MM+M presents the 40 Under 40 list, highlighting marketers shining a spotlight on the industry’s breadth of young talent, many of whom are poised to lead the business in the decades ahead.

Navigate the list: A – F | G – L | M – R | S – Z

Scott Aldrich Jr., VP, global marketing and strategy, Motus GI

Scott Aldrich Jr.’s experience with medical device companies that operate with marketing as a hub means that he acts as a cross-functional leader, aligning marketing, operations, sales and strategy teams in product-driven collaboration. In his current role, Aldrich oversees marketing at medtech company Motus GI, whose goal is to improve the outcomes and cost-efficiency of colonoscopies. With hospitals and clinics hindered last year, the ever-adaptable Aldrich digitized Motus GI’s campaigns, enabling the company to continue the launch of a new product into the hospital market.


Kristin Alfieri-Waldie, senior product manager, marketing, Endo Pharmaceuticals

In 2019, Kristin Alfieri-Waldie pushed Xiaflex, which treats Dupuytren’s contracture and Peyronie’s disease, to double-digit growth after years of stagnancy, which earned her Endo Pharmaceuticals’ Marketer of the Year Award. She has worked on Xiaflex since joining Endo in 2015, bringing a customer-centric mindset honed over nine years of experience on the agency side. Her positivity and poise are extolled by her coworkers. “Kristin can make a Zoom meeting feel as personal as a live workshop,” says Nick Ferrara, executive director of marketing. “She is a strong collaborator, seeking to bring people and teams together for the greater good.”


Maedan Anda, VP, creative director, Precisioneffect

Maedan Anda’s advertising career arc is impressive: a job with Yellow Pages straight out of the Art Institute in San Diego, art director in McCann’s consumer digital division and 12 years as associate creative director at Precisioneffect before recently being promoted and losing the associate title. Her commitment to unpacking the complexity of illness and healthcare was deepened when her son was diagnosed with leukemia at age 4. Anda’s successes include overseeing an award-winning campaign for Cologuard, and she currently leads the AUVI-Q brand, an epinephrine auto-injector for life-threatening allergies. She has also become a leader within the agency, mentoring young art directors.


Veronica Berk, VP of client services, Clinical Trial Media

As she climbed the ranks of project management at Clinical Trial Media, Veronica Berk earned the trust of pharmaceutical heavyweights such as Novartis, Eli Lilly and Merck by excelling at the lost art of clinical trial enrollment. Over 15 years, Berk successfully filled hundreds of trials for treatments ranging from diabetes to schizophrenia, earning her a promotion last year to her current position, where she oversees trial enrollment globally. Somehow she still finds time to help care for her many nieces and nephews — she’s one of 11 siblings — and raise funds for philanthropic disease-fighting organizations such as the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, which honored her in 2019.


Melanie Brunner, SVP, Ogilvy Health

Melanie Brunner has spent most of her career working on improving cancer outcomes, leading to her current perch as Ogilvy Health’s lead on Bristol Myers Squibb’s oncology franchise. Brunner began her work with BMS by helping launch Yervoy, a first-of-its-kind immunotherapy for skin cancer. That led to an in-house role at BMS, before she returned to Ogilvy Health in 2018. Last year, Brunner’s team earned five FDA approvals — working virtually, no less, an environment she seems to thrive in, as her steady leadership, digital happy hours and “just checking in” calls helped keep company morale high.


Krystle Buntemeyer, president, Scorr Marketing

From intern to president: It’s not a well-trod career path, but it’s the one Krystle Buntemeyer has traveled at Scorr since 2005. Along the way, she’s interacted with more than 300 pharma, health and drug companies, and won awards such as a 2017 Marketer of the Year honor from the Omaha chapter of the American Marketing Association. Buntemeyer’s current role includes overseeing day-to-day operations and helping the growing company expand its global footprint. She’s also active in her community, including serving on the Kearney Area Chamber of Commerce.


Kate Callan, EVP, head of social media, Evoke Kyne

Kate Callan landed at Evoke Kyne right out of college and hasn’t stopped climbing the ranks since. Callan has driven at least 25% growth in social media revenue in each of the past three years, elevating what had been a specialty area into a robust social media and influencer practice. She has led award-winning campaigns across disease categories, highlighted by a patient-education program called Joint Decisions, which allows clients to collaborate with patient advocates living with rheumatoid arthritis. Her expertise has made her an in-demand speaker and campaign judge, all while raising two young sons at home.


