Changing Faces – Agency, consultancy, and investor hires from July 2024

Sales & Marketing
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Welcome back to Changing Faces for the month of July. This time around we’re looking at agency hires, as well as investors, consultants, and a few non-profits and professional organisations thrown in at the end.

UK agencies staff up. UK-based global pharma marketing agency ramarketing announced two appointments during the month: a promotion to head of delivery for Matt Dent, who has been with the agency for six years, and a new hire to the post of head of data and insights in Elliott Gibson, who brings an expertise in various AI competencies and over a decade of market research experience. And Graphite Digital, another UK-based agency, named Anna Brooke and Latief Ziada to the positions of healthcare UX strategist and global business development manager, respectively. Brooke is an experienced UX designer who joins from Pulselive, following stints at Capgemini Invent and Accenture, while Ziada brings business development experience from Angsana and the NHS.

EVERSANA makes agency and consultancy moves. Over at EVERSANA, a provider of global services to the life sciences industry and pharmaphorum’s parent company, the company made a new hire and a significant promotion. Farah Ahmad is in as EVP business development, bringing more than 25 years of experience in life sciences. And John Kutz is now a general manager at EVERSANA MANAGEMENT CONSULTING after three years as a senior partner.

Biotech VC nabs Novartis vet. Bioluminescence Ventures, a mission-driven, biotech-focused venture capital firm in California, has added Dr Campbell Murray to the team as a senior partner. Murray’s investment experience includes stints at Novartis Venture Fund and Agent Capital.

Three consultant hires. Skarbek, a strategy execution firm that counts life sciences among its primary markets, made two hires this month: Toni Marshall as senior partner and Gabin Vic as VP of client delivery. Marshall is former corporate strategy director at Reckitt, where she had a hand in the rapid roll-out of the company’s global B2B division during the COVID-19 pandemic, while Vic has led R&D initiatives across a variety of companies, including L'Oréal. Meanwhile, at life sciences consultancy Trinity Life Sciences Aparna Deshpande has been promoted to senior partner and head of analytics and insights.

Ogilvy Health strengthens APAC team. Ogilvy Health, the healthcare arm of global creative agency Ogilvy has tapped Sofia Beccarelli to serve as associate planning director for the APAC region, working out of the firm’s Singapore office. Beccarelli began her career at Publicis LifeBrand in London. Her campaigns have been recognised with noth a Cannes Lions and a Clio Award.

San Diego non-profit names new ED. Life Sciences Cares San Diego, a non-profit with a mission to "leverage the human and financial capital of the life sciences industry" to address problems of poverty and wealth inequality in San Diego County, has named Alicia Quinn Kitagawa as executive director. She brings more than 20 years of experience as a strategist, developer, and educator of social entrepreneurial programmes across both non-profit and private sectors, most recently at United Way of San Diego County.

Robotics expert joins anti-infection group. The Infection Innovation Consortium (iiCON) and the American Medical Technology Coalition both made hires. iiCON, a government-funded UK entity accelerating development of infectious disease treatment, brought Dr Michael Egan aboard as senior business development manager. Bringing experience from the University of Liverpool’s Materials Innovation Factory, he will lead a team to design new, robotics-powered laboratories. And the American Medical Technology Coalition, an alliance of organisations committed to advancing medical technology, has a new executive director in Custom Health CEO Shane Bishop. He hopes to help the organisation handle regulatory hurdles, innovation funding, and technology integration in clinical practice, according to AMTC.

That’s it for this edition of Changing Faces. 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.