# Fawad Butt

> Fawad Butt is the co-founder and CEO of Penguin AI, a Palo Alto-based healthcare AI platform company that raised $29.7M in Series A funding in September 2025. A former Chief Data Officer at Kaiser Permanente, UnitedHealthcare, and Optum, Butt spent years on the buyer side spending hundreds of millions on generic tech before deciding to build the solution healthcare actually needed. Penguin AI targets the $1 trillion annual administrative burden in US healthcare with purpose-built agentic AI, small language models, and digital workers that compress prior authorization reviews from 30 minutes to under two, positioning itself as 'the Epic of the healthcare back office.'

- **Role:** CEO & Co-Founder at Penguin AI
- **Organizations:** Penguin AI, Canvas Ventures, Optum, UnitedHealthcare, Kaiser Permanente, Northern Trust Bank
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** MBA, Product, Strategy & Marketing, Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, Bachelor's degree, Electronics Engineering, Unknown university
- **Known for:** Led data and analytics for over 60 million UnitedHealthcare members, Managed multi-hundred-million-dollar data and analytics P&L at Optum, the largest healthcare data organization in the industry, Established enterprise-wide Data Governance Model and Data Privacy & Security initiatives at Kaiser Permanente

## Career timeline

- **Early career** — Senior consulting roles at TIAA, TD Bank, and Sun Microsystems
- **Early career** — Global Head of Data Strategy at Northern Trust Bank
- **2011-2013** — MBA at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
- **~2014-2018** — Chief Data Officer and Chief Data Governance Officer at Kaiser Permanente; led enterprise data governance and digital care delivery infrastructure
- **~2018-2022** — Chief Data and Analytics Officer at UnitedHealthcare, serving over 60 million members
- **~2022-2023** — Chief Data Officer at Optum; oversaw end-to-end data and analytics across three lines of business
- **~2023** — Executive-in-Residence and Operating Partner at Canvas Ventures ($3B AUM); evaluated healthcare investments; served as board observer and advisor for Particle Health, Vida Health, PineCove Health
- **2024** — Co-founded Penguin AI in early 2024 to address healthcare's $1T administrative problem
- **2025-09** — Penguin AI closes $29.7M Series A led by Greycroft with UPMC Enterprises, SemperVirens, Snowflake Ventures, and others
- **2025** — Launched Gwen, Penguin AI's build-your-own agentic workflow platform for healthcare operations
- **2025-10** — Announced strategic partnership with UPMC Enterprises on the Ahavi data platform

## Achievements

- Led data and analytics for over 60 million UnitedHealthcare members
- Managed multi-hundred-million-dollar data and analytics P&L at Optum, the largest healthcare data organization in the industry
- Established enterprise-wide Data Governance Model and Data Privacy & Security initiatives at Kaiser Permanente
- Helped position Kaiser Permanente as a market leader in digital care delivery
- Early advisor and investor to Collibra, Monte Carlo Data, and Redesign Health
- Member of Coalition for Health AI (CHAI), contributing to responsible AI workgroups
- Raised $29.7M in venture funding for Penguin AI, backed by Greycroft, UPMC Enterprises, Snowflake Ventures
- Built Gwen platform enabling healthcare teams to create digital workers in approximately 25 minutes
- Featured in Forbes, FierceHealthcare, and MedCity News
- Keynote speaker at major healthcare technology industry events

## Latest updates

- **2025-10** — Penguin AI announced a strategic partnership with UPMC Enterprises on the Ahavi data platform
- **2025-09** — Penguin AI launched Gwen, a build-your-own agentic AI platform for healthcare operations with 100+ pre-built digital workers
- **2025-09** — Penguin AI closed $29.7M Series A funding led by Greycroft with UPMC Enterprises, SemperVirens, Snowflake Ventures, Watershed Ventures, and Horizon Mutual Holdings
- **2025-09** — Penguin AI strengthened its executive leadership team post Series A, adding Chief Strategy Officer Mark Caron
- **2025-12** — Fawad Butt appeared on the Empowered Patient Podcast discussing provider-payer workflow optimization
- **2026-01** — Featured in Chief Healthcare Executive's coverage of 2026 AI adoption trends

## Links

- Website: https://penguinai.co
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fawadbutt
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/buttfawad

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/fawad-butt
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-12