Angelo Campano, SVP and principal, agency channels, OptimizeRx

As anyone who has worked in healthcare marketing can attest, fragmentation is the bane of the industry’s existence. That’s why Angelo Campano has been so valuable to the companies he’s worked for. His ability to connect siloed channels has enabled more effective communication, message distribution and outreach everywhere he’s gone. Campano joined OptimizeRx last fall after a stint at Ogilvy Health, where he introduced electronic health records capability and oversaw development and innovation in point-of-care practices. At OptimizeRx, he’s streamlining communications for the company’s life sciences partners, enabling growth. Campano is a connector outside the office, too: He volunteers with multiple charitable organizations, including the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and PETA.


Phil Dalton, VP, creative director, TBWA\WorldHealth

In just a few short years, Phil Dalton has become an expert in the oncology space, guiding successful launches for brands such as Lynparza and Opdivo. He decided to focus on oncology while a copywriter at McCann Health because oncology’s ever-shifting treatment paradigm posed an intellectual challenge matched only by its rewards. Dalton’s work on cutting-edge brands for lymphoma and renal cell carcinoma, among other specialties, for CDM NY, FCB Health and Grey Health Group earned him a management-level position at TBWA\WorldHealth. He also oversees charitable efforts at all agencies within Omnicom World Health and has helped formalize talent acquisition initiatives at TBWA.


Lauren Fliegelman, marketing manager II, AbbVie

Lauren Fliegelman has become an essential component of AbbVie’s women’s health team during her two years at the company. Her main focus is the endometriosis treatment Orilissa, but she wears many hats, including overseeing brand strategy, leading tactics across the marketing mix and developing new patient outreach streams during the pandemic. Through it all, colleagues say Fliegelman keeps the patient voice at the forefront of the team’s focus. Previous stops include a stint at Digitas Health and the PR firm Beekeeper Group.


Natalia Forsyth, SVP, head of influencer engagement, GCI Health

When it comes to patient engagement, Natalia Forsyth was ahead of the curve. On a 2009 trip to Nepal, she found that teens on the internet had formed online health communities, trading knowledge in an area with limited healthcare access. Forsyth took that insight and ran with it, first to Wego Health, where she built some of the first online health communities and pioneered patient-influencer engagement, then to Novartis, where she launched the award-winning Living Like You platform. In her first six months at GCI, she built out the agency’s influencer offering (including Walgreens’ largest influencer program) and launched a TikTok program for the Trevor Project. She also finds time to volunteer with refugees, teach yoga and consult across key client portfolios.


Dan Fredeman, associate director, U.S. oncology marketing, Daiichi Sankyo

When Dan Fredeman made the leap from scientific research to marketing in 2013, he brought with him insights from years in biomaterial and computational materials labs. He’s spent his entire marketing career in-house with the U.S. subsidiary of Daiichi Sankyo, Japan’s second-largest pharma company, helping guide oncology therapeutic launches while steering complex alliance projects such as an internal taskforce that brings together patients, oncologists and pharmacists. “As DSI has moved into an oncology focus, Dan has been someone who has grown to become a therapeutic area expert in his field,” says Don Murphy, Daiichi’s director of oncology product communications.


Marie Freeberg, senior director, alliance management, MyHealthTeams

As the woman in charge of managing partnerships between pharma companies and MyHealthTeams’ patient social networks, Marie Freeberg has been extra busy over the past year, when digital connections have been more important than ever. She’s launched more than a dozen patient education initiatives in that time. Freeberg’s educational background in biomedical engineering and translational medicine, plus prior experience in pharma consulting, inform her current role, which straddles consumer insights, brand management and marketing, editorial content and legal review teams to improve real-world patient experience.


Caitlin Fulford, senior director of account strategy, Verywell

Caitlin Fulford likes to describe her approach to account management as “white-glove service.” A do-it-all marketing whiz, Fulford’s colleagues say she has transformed account strategy at Verywell in two short years, driving over 50% revenue growth and 95% renewal rate across campaigns for the health and wellness website. Her strategic makeover included optimizing workflows and campaign analytics reporting to developing new advertising offerings and competitive pricing models. Outside the office, she’s a member of the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association and a registered yoga teacher.


Sam Glassenberg, CEO and founder, Level Ex

Sam Glassenberg must be one of the only people to make the leap from video games to healthcare, though it may be more accurate to say he fused the two seemingly disparate industries six years ago when he founded Level Ex, which creates video games for physicians. Glassenberg has a nous for innovation. Just last year, he added COVID-19 levels to teach frontline doctors how to diagnose and treat patients during the pandemic. And Brainlab’s 2020 acquisition of Level Ex marked the first time a video game studio was acquired by a major healthcare company. Glassenberg is also involved in nonprofits working on K-8 education and solar energy.


