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Walid Mehanna on Carrying the World’s Oldest Pharma Giant Into the A.I. Era

Mehanna, who was born in Egypt, compares deploying A.I. at a 62,000-employee conglomerate to building a pyramid.

When ChatGPT set off a global corporate scramble in late 2022, Walid Mehanna was already deep into rebuilding the digital backbone at the world’s oldest pharmaceutical company. As group data officer at Germany’s Merck KGaA (also known as Merck Group in the U.S. and unrelated to the American pharmaceutical firm Merck) at the time, Mehanna had spent two years overhauling the company’s data and analytics systems for its 62,000 employees. About eight months into the GPT era, his title was elevated to chief data and A.I. officer. The creation of that role, he said, “was an evolution by design, not a reaction to a development, hype or trend.”

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Merck KGaA’s roots stretch back to the 17th century, when pharmacist Friedrich Jacob Merck laid the foundation for the family business in Darmstadt, Germany. Today, its business spans pharmaceuticals, medical equipment manufacturing and electronics. Leading an A.I. strategy inside a 350-year-old company is a unique kind of challenge. Mehanna, who was born in Egypt, compares it to building a pyramid.

At the base are everyday A.I. tools that improve personal productivity across the workforce. The goal is to build digital fluency, save time and reinvest those gains into growth. The middle layer—where the company is today—focuses on embedding A.I. into core workflows, such as research and development,........

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