TORONTO & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Klick Health CEO Lori Grant today announced the appointments of veteran Klick Managing Directors Ari Schaefer and Greg Rice to the role of Co-Presidents. She also shared details about Klick’s expanding Policy & Advocacy team, as well as Scientific Innovation capabilities, new Intelligence practice, and the arrival of several senior new hires as the independent agency starts the year with the level of record-breaking growth it achieved in 2020.
“It gives me great pride to publicly share that Ari and Greg have been appointed to the role of co-presidents of Klick Health as we continue to grow and evolve the organization while redefining what life sciences companies can expect from their commercialization partners,” Grant said. “Over the past decade, they have each contributed tremendously to our teams, our culture, our clients, and Klick’s overall success – drawing upon their impressive professional backgrounds and capabilities. I am excited to continue working with them as we build on the Klick legacy and continue to bring brilliant solutions to the challenges facing the life sciences industry.”
Rice becomes Co-President with over 25 years of healthcare experience, the last seven as Managing Director of Katalyst, one of Klick’s large multi-disciplinary Client Success Teams responsible for helping a wide range of clients drive impactful commercialization efforts. He joined Klick in 2011 to lead its Strategy team and has a proven track record in planning and executing a multitude of pharmaceutical and medical device brand campaigns and launches.
Rice started his career as a pharmacist, practicing in both retail and hospital environments. He switched to the pharmaceutical industry through a move to Eli Lilly, taking on progressive positions in sales, brand marketing, and new product planning. He then joined Havas Life and took on a number of senior management roles, including Managing Director for the Canadian operation.
“I am as thrilled as I am grateful for the opportunity to lead alongside Ari, Lori, and the Klick Health Leadership Team as we further bolster our trajectory in a time of incredible change and heightened focus on health,” Rice said. “I have been very fortunate to work with the best people in the business and, even after being at Klick for a decade, I continue to be inspired by Klicksters’ unrivaled capacity to learn, innovate, and support one other – and our clients – with kindness, inclusivity, creativity, and optimism.”
Schaefer brings over 15 years of healthcare marketing expertise to the co-presidency role. His background in engineering and consulting provides him with a distinct perspective and the ability to help solve some of the industry’s most pressing challenges. A recipient of the 2019 DTC Perspectives Agency Vanguard Award, in recognition of his contribution to driving innovation and improving patient communications, Schaefer has been with Klick for almost a decade. He most recently served as Managing Director of another Klick Client Success Team, leading a quickly growing, high-performance team responsible for driving a multitude of client success as well as the introduction of several novel offerings and partnerships.
With extensive work in large-incidence and rare conditions across consumer, caregiver, and HCP marketing, Schaefer leads with a depth of expertise to support life sciences products throughout the entire breadth of their commercialization journeys. Whether developing early pre-commercial market-shaping programs for pre-launch brands, or promotional ecosystems for brands at the end of their patent lives, he is known for leveraging data-driven insights to deliver strategic value.
Schaefer said, “I couldn’t be more excited to partner with Greg and work with the Klick Health Leadership Team as we push the boundaries of what a healthcare agency can accomplish and contribute to the life sciences industry for the betterment of patients and healthcare professionals. We have only scratched the surface in demonstrating the value that Klick delivers to our clients through our unique people-first culture, results-driven integrated offerings, and innovative commercialization partnerships and are focused more than ever on making a difference in people’s lives.”
Introducing New Intelligence Practice
Klick today also launched Klick Intelligence to provide clients with a competitive advantage through enhanced knowledge of markets and customers. Klick Intelligence leverages unique and creative approaches to understand impactful cultural forces and changing market dynamics, expand competitive assessments, elevate audience insights, and identify undiscovered data signals. To that end, Chief Brand Strategy Officer Carl Turner welcomed new practice lead Keri Hettel and Meredydd Hardie along with the proven healthcare and consumer marketing intelligence expertise they bring to Klick.
As SVP, Intelligence, Hettel brings innovative thinking and deep knowledge in healthcare intelligence, ensuring client work is built from an understanding of business needs, competitive insights, cultural nuances, and audience insights/feedback. With over 15 years of healthcare agency experience, Hettel most recently led Razorfish Health’s Research, Data, and Analytics practice and served on the agency’s leadership team. She also sat on the steering committee for the Publicis Health data group (ARIS) and has worked across many health categories, including oncology, flu, rare disease, and cardiology.
“I’m excited to lead Klick’s Intelligence practice and leverage my research, data, and analytics skills in new and differentiating ways,” said Hettel. “Our team is committed to best serve our clients through the power of information, especially as it becomes more important than ever to create differentiation in the marketplace.”