Kristen Hartman, chief client officer, Wego Health

Kristen Hartman excels at designing marketing campaigns in partnership with patients, so it makes sense that she landed at Wego Health, an industry pioneer in patient engagement tactics. In her decade with the company, she rocketed up the ranks from team member to the C-suite, where she oversees client services and leads strategy and development for integrated projects. Her colleagues extol her influence on the company culture, which earned Wego Health a 2020 Best Places To Work honor from MM+M.


Michael Hennessy, CEO and president, MJH Life Sciences

Growing up in the family business, Michael Hennessy could’ve coasted to the top. Instead, in his two years as CEO and president, he has modernized MJH Life Sciences, driving growth with a digital/video-first strategy, events innovation and smart acquisitions (such as UBM Life Sciences Group). Under Hennessy’s leadership, MJH Life Sciences has built an in-house digital content studio, embraced enterprise data and technology platforms and launched a slew of new offerings across multiple channels. That flexibility and partner reach enabled the company to quickly form a COVID-19 Coalition to help keep healthcare professionals informed of the latest coronavirus science.


Amy Houck, director of digital marketing, Pascale Communications

Amy Houck’s social media career goes back to the era of online forums. She teamed up with Pascale, where in the last few years she has boosted ROI for clients more than six fold. Houck works closely with her team to create targeted paid media plans for healthcare brands. She’s also active outside the office as a mother of two, a participant in digital marketer groups and an avid painter.


Dr. Harshit Jain, CEO and founder, Doceree

Dr. Harshit Jain’s adroit use of data to drive innovative campaigns has garnered him many awards, including a Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Good. After earning his M.D. in internal medicine, Jain established India’s first bone marrow donor registry, then jumped to the marketing side with McCann Health, where he held a series of leadership positions. An entrepreneur at heart, his latest venture Doceree is a programmatic marketing platform that allows pharma companies to efficiently target doctors with precision messaging. The theory? Lower advertising costs will help reduce drug prices overall.


Sarah Kalosa, media director, Smarty Social Media

Being a digital native has helped Sarah Kalosa adapt to the ever-changing nature of social advertising. Since graduating college with a degree in mathematics and statistics in 2013, Kalosa has leveled up from company to company, bringing with her a book of clients whose social media strategies she’s expanded (and, in some cases, created anew). But her colleagues say she’s not a one-trick pony, but a “rare unicorn” who pitches in on overall account strategy and has won numerous industry awards for clients. Kalosa goes the extra mile in her spare time, too: She’s run five half-marathons.


Brittany Latson, managing partner, account and operations, HashtagHealth

Brittany Latson spent a decade working for Disney, but her educational background and passion for science made for a natural transition to healthcare communications. She held a succession of account management roles at agencies including BGB and McCann RCW, but her sense that social media remains underutilized by the industry led her in 2015 to cofound HashtagHealth, one of the first social media agencies to focus exclusively on healthcare. The agency surpassed its 5-year goals in just 18 months, and has worked with Agios, Epizyme and Amgen, among other companies.


V.A. Lopes, SVP, Pryme Agency

V.A. Lopes has worn many hats in her 20-year healthcare career, but an early stint in market research fresh out of college taught her the importance of data to behavioral marketing, which has guided her since. After working for heavyweights such as McCann Regan Campbell Ward and Calyx Health and in the biotech/startup environment, she landed at Pryme in late 2019, where she applies her experience and behavioral insights to overall brand strategies, marketing campaigns and partner relationships. V.A. is also a mentor for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and a field leader for Komera, a nonprofit that builds schools for girls in Rwanda.


Bernice Ma, associate principal, digital health practice, Evolution Road

Bernice Ma has been using technology to tackle healthcare challenges since she was an undergrad at Carnegie Mellon. Then, she worked for a tiny startup that developed a computer-assisted system to help orthopedic surgeons perform hip replacements. As a summer intern at Siemens, Ma contributed to the company’s first quality measures solution, then went on to work in strategy at Digitas Health, Klick Health and now Evolution Road. Colleagues say Ma’s passion for digital innovation is matched only by her love for her goldendoodle, Bowsie.


Chris Mateo, senior business strategy manager, healthcare, Microsoft

After a decade in the healthcare industry, Chris Mateo joined Microsoft in 2018 with a purpose: To figure out how to leverage technology to eliminate barriers to health access. The mission is personal, as Mateo’s family has experienced firsthand the difficulties of navigating America’s complicated healthcare system due to language barriers and providers that aren’t speaking to diverse populations. His biggest accomplishment so far is launching Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, the technology giant’s first industry offering, which combines computer services for data and AI, productivity and collaboration, and business process into one solution.


