Changing Faces: Agency, consultancy, and investor hires from June 2023

Today we’re catching up on three months of hires in the pharma marketing world, since April had just one hire in this category, and we’re combining our May and June roundups across all categories. Stay tuned for the other instalments this week and next.

Fishawack Health makes multiple leadership appointments. Washington, DC-based biopharma commercialisation partner Fishawack Health announced three C-Suite appointments recently, two in May and another at the end of June. Ryan Mason, a tenured executive at the agency, was promoted to chief marketing and creative officer, and Fishawack brought in Jeffrey D Erb as its new chief media officer. And in June, Harriet Shurville, previously of Iris Worldwide, joined as chief people officer.

Inizio builds out AI capabilities. In our last, March edition of this column, we covered Inizio as they made a hire to bolster their DEI capabilities. In May, the MEDiSTRAVA subsidiary brought on two hires focused on the high-interest topic of AI. Matt Lewis is the company’s new global chief artificial and augmented intelligence officer and Paul Hatton will serve as president, Medical Analytics and Innovation.

Ogilvy Health UK taps veteran to lead. The UK branch of global creative agency Ogilvy Health appointed a new executive creative director: John McPartland, an award-winning marketeer and long-time healthcare specialist who brings experience from Havas and the Leith Agency. He’ll lead a team of 30 in Ogilvy’s London office.

Two long-time med device insiders bolster Orchestra’s ranks. Orchestra Biomed, a commercialisation partner for medical device companies, made two high-level appointments in June. Bill Little, previously COO at Neovasc, came onboard as executive vice president of corporate development and strategy, while Andrew Taylor joined as chief financial officer. Prior to Neovasc, Little spent 25 years in medical devices, including a divisional VP role at Abbott Vascular. For his part, Taylor boasts 20 years of CFO experience, 15 of which were in medical device companies.

NNIT debuts new team after re-work. Danish life sciences IT services provider NNIT recently divested its infrastructure operations to re-launch as an international IT consultancy business. They announced their new leadership team under this new structure in May. Led by Pär Fors, former CEO of CGI Scandinavia, the team is filled out with:

• CFO Carsten Ringius
• Executive VP and head of M&A Pernille Fabricius
• Senior VP and head of HR Signe Nelsson
• Senior VP and head of region Asia Jason Xing
• Senior VP and head of region Europe Ricco Larsen
• Senior VP and head of region Denmark Kasper Søndergaard Andersen
• Senior VP and head of region USA Mark Ohrvall
• Senior VP and head of global sales Flemming Kjoller, and
• Senior VP and head of global solution development Ricco Larsen 

Executive Insight taps internal hire for new role. Zurich-based healthcare consulting firm Executive Insight announced the appointment in May of Tanja Bosshard Becker as director of operations and sales. An internal hire who has worked with the company for 15 years, Becker will take on a new role that combines two functions, sales and operations, which had previously been led separately.

Three more consultancy hires and appointments. We tracked a few other notable appointments in the consultancy space along with those highlighted above.

• UK-based Boyds Consultants brought on Naomi Clout as senior medical and regulatory writer. Clout has worked for Quantum Medical Communications, Quanticate, and Pfizer.
• Kansas City, Missouri’s CRB, which provides engineering, architecture, construction, and consulting services to the life sciences industry, hired Mike Dieterich for the role of senior director of sustainability.
• London biopharma strategy firm Prescient Healthcare Group announced three new appointees to its Board of Directors, all existing members of the team: head of global commercial practice Dr Erica Carlisle, chief commercial officer Dr Paul Harney, and head of global data, analytics, and technology Swati Anand Kkatyal.

MIG expands team by four. MIG Capital AG, a German VC firm focused on deep tech and life sciences, has added four new names to its roster, bringing its team of investors up to 11. Dr Fei Tan, Frederick Michna, and Dr Oliver Kahl join as principals, while Andreas Kastenbauer comes on as a partner. MIG stressed the geographic and generational diversity of the new class, as well as their experience, saying that it would give them an edge in the German VC market.

Life sciences investors name new partners, advisors. Despite (or perhaps because of) a rocky funding environment, we saw a handful of additional hires in the investor world.

• Syncona Investment Management brought in Roel Bulthuis, formerly of Inkef Capital, as managing partner and head of investments.
• New York’s Windham Venture Partners opened its Cincinnati office with the appointment of Providence Ventures veteran David Kereiakes as managing partner.
• Paris-based Andera Partners hired Stefan Keitel as a senior advisor to bolster its presence in the German, Austrian, and Swiss (DACH) region.

That’s it for this roundup. Remember, if you’ve had a recent appointment and you work in or around the pharma space, we want to hear about it. Please send your press releases to editorial@pharmaphorum.com to be included in future editions of Changing Faces.