Raj Pannu

Dr. Raj Pannu is an advertising and communications expert with deep experience in the creation of compelling communications strategies that drive behavior change and increase market share. Prior to founding Emergence, he was the Director of Global Health at McCann Health and, before that, the Chief Scientific Officer at McCann Regan Campbell Ward. 

During the course of his work in global health, Raj has advised and partnered with institutions such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, USAID, CHAI, PEPFAR, The Coca-­Cola Company, and Sesame Workshop on strategic communications issues and major initiatives around global health and sustainability. 

In the pharmaceutical space, Raj worked on over a dozen major brand campaigns and product launches for global pharmaceutical companies, including Novartis, Genentech, Millennium, Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, and GlaxoSmithKline. He was a member of the Essential Medicines Working Group of the United Nations and has been an invited speaker at the United Nations Foundation, the Kennedy School of Public Policy at Harvard University, The Global Health Institute at Princeton University, The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, The Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, The Center for Global Entrepreneurship at New York University, The Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, and the Qatar Foundation. 

He has earned an MS in Immunology and a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Alberta, during which time he co‐authored a paper in Science magazine describing a mechanism essential for poxvirus entry into human immune cells. He received an award for Services to Humanity for AIDS research from the Council of Indian Societies of Canada in 1999.