Shannon Mitchell, associate director of U.S. consumer media, Merck

Shannon Mitchell’s patient-first mentality and consumer marketing background intersect at Merck, where she has directed print and digital media planning across consumer channels since 2017. She excels at bringing brand messaging to the point of care, improving patient-physician dialogue and, ultimately, health outcomes. She does this in part via an old-school faith in the power of print, believing that targeted print advertising drives better brand loyalty and recall in our fast-paced, over-inundated digital world. The results don’t lie: An average of 3-to-1 ROI for clients across category and disease state.


Zoila Mora, VP, medical and scientific services, Ashfield MedComms

Zoila Mora first joined Ashfield MedComms as an editorial assistant back in 2005, but her goal was always to be a medical writer. Her creative abilities flourished as she accepted writing tasks and worked her way up the company ladder to her current role overseeing medical and scientific services. Her primary area of interest is oncology, and she’s helped launch two major immuno-oncology therapies with Bristol Myers Squibb, from participating in trial design to guiding medical strategy and communications.


Michael Morgan, VP of business development, Mesmerize

Michael Morgan’s first task after being hired by Mesmerize in 2019 was a doozy: Expand a recently acquired digital point-of-care network. Relying on prior experience with PatientPoint, Morgan added a range of pharmacies, doctors’ offices, clinics and community-based organizations, installing more than 2,000 digital media screens that connect patients to educational information. He was quickly promoted to VP of business development; he also started a leadership coaching club within the company. Outside the office, he’s involved in charitable initiatives with the HIV/AIDS community.


Smita Mukherjee, associate director, U.S. multiple myeloma marketing, Bristol Myers Squibb

Smita Mukherjee’s entry into healthcare marketing is unique: While conducting post-doctoral research on Alzheimer’s at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, she became intrigued by the industry’s commercial aspect. After earning her MBA at Wharton, Mukherjee worked in oncology marketing for Novartis before joining Bristol Myers Squibb in 2020. She plays an integral role on the marketing team for the multiple myeloma treatment Revlimid, one of the largest drugs in the U.S. (more than $8 billion in overall U.S. sales in 2020). Mukherjee has developed innovative marketing strategies and tactics for the sales team members to engage with healthcare professionals, especially in response to COVID-19.


Colin O’Young, director, video production, Klick Health

Colin O’Young joined Klick Health as a paid intern to fund his Master of Education studies, but his teaching background ended up proving useful to the agency as well. His ability to explain detailed concepts got him hired as the learning and development coordinator; later, he built the company’s video production team from the ground up. It’s now an integral part of the business, with 12 staffers and a bushel of awards, including an MM+M Gold Award for an unbranded Versed on HPV campaign. O’Young also moonlights on guitar, bass and drums for Klick’s in-house band, The Dead Pixels.


Chris Paquette, CEO and cofounder, DeepIntent

Founding a company is one thing; tripling revenue year-over-year for four straight years is another. That’s what Chris Paquette has accomplished with DeepIntent, a programmatic advertising platform that leverages machine learning and AI to reach 320 million patients and 1.6 million HCPs. Paquette cut his teeth in data analytics at Memorial Sloan Kettering, but his realization of the impact technology can have on health goes back to his college years, when he developed an algorithm that mined genome data to detect metastatic breast cancer. DeepIntent now serves seven of the 10 largest life sciences companies advertising in the U.S.


Kat Piscatelli, group account director, VMLY&R

Within the global marketing agency VMLY&R, Kat Piscatelli creates branding for pharma giants such as Pfizer, Allergan, Merck and Sanofi. Her specialty is product launches, and she’s worked on memorable campaigns including Body Language (for Xeljanz), Ahh Sleep (Belsomra) and Yesss! (Linzess). In her current role, Piscatelli is responsible for $15 million in revenue — and she’s the youngest person to be named a group account director in VMLY&R’s health practice. Colleagues describe her as a “high-octane, innovative force of nature,” but one who always makes time for her family as well.


Jodi Reimer, strategy director, Heartbeat

Jodi Reimer climbed the ranks in account management at agencies such as Grey and Saatchi & Saatchi, with a heavy-hitter client list including Verizon, Samsung and Blue Cross Blue Shield. When she switched to strategy, she jumped straight into the deep end, advising Allergan on acquisitions and creative development. Reimer is Heartbeat’s “client whisperer,” with a nose for creative thinking that led to double-digit growth in 2020, her first full year with the company. She is currently spearheading work on a women’s health product from Agile Therapeutics. Reimer also pulls double-duty guiding her daughters’ successful Hollywood careers — they were most recently in the Sofia Coppola-directed film On the Rocks.