Hardie has extensive expertise developing tools, processes, and practices for augmenting consumer research with cultural insights. She most recently led the intelligence practice at Gravity Partners where she helped clients like Coca-Cola and Toyota better understand the impact of culture and how brands can lean into change to better connect with consumers. At Blast Radius, she built the agency’s global social listening practice and was an early super-user of emergent listening tools, broadening audience understanding for clients, like Microsoft, Starbucks, and RIM. Previously, she spent several years at Ipsos, conducting qualitative and quantitative research studies for the global market research firm’s large CPG clients.
“I am thrilled to join Klick and bring my consumer intelligence background to the life sciences industry,” Hardie said. “Healthcare marketing is undergoing enormous changes and there has never been a greater need for insights that combine data, analytics, and research to provide an intelligence advantage that enables our clients to better support patients and healthcare professionals.”
Growing Policy & Advocacy Practice
Klick’s Policy & Advocacy practice, led by former Deputy Director for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CEO of Malaria No More, and staff director for the Senate health committee Dr. David C. Bowen, helps clients understand and influence the policy landscape through insight, opinion mobilization, and stakeholder alliance development. Launched in 2020, it has added veteran industry professionals Brandi Hight Bank and Randi Goeckeler to its growing team.
A specialist in public health policy communications with over 15 years of experience planning and executing national public education campaigns and novel approaches that spark behavior change, Bank joins Klick’s evolving Policy & Advocacy team as VP, Policy and Public Health. Previously, she held a number of public affairs roles at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the National Vaccine Program Office, which leads and coordinates federal vaccine policy. There, Bank provided strategic counsel and communications support for the H1N1 influenza pandemic, seasonal influenza initiatives, and advisory committees. At HHS, she also led the development of the federal government’s award-winning, first cross-government portal for consumer information about vaccines and immunizations: vaccines.gov. Bank also served as project director at Abt Associates, where she co-managed a large Zika public education campaign for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This year has demonstrated more than ever the need for collaborative, systems-level thinking to complex health and public health challenges,” Bank said. “I am thrilled to contribute my public health and behavior change experience to Klick, its clients, and partners in their efforts to provide innovative solutions.”
A global stakeholder relations strategist with over 25 years of industry experience, Goeckeler joins Klick’s expanding Policy & Advocacy practice as VP, Stakeholder Coalitions with extensive expertise in conceiving, developing, and executing strategic frameworks that enable key external experts, patient advocacy, professional medical societies, payers, and C-Suite executives to deliver impactful outcomes that foster long-term, successful partnerships. Prior, she served as Executive Director, Stakeholder Relations at Allergan, where she built a global team and focused on implementing pre-launch, launch, and post-launch stakeholder engagement plans across the Allergan portfolio. She has also held leadership positions in stakeholder strategy and engagement at Boehringer-Ingelheim, Sanofi, and Pfizer.
“Joining Klick gives me the opportunity to build broad coalitions and strategic partnerships that advance the goals of our clients while working to improve the lives of patients,” said Goeckeler. “I’m passionate about bringing stakeholders together for a purpose, one that ultimately delivers better healthcare, and am delighted to help build out Klick’s Policy and Advocacy practice as we continue to innovate and do work that truly makes a difference. I’ve spent my career building strategic partnerships and broad coalitions to help improve patient care, and I look forward to bringing this deep expertise to our clients.”
Expanding Labs’ Vision with Dedicated Scientific Innovation Practice
Building on the commercial innovation success that Klick Applied Sciences and Klick Labs have had over the past eight years, the thriving agency signaled its expanding presence in clinical innovation, launching a Scientific Innovation practice to develop unique, new ways to target, reach, and communicate with healthcare professionals. Reporting to Chief Medical Officer Holly Henry, industry veteran Tim Mitchell leads the practice – adding another proof point to Klick’s reputation for having the industry’s largest medical group integrated across a single agency.
In this new role at Klick, Mitchell is developing innovative science, tech- and data-savvy approaches to creating, sharing, and consuming scientific content and insights. He has a proven record of developing novel approaches to pharma marketing challenges, drawing on his agency experience and background in behavioral psychology and pharmacology. Mitchell brings 15 years’ experience in U.S. and UK leadership roles, including Head of Strategy & Innovation and Chief Medical Officer at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness. He previously co-founded the London-based medical communications start-up, Real Science (now part of Langland), driving its growth pre and post its 2011 acquisition by Publicis Groupe.
“I could not be more excited to join the incredibly talented team at Klick and leverage its tech roots and bias for action as we establish the Scientific Innovation craft,” said Mitchell. “We are focused on continuing to help our clients evolve, innovate, and keep up with the recent unprecedented pace of change in the way healthcare professionals reach patients, interact with peers and industry, participate in conferences, and behave as consumers and creators of scientific content.”
