Brian F. McCarthy

Operating Partner AI at Chicago Pacific Founders

Speaker

Brian is a pioneering leader in AI-driven innovation, with more than two decades of leadership experience at the intersection of analytics, AI, and business transformation, Brian has consistently delivered cutting-edge innovative solutions that were “first of their kind” in consulting and private equity.

For the past four years, Brian has led Digital and AI across the portfolio of Chicago Pacific Founders (CPF), a leading healthcare-focused private equity firm. Brian works closely coaching portfolio company CEOs on AI and technology strategy and helping them take a domain-based approach to targeting the most challenging problems in healthcare powered by data and AI. He plays an active board member and advisor role across multiple CPF companies, including WellBe Senior Medical, MyCare Medical, Atrio Health Plan, Impact Advisors, Omny Health, and Allymar Health Solutions. His work spans clinical domains—applying digital and AI technologies to optimize performance across patient engagement, risk adjustment, quality, and care management. He also assesses the broader health tech ecosystem for investment and partnership opportunities for CPF, focused primarily on data and AI to solve real-world operational challenges.

Prior to joining CPF, Brian was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he co-led McKinsey Analytics’ global AI Transformation efforts including the firm’s thought leadership and capability building efforts. Brian led the change in orientation to Analytics Transformation focused on domains instead of use cases. His work resulted in industry-first programs for global corporations, including a landmark AI transformation at a global airline which pioneered a domain-based approach to transformation, the lab/factory approach to agile development and industrialization of AI solutions and a design thinking approach to “last mile” adoption. Brian later led the development of the AI playbook to codify McKinsey’s approach to AI transformation, which became the de facto standard methodology used across the firm and the basis for a bestselling book (Rewired – published in 2024). Brian also co-authored two seminal Harvard Business Review cover stories: “Building the AI-Powered Organization” (2019) and “Getting AI to Scale” (2021), positioning him as one of the foremost voices in practical AI deployment.

Before joining McKinsey, Brian spent 23 years at Accenture, where he launched and scaled Accenture Analytics from a startup initiative into a $3B+ global business with 3,000+ practitioners. As the first partner in the practice in 2009, he led defining client engagements that pioneered innovations such as offshore analytics delivery and “Analytics as a Service” via the cloud for a European retail bank—years ahead of market adoption. He led the FS Analytics practice in NA, built the Analytics Strategy and Transformation practice globally and established innovation partnerships with MIT and the Stevens Institute of Technology.

Brian’s career has been marked by a repeated ability to challenge the status quo, build two $1B+ Analytics organizations from the ground up and bring cross-industry innovations to be applied in healthcare settings. Brian holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Statistics and a Master of Science in Statistics from University College Cork, Ireland. He resides in Atlanta with his wife and two children, and enjoys travel and golf in his spare time