Liz Risenberg, product marketing director, Lumenis

Not many marketing careers begin in the Israeli Defense Forces, but not many people have proven as multi-talented as Liz Risenberg. Risenberg spent six years in the IDF’s Military Prosecution department before leaving to get an MBA at London Business School. From there she worked at Strategy& (formerly Booz and Company), where she became drawn to healthcare. At Lumenis, Risenberg has led double-digit growth through development of a new product line for dry eye and new digital capabilities for glaucoma devices. She also spearheads the vision team’s global training efforts, which aligns nicely with her passion for world travel.


Antonio Rivera, associate director of inclusion and diversity, Intouch Group

Big pharma has talked a lot about health equity recently, but it’s people like Antonio Rivera who help turn that into action from the agency side. As associate director of inclusion and diversity, Rivera has overseen a 16% year-over-year increase in BIPOC representation at Intouch Group, which in turn leads to more inclusive marketing. He also oversees the agency’s internal Inclusion and Diversity Alliance, which is charged with increasing multicultural competency. In his spare time, Rivera is involved with the Chicagoland Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Alliance and the “By Chicago, For Chicago” initiative.

Hila Shabtai, urology marketing director, Lumenis

Hila Shabtai is comfortable in male-dominated fields. As a commander with the Israeli Defense Forces, Shabtai was the first woman to lead an all-male, 100-member field company. From there, she worked in corporate finance at Procter & Gamble, managed mergers and acquisitions for billion-dollar tech corporations at KPMG Advisory and was a portfolio manager at the venture capital firm Viola Ventures. After 2.5 years at Lumenis, she was promoted to urology marketing director, where she boosted market share for the company’s BPH domain around the launch of the cutting-edge laser, MOSES 2.0.


Crystal Son, director, healthcare analytics, Civis Analytics

Crystal Son’s career in health began in government with the New York City Department of Public Health and Mental Hygiene, where she translated lab data into diabetes management solutions for HCPs and patients. Son leads the healthcare practice at Civis with a mission to make marketing more data-driven and precise. She was recently tapped by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to lead a team of epidemiologists in analyzing and translating COVID-19 case data, and making recommendations for preventative health measures. A certified Project Management Professional and hospital Infection Prevention Practitioner, Son also holds a Master of Public Health degree with an epidemiology concentration.


Jamie Van Iderstine, SVP, client engagement, Cyan Health

Jamie Van Iderstine was employee No. 1 for Cyan Health, joining as a market access consultant when she was 27. Six years later, she’s the lead on two of the agency’s largest accounts and is in charge of its marketing efforts — among other teams she manages. Van Iderstine drove Cyan Health to its best year ever in 2020, with 100% client retention, 40% revenue growth and 38% staff increase. Colleagues say her recent management of a major account through multiple client lead transitions is emblematic of her strategic prowess, brand stewardship and effective client engagement.


Renee Watson, supervisor, client engagement, Elevate Healthcare

Renee Watson’s first assignment after joining Elevate Healthcare in 2016 was on Kaléo’s Evzio naloxone auto-injector, a crucial tool in the fight against the opioid epidemic. Her success earned her a spot on Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy Synthes account, where she was a key player on the launches of the Velys Digital Surgery platform and Velys Robotic-Assisted Solution for surgery. Within Elevate, Watson is well-liked for her tenacity and fun-loving spirit. She also volunteers with Bringing Hope Home, a Philadelphia nonprofit that supports families suffering from cancer.



James Woodland, chief strategy and financial officer, CMI Media Group and Compas

CMI Media Group and Compas has had double-digit growth every year for years now — even in 2020 — and a significant part of that can be credited to James Woodland’s leadership. In his nearly 20 years with the agency, Woodland has redesigned the company’s structure, led during the transition after WPP acquired CMI Media in 2015, created the commercial team and instituted an OKR process that every employee uses as a guide to achieve goals. He is also dedicated philanthropically, as a member of the Life Sciences Angel Network, an investment group focusing on life science and health IT.


Jason Zemcik, senior director, project management, TrialCard

In his current role at TrialCard, Jason Zemcik manages the TC Synapse suite of risk mitigation and compliance tools to safeguard pharmaceutical manufacturer co-pay programs. It’s the latest of many hats Zemcik has worn for the biopharma solutions company — director of clinical operations, corporate marketing communications manager, operations manager for reporting and analytics, and manager of co-pay and voucher programs — driving growth and establishing TrialCard as a market leader. An Army vet and avid Pittsburgh sports fan, Zemcik has a Bronze Star Medal for service in Afghanistan, an Army Commendation Medal for service in Iraq and he has written nine sports books.