Maria Whitman is the Managing Principal, Global Commercialization Strategy & Solutions across all industry sectors and a member of the Board of Directors at ZS. Prior to this, she was Managing Principal of ZS’ Global Pharmaceutical & Biotech Industry Vertical, engaging and advising companies from early-stage biotech to established and large pharma on trends and strategies for growth, and leading the development of ZS’ own 2030 vision and strategy for life sciences. Maria previously led ZS’ Oncology & Specialty Therapeutics Area, growing the ZS team and its work to support approximately 90% of oncology launches year over year. Maria also founded and led the development of centers of excellence in Cell & Gene Therapies, Rare & Orphan Diseases, Biosimilars, and more. Maria is deeply passionate about bringing hope and novel options to patients.
In her 20+ years in healthcare, Maria has deeply worked end to end across marketing, sales, model design, customer insights, analytics, commercial operations, value and access, medical affairs, clinical trial site selection, pipeline strategy and launch, and more. She has led large global programs and the development of new practices and capabilities. She is passionate about helping organizations build leading capabilities, uncover and drive decisions on rich insights, data and AI, and challenge the thinking to drive performance. In 2020, she led the ZS COVID-19 response workstream on capabilities and the “new normal”, and later ZS’ response to IRA.
Previously, Maria worked across marketing and advertising in financial services, entertainment, and healthcare/biopharma. She holds an MBA in Health Care Systems and Marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BS from La Salle University. She is a board member of ZS, the International Myeloma Foundation (IMF), and the Emergency Aid of Pennsylvania Foundation.
Maria is an active thought leader across healthcare topics in publications, the media, and at conferences:
• Podcast: Transforming Biopharma (available on all major platforms)
• AI and customer experience: Focus on the right problems
• FDA crackdown on DTC ads raises a new commercial barrier
• Future of Health Report 2025
• Life sciences leaders and customer engagement 2025
• Barrier-led engagement in pharma USA 2025
• The biopharma commercial model of tomorrow starts today: Personalization