Our Team
Learn more about our founding team and new career opportunities at Merlyn AI.
Hema Srinivasan
Co-Founder & CEO
Hema Srinivasan is an expert in analyzing and shaping health markets to improve patient access and generate commercial value. She co-founded Merlyn AI to solve the market intelligence gaps she has battled throughout her career.
Previously, Hema was Chief Access Officer at MedAccess, where she built and led a team of experts to envision and implement innovative financing partnerships aimed at expanding access to health products and services in underserved communities. During her tenure, Hema and her team negotiated eight financial guarantees that have supported over $300M of health product procurement and reached over 400M people in 95 countries.
Prior to MedAccess, Hema was Senior Director for South Asia at Gilead Sciences, leading the business across the region and developing strategies to increase access to medicines for HIV, viral hepatitis, and invasive fungal infections. Earlier, as Associate Director of Global Markets at the Clinton Health Access Initiative, she secured access agreements for long-acting contraceptives, HIV drugs and diagnostics, and maternal health products, generating over $500M in projected savings for purchasers.
Hema started her career in Global Investment Research covering the Biotechnology and Healthcare Services sectors at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in Economics and Psychology.
Her current and prior advisory appointments include the Medicines Patent Pool Expert Advisory Group, the Access to Medicines Index Expert Review Committee, the Gates Foundation's META Market Shaping Advisory Council, USAID's HIV Prevention Product Access Advisory Committee, and the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children.
Jesse Wambugu
Co-Founder & Chief Partnerships Officer
Jesse Wambugu is a diagnostics access expert who has spent twenty-five years building laboratory and testing capacity across Africa. He co-founded Merlyn AI and leads the company's government and partnership work from Nairobi.
Jesse began his career with Médecins Sans Frontières, managing laboratories and health projects across Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Working in emergency and resource-limited settings showed him how much access — or the lack of it — shapes people's lives and health outcomes.
With FIND, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, Jesse developed guidelines for the adoption of diagnostics and led the rollout of new TB tests across the African continent.
At Hologic, he built the Africa diagnostics business from just over $1M to $40M, introducing new commercial models that changed how manufacturers and buyers work together. As Director of the Global Access Initiative in Africa, he negotiated a $12 all-inclusive ceiling price across the molecular portfolio — later extended to COVID-19 testing.
Jesse serves on the board of Médecins Sans Frontières Netherlands.
Syamala Srinivasan
Co-Founder & Chief Data Scientist
Syamala Srinivasan is a recognized expert in AI and machine learning. The data science architecture behind Merlyn's simulation engine is her life's work applied to the problems that matter most.
Syamala has over 35 years of industrial and academic experience in data science, and has been faculty in the Data Science program at Northwestern University since 2013, teaching deep learning, natural language processing, machine learning and modeling. She was previously Chief Analytics Officer at Tada Cognitive Solutions, integrating AI and machine learning solutions into the Tada platform, and has worked with the US Army on predictive maintenance of ground vehicles.
Earlier in her career, Syamala spent 22 years at Caterpillar, where she founded the Department of Analytics and served as its director. She developed and deployed analytical solutions across product development, manufacturing, supply chain, marketing, sales and human resources, and received two U.S. patents — one of which spun out Akoya, among the first data science companies in the world, later acquired by Birla Technologies.
Syamala holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Statistics from Colorado State University, and an M.S. and B.S. in Mathematics from India. Her prior academic appointments include National Louis University, Bradley University, Chicago State University, Northern Illinois University, and Colorado State University.
