Changing Faces: Agency, consultancy, and investor, March 2026

March saw a handful of noteworthy hires in the agency, consultancy, and investor spaces, including some notable advisor hires and a large reshuffle at Inizio’s Inizio Ignite unit.

Flagship Pioneering expands academic firepower. Boston-based investor and company creator Flagship Pioneering brought on Dr Eric Topol as academic advisor for preemptive health and medicine. A cardiologist and scientist, Topol is the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and serves as EVP, Chair, and Professor of Translational Medicine at Scripps Research. Widely recognised as a leader in digital health and personalised medicine, his work has helped pioneer the integration of genomics, large-scale data, and artificial intelligence to enable more precise and proactive care.

Inizio Ignite reshuffles leadership as advisory model evolves. Inizio Ignite, a fully integrated advisory partner, announced a series of senior leadership changes as it evolves its organisation. While Remco op den Kelder will continue to lead the organisation as global president, a number of other roles and people are shifting.

• Jeff Dill transitions into the role of group president for innovation and growth, taking responsibility for data and AI, sales, and commercial enablement.
• Haben Debessay will step into Dill’s previous role leading Vynamic, the company’s management consulting team.
• Dermot Kenny was named group president for STEM and Research Partnership, taking responsibility for integrating strategic insight, benchmarking, and research.
• To support operational integration and scale, Emma Dennehy was appointed chief operating officer, aligning operating models, capabilities, and delivery across Inizio Ignite.

EVERSANA strengthens operations and patient services. Global pharma services agency EVERSANA welcomed Joe O’Neal as SVP, operations and patient services. He joins from Fuze Health and Truepill, where he held enterprise leadership roles and helped launch and scale high-impact programmes, including LillyDirect and Mark Cuban Cost Plus.

Jeito Capital adds senior medical insight. Paris-based biopharma private equity fund Jeito Capital tapped Dr Samit Hirawat as strategic medical advisor. Hirawat brings more than 25 years of senior leadership and clinical development experience from major pharmaceutical companies, including Novartis and Bristol Myers Squibb.

Boyds brings on medical affairs leader. Specialist consultancy Boyds recruited Kate Owen as medical director, clinical and medical affairs. Owen began her career training as an anaesthetist before moving into CRO work and then spending 16 years at AstraZeneca, where she served as medicine and science director.

Corporate development and growth hires. Several organisations made senior appointments to support expansion and partnership activity.

• Healthcare marketing company Doceree welcomed Paresh Rajpurohit as vice president, corporate development, following his tenure as senior director of corporate development at Indegene.
• The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy brought on Alice Lin Pomponio as SVP, corporate development and strategic partnerships, adding an impact investor and innovation leader with experience across life sciences and public–private partnerships.
• Meanwhile, RedSail Technologies recruited Joy Neely as chief growth officer, after she guided Medvantx through a strategic rebrand and expanded its portfolio of pharmacy services supporting pharmaceutical manufacturers.

That’s it for our agency, consultancy, and investor hires, but stay tuned for our other hires round-ups and remember, you can send your own hires to editorial@pharmaphorum.com for inclusion in this column.