Havas Health & You has named Laura Mizrahi chief creative officer at its flagship H4B Chelsea agency, the company announced this morning. 

The industry veteran joins Chelsea, a 2022 MM+M Agency 100 honoree, following a stint as executive creative director at FCB Health NY. Prior to that, Mizrahi led the New York creative department at Razorfish Health. 

Mizrahi started her new role last week and reports to HH&Y global chief creative officer Eric Weisberg.

Mizrahi characterized Chelsea as “the right fit,” noting that she and Weisberg are like-minded in their approach to healthcare marketing. She also touted the importance of an “intersection between technology and humanity” in all creative work.

To that end, Mizrahi said she is excited about the increasing popularity of AI, which marks yet another example of the blurring line between art and copy.

“I have a few ideas as it relates to bringing innovation in to further the cause of health equity with the health systems and technology that already exist today,” she explained. “We want to integrate some of our thinking to bring care to people and get them into the clinical trials that they might not otherwise have access to.”

Asked about the broader economic climate, Mizrahi said she hopes to lead Chelsea in an empathetic and inclusive manner. She added that healthcare communications is at a point where it can leverage the considerable reputation boost it earned during the pandemic to further the mission of patient care.

Mizrahi’s hire represents the latest personnel move at Chelsea, long one of the most prominent health marketing agency brands under the Havas Health & You umbrella. It recently saw its president Christian Bauman decamp for The Bloc in late April. Additionally, numerous Chelsea alumni have ascended to leadership posts at other creative agencies.

In addition to Bauman, Jay Appel works at The Bloc, Anna Kotis is a leader at Imre, Michael McNamara serves as managing director at McKinney, Jill Beene heads up McCann Health New Jersey, John Clarkson serves as EVP and group managing director at 21Grams and Tracy Zuto runs creative at Wunderman Thompson Health.

For Havas as a whole, it’s been an eventful summer. The agency announced in July that HH&Y CEO Donna Murphy would be adding Havas Creative Group to her purview. Weeks later, ViiV Healthcare named HH&Y as its single global agency of record, which Murphy characterized as the year’s “biggest pitch in our industry.”
Over the summer the agency launched Republica Havas Health, which will be helmed by CEO Jorge Plasencia. It also named Elizabeth Egan as CEO of HH&Y Europe and appointed David Leonardi as creative chief for Havas Tonic.