People, February, 2010

Mover of the month

Interlace Global Group appoints three new members to its client services team to work for twin companies Wells Healthcare and Interlace Global Communications. Alan Nicolle (pictured - top) joins as client services director, Glenn Mursell as associate director and Sarah Vickery as assistant account manager. Alan has previously held senior marketing positions within global and European pharmaceutical companies. Glen has spent 18 years in pharmaceutical communications and Sarah has experience in the academic conference arena. The group has also strengthened its editorial team with the appointments of Laurence De-Netto (pictured - centre) as editorial team leader and Andrew Jobson (pictured - bottom) as medical writer. Laurence has 11 years experience in medical communications and is a strategic publications planning specialist. Andrew has a strong research background in anticancer drug discovery and development.

MSD, the new global organisation formed from the merger of Merck & Co and Schering Plough, has announced the following UK human health leadership team appointments. Haseeb Ahmad is director of strategy, Keith Bousfield is director of primary care marketing, David Hewitt is director of consumer health, Jim Page is immunology business unit director, Kevin Peters is director of business operations, Chris Ponty is speciality business unit director, Kate Tillet is director of external affairs, Sally-Anne Tsangarides is hospital business unit director, Ilse van Roy is women's health business unit director, Craig Wallace is primary care sales director and Tim Williams is director of market access.

Joanne Shaw has been appointed as chair of NHS Direct to lead the Trust for the next four years. Joanne has been acting chair of NHS Direct since August 2008, prior to which she was a Trustee for the Long-term Conditions Alliance and chaired the not-for-profit company behind 'Ask About Medicines'.

Chamberlain Healthcare Public Relations, an inVentiv Health company, has appointed Mark John Cater as managing director of its London office. Mark was previously regional director, Europe, Middle East, Africa and India for Cohn & Wolfe, and chief executive officer of GCI UK prior to the company merging in 2008 with Cohn & Wolfe. He also spent six years in various leadership roles as partner and director at Ketchum where he was responsible for the company's worldwide healthcare practice.

Richard Nordstrom, who has been CEO of McCann Healthcare Worldwide since 2005, is leaving the company to take on new initiatives. His position is not being filled.  Instead, the company will be led by a newly created Office of the CEO, composed of four executives of the company. The four executives of the new Office of the CEO, who will have oversight responsibilities for McCann Healthcare Worldwide in addition to ongoing responsibilities for the companies they lead, are: Marci Piasecki, CEO of Torre Lazur Healthcare Group; Maureen Regan, managing partner of RCW Group; David Bachmann, CFO of McCann Healthcare Worldwide; John Cahill, President, McCann Healthcare EMEA and Asia Pacific and of the worldwide medical communications groups. John Cahill will be the chairman of the Office of the CEO.

Five people have taken key roles following the re-organisation of Huntsworth Health Europe. ApotheCom Europe – the medical communications company - will report to David Dunn, global CEO of ApotheCom; Jon Clark will manage Nitrogen Chiswick – the brand communications business - and nitrogen interactive - the digital agency - and nitrogen Marlow will be managed by Cory Inglis. Mike Brown, previously COO North America has been appointed global COO of Huntsworth Health, and Anthea Davies has joined the team from Publicis as operations director for Huntsworth Health Europe.

Eurocom has announced the appointment of Rachel Underwood as creative copywriter. Formerly of Huntsworth Health, Rachel brings over 10 years' scientific and marketing communications experience to the role, working with both local and global brands.

Porter Novelli has appointed Sally Ward as partner and managing director of its operations in the UK. She was previously founder and director of Plum Consulting, an executive search, talent management and senior-level coaching and mentoring firm. Prior to this she spent five years with Weber Shandwick UK, and before that, seven years with Porter Novelli (known then as Countrywide Porter Novelli) as a portfolio director and later as the agency's UK development director.

Fleishman Hillard has appointed Richard Marsh as director and partner in regional healthcare. Based in Fleishman-Hillard's offices in London, Richard will be operating across the UK, Middle East and Africa region. Richard is a former special adviser to two Secretaries of State for Health in the last Conservative Government, as well as a special adviser with experience of two other government departments and a former speechwriter for Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major. This is also his second spell at Fleishman-Hillard, having previously led the company's UK healthcare public affairs team. Since 2002, Richard has been the director of external affairs and market access for the UK pharmaceuticals business of Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS).

Chris Marks, who has been with The MSI Consultancy – part of the Cello Group – for ten years, has been appointed brand services principal of the firm's newly created specialist brand services arm. In addition to his decade at MSI, Chris has a wealth of OTC and fast moving consumer goods (fmcg) brand experience.

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