Medtronic's comms team triumphs at Communiqué 2016

Medtronic won the Pegasus Award for In-House Team of the Year at last night's 2016 Communiqué Awards in London thanks, in part, to the way it handled the momentous acquisition of Covidien.

Completed on 26 January, the deal was the medical technology sector's biggest ever and gave Medtronic's  Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Communications team its busiest ever year.

Rising to the challenge the team was doubled in size and ran a raft of integration activities and change initiatives that touched every one of its 13,000 employees.

Towards the end of the year the team launched a new brand, trained 1,250 people on the new verbal and visual identity and executed  six pan-European media campaigns reaching an audience of five billion people.

The Communiqué judges said: “Medtronic demonstrated a fantastic team dynamic and such high energy. They have genuine team values and we saw an impressive story of their work undertaken both internally and externally through 2015.

“This small and agile team of communicators box way above their weight as evidenced by the significant results they achieved, whilst, at the same time, working hard to facilitate a smooth transition through the Medtronic and Covidien merger.”

Run by PMLiVE's publisher the PMGroup, the Communiqué Awards are specifically designed to recognise and commend excellence and best practice in local, European and international healthcare communications.

• See all the results from the 2016 Communiqué Awards