Senior Additions to Strategy & Analytics and Technology Practices
To support its record growth across all parts of the business, Klick has welcomed hundreds of new Klicksters over the past six months to its various teams, including these senior leaders:
Coyle joins Klick as SVP, Strategy, leading a team of talented strategists, who design and drive activation plans to impact brand success. With over 20 years of experience in life sciences market research, KOL consulting, and advertising, she was previously at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness for over six years, most recently SVP, Director of Engagement Strategy. Coyle has worked with a wide range of brands from pre-launch through LOE across therapeutic areas that include cardiovascular, metabolic, rare disease, and oncology, focussing on reaching key stakeholders in novel and engaging ways.
"I spent years watching Klick deftly navigate the healthcare space and began reading about their contributions to brands, the community, and their people as COVID unfolded in March," said Coyle. "Their people-centric response really struck a chord with me and made me want to join the company. I’m excited to work alongside the industry’s warmest and brightest people and call myself a Klickster."
Arsenault joins Klick’s Technology team with over 12 years of consulting and venture capital experience. He specializes in Salesforce.com, Veeva Systems, and Vlocity digital transformations, where he has delivered large-scale consulting engagements for clients across four continents. Prior to joining Klick, he worked at Accenture’s Toronto, Nashville, and San Francisco offices as a member of their Veeva Systems and Vlocity leadership teams. He was previously a venture capitalist at Rho Capital where he focused on early-stage technology investments and served on the boards of directors of multiple startups.
“I joined Klick because of its ‘question everything’ mantra and personalized approach to team building,” said Arsenault. “I look forward to helping expand the scope of our technology group’s enterprise software offerings to complement Klick’s breadth of services and accelerate the digital evolution of our life sciences clients.”
With over 15 years of experience in analytics and business intelligence, a decade of which was based in publishing and advertising, Albini joins Klick after previous roles at Havas, Zenith, and CBS Interactive. He has a deep understanding of the ad-mar tech landscape, focusing on developing functional data architecture to reduce data management costs and drive analytics value. He also has strong health and wellness experience in building out big data reporting and analytics solutions for clients, like Pfizer, Sanofi, and Sunovion.
“What really struck me about Klick is its dedication to its people-first culture and fostering its hacker roots,” said Albini. “It is what drives Klick’s success and will continue to do so well into the future.”
At Klick, Grant is focused on helping life sciences companies improve business outcomes and patient experiences through the adoption of new technologies. He is backed by over two decades of technology leadership experience. As a Senior Director at Oracle Cloud, he led a global technology delivery team that scaled its product offerings five-fold, achieving 10x increased revenue. He was also a member of the Eloqua executive team, which led the development of pioneering global modern marketing technology, prior to its acquisition by Oracle.
“I joined the remarkable team at Klick to contribute to the evolution of life sciences,” said Grant. “The intersection of technology and life sciences is incredibly fascinating to me and I could not be prouder to join such an awesome team that is dedicated to making a real difference for our community, clients, and patients.”
With over 20 years of experience leading digital transformations for Fortune 100 clients and the U.S. Government, Kulupka brings his modern marketing technology expertise to Klick’s large technology practice. Previously, he was the Chief Data Officer for Omnicom's Precision Marketing Group and the Chief Executive Officer for Omnicom's Marketing Technology Solutions agency responsible for MarTech strategy and the development of its customer data platform.
"Klick is the premier agency for innovative, data-and-analytics-driven marketing for health clients," said Kulupka. "I'm thrilled to join their world-class team of thought leaders and support Klick’s clients with amazing experiences for healthcare professionals and patients alike."
Kwan comes to Klick with over 14 years of CRM, digital marketing, data & analytics, and cloud computing experience across several industry sectors, including advertising, telecommunications, and financial services. He has spent most of his career building CRM practices from the ground-up. Before joining Klick, Kwan served as Vice President, Customer Experience & CRM at Race Roster, successfully helping build and grow the endurance event platform start-up for four years, leading to its acquisition by ASICS. Previously, he was Chief Architect of CRM at TELUS and a Senior Consultant with Manulife/John Hancock.
“I’ve always had a desire to return to the agency world after a short stint early in my career and am really excited to bring my multi-industry experience to Klick and the world of healthcare marketing,” said Kwan. “Klick’s impressive growth and its client-centric approach on unifying world-class strategy and creative with technology and operational excellence really sets Klick apart from other companies.”
Expanded People Practices Capabilities
Reaffirming people-centricity as its highest order, Klick’s Senior Vice President of People & Organizational Effectiveness Sue Easby welcomed a number of seasoned professionals to continue evolving the company’s structural frameworks, processes, and development plans, as well as further enabling performance and career opportunities for Klicksters in keeping with the agency’s ongoing growth.
