Fannie McWatt, PhD
Head of Data and AI Strategy
Publicis Health
For nearly 20 years, Fannie has been a trailblazer in healthcare, and today she is channeling that expertise into the frontier of applied artificial intelligence. As Executive Vice President and Head of Data and AI Strategy at Publicis Health, she leads the design and delivery of end-to-end AI agent systems—architecting autonomous, multi-step workflows that reason over complex healthcare data to inform strategy, accelerate decisions, and transform patient and practice behaviors.
Among the solutions she is building is the Evidence Intelligence Engine, one of a broader suite of tools at Publicis Health, which turns the clinical and real-world evidence base into decision-ready intelligence that sharpens scientific positioning and accelerates strategy. In addition, she activates our connected healthcare, consumer, and influencer data to understand and predict what
audiences actually do and whom they listen to—pinpointing the moments, messages, and messengers most likely to inform and activate behavior change, then activating them across channels.
Beyond building the technology, Fannie is focused on productizing and commercializing AI—translating breakthroughs into scalable offerings that create value across strategy, creative, and operations, embedding intelligence into strategic planning, powering more personalized creative, and streamlining the workflows that bring campaigns to market.
She is also pioneering the operating models for managing AI as an audience in its own right—advancing beyond answer and generative engine optimization (AEO/GEO) to shape how autonomous systems discover, interpret, and act upon healthcare information.
As a NIBI ambassador and a collaborator with the Women’s Forum, Fannie helps bring important initiatives forward as part of our corporate responsibility—ensuring the safe, thoughtful, and trusted use of AI to make a positive impact on the health and wealth of our society globally.
This forward-looking work is grounded in deep scientific and commercial experience spanning Immunology, Neurology, Infectious Disease, and Oncology, where Fannie has led pre-launch and launch strategies for breakthrough therapies. Before earning her doctorate from Columbia University’s Department of Pathology, she was a clinical scientist at the New York Blood Center, performing high-resolution HLA typing to match umbilical cord blood units for pediatric hematology-oncology patients around the globe.
Among the solutions she is building is the Evidence Intelligence Engine, one of a broader suite of tools at Publicis Health, which turns the clinical and real-world evidence base into decision-ready intelligence that sharpens scientific positioning and accelerates strategy. In addition, she activates our connected healthcare, consumer, and influencer data to understand and predict what
audiences actually do and whom they listen to—pinpointing the moments, messages, and messengers most likely to inform and activate behavior change, then activating them across channels.
Beyond building the technology, Fannie is focused on productizing and commercializing AI—translating breakthroughs into scalable offerings that create value across strategy, creative, and operations, embedding intelligence into strategic planning, powering more personalized creative, and streamlining the workflows that bring campaigns to market.
She is also pioneering the operating models for managing AI as an audience in its own right—advancing beyond answer and generative engine optimization (AEO/GEO) to shape how autonomous systems discover, interpret, and act upon healthcare information.
As a NIBI ambassador and a collaborator with the Women’s Forum, Fannie helps bring important initiatives forward as part of our corporate responsibility—ensuring the safe, thoughtful, and trusted use of AI to make a positive impact on the health and wealth of our society globally.
This forward-looking work is grounded in deep scientific and commercial experience spanning Immunology, Neurology, Infectious Disease, and Oncology, where Fannie has led pre-launch and launch strategies for breakthrough therapies. Before earning her doctorate from Columbia University’s Department of Pathology, she was a clinical scientist at the New York Blood Center, performing high-resolution HLA typing to match umbilical cord blood units for pediatric hematology-oncology patients around the globe.