40^th employee at WebMD Corporation where he was Vice President, Deputy General Counsel, and Assistant Corporate Secretary.  Joe is currently in private practice at Ashkouti Law LLC. 

A native of Atlanta, Joe has been involved in several civic organizations including Leadership Atlanta, the Stonewall Bar Association, and the Child Abuse Protection Agency of the Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta.  He also is the Chairman of People Making Progress Inc., a 501(c)(3) providing job training, community services, and housing for adults with several mental and physical disabilities.