With vast expertise in industrial and organizational psychology, Dormani is focused on building out Klick’s people infrastructure to further support Klicksters and optimize the company’s effectiveness. Her career spans both public and private sectors, having previously partnered and consulted with leaders and key stakeholders within the Canadian Government, evaluating and coaching over 500 executives, managers, scientists, engineers, military, security and border officers, lawyers, human resources advisors, and information technology professionals. Within the retail industry, she led leadership and organizational development initiatives to support 200 Canadian Tire associate stores and dealers in Ontario. Dormani has also worked as an independent consultant through the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM), supporting clients across manufacturing, automotive, retail, and public health industries.
“Naturally gravitating toward helping organizations, leaders, and their people continuously evolve, I am excited about contributing to Klick’s next phase of growth,” said Dormani. “We are scaling at an exponential rate amidst so many unprecedented changes, including a pandemic, and Klick has remained true to its guiding principles. I am proud to be part of an ecosystem, where the bar is consistently raised by exemplifying a people-first culture.”
A learning and organizational development leader with over 15 years of experience building people and organizational capabilities, Decoste has worked at leading telecommunications, aviation, retail, and manufacturing companies, including Air Canada and Rogers Communications. He brings to Klick proven expertise in creating scalable, learner-centric programming that nurtures team members’ personal and professional development and builds industry credibility.
“I feel incredibly fortunate to join Klick and see how, even during a pandemic, it leans into its people-first principle and puts Klicksters at the heart of everything,” Decoste said. “I’m excited to help elevate what Klicksters have told us is the best, most people-centric onboarding experience in the industry. We are architecting a comprehensive healthcare curriculum to underpin our entire onboarding experience and further distinguish Klick from other agencies.”
Solomon joins the company with a focus on enhancing Klick’s best-in-class rewards program around Klicksters’ evolving needs and further distinguishing the company as a great place to work. He has spent over 15 years in consultancy, board director, and other Total Rewards leadership roles at technology, professional services, and energy companies, such as Enbridge and Syncrude. Prior to joining Klick, he led the implementation of foundational compensation programs for Benevity.
“It’s rare to find a company with as strong a culture as you’ll find at Klick, so being able to build-out new and innovative rewards offerings for Klicksters was extremely attractive,” said Solomon. “Klick’s reputation for thinking differently provides the opportunity to approach total rewards differently and help ensure that Klick remains a center of gravity for brilliant people.”
With over 30 years of healthcare training and account management expertise, Thomas is helping build Klick’s healthcare curriculum for all internal craft roles. Over the years, she has had a number of commercial training and management roles at life science organizations, including Berlex Laboratories, Indegene, Axiom, and Red Nucleus, and began her career as a pharma sales representative. Thomas has been a member of the Life Sciences Trainers and Educators Network (LTEN) since 1991 and is a recipient of the HBA (Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association) Rising Star Award and Luminary Award.
“I’m excited to join Klick as we develop impactful learning that provides a continuing education focus on both health conditions and the ever-evolving healthcare ecosystem, especially as the organization continues to grow and hire new team members,” said Thomas. “During these unprecedented times where everyone is working and learning remotely, it is also important to provide our people with the support they need to keep bringing superior solutions to our clients.”
Today’s news follows a series of other high-profile announcements the company made in August 2020, including Lori Grant’s appointment to Klick Health CEO after serving as President for six years. It also coincides with the imminent debut of Klick’s new career site, which features hundreds of open roles and testimonial interviews about having a healthy career and life at Klick.
About Klick Health
Klick Health is the world’s largest independent commercialization partner for life sciences. For over two decades, Klick has been laser-focused on developing, launching, and supporting life sciences brands to maximize their full market potential. Klick was named Large Agency of the Year for 2020 by Medical Marketing + Media (MM+M), marking its ninth Agency of the Year industry award in nine years. Follow Klick Health on Twitter at @KlickHealth. For more information on joining Klick, go to careers.klick.com.
About Klick Group
The Klick Group of companies—Klick Health (including Klick Katalyst), Klick Media Group, Klick Applied Sciences (including Klick Labs), Klick Consulting, Klick Ventures, and Sensei Labs—is an ecosystem of brilliant talent collectively working to maximize their people and clients’ full potential. Established in 1997, Klick has teams in New York, Philadelphia, Toronto, and across North America. Klick has consistently been named a Best Managed Company and Great Place to Work. In 2020, the company was recognized with 14 Best Workplace awards, including Best Workplaces for Women, Best Workplaces for Inclusion, Employee-Recommended Workplaces, Most Admired Corporate Cultures, and FORTUNE’s Best Places to Work in New York.
