Moderna and Amgen alum Ray Jordan has launched his own agency called Putnam Insights.
The firm will provide clients with a full consulting-services portfolio within corporate affairs and corporate communications. Jordan is serving as its founding principal. Putnam Insights is operating as a remote organization with staff based in Southern California, Boston, Washington, DC, New York and New Jersey.
The consultancy will be focused on regulated industries, such as healthcare. The agency is launching with two clients. One is Synairgen, a U.K.-based clinical-stage respiratory drug-discovery and development company. Synairgen is developing a nebulized COVID-19 treatment. Jordan declined to disclose the other client.
Putnam Insights is also developing “packaged service offerings,” Jordan said, noting one would give clients “surround sound of external input as you face real-time crises or opportunities.” Another one is a “process for assessing and revising your enterprise messaging strategy and narrative,” he said.
The pharma-sector comms veteran came up with the idea to provide “packaged service offerings” to clients based on challenges he encountered in his career.
“Over the course of being a [chief communications officer] in different environments, I was often called on for significant projects that were not projects I was involved in on a regular basis,” said Jordan. “To address those projects, I used to call on general service agencies to help me put together a program or project to address the needs. For Putnam Insights, I thought It would be more sensible to think of packaging into more coherent strategic bundles for activities that were needed.”
The agency will have a roster of advisers it can deploy to provide strategic support to chief communications officers.
“We are doing it as subcontracting arrangements, but with partnerships into the LLC,” said Jordan. “They will be product leaders for the strategic packages we offer. Those folks will participate as owners. At this point, it is not clear if it will be an employee relationship [with them] or not.”
Jordan named the firm “Putnam” because throughout his life he has been a resident of or lived near streets of that name.
“The ‘insights’ part of the name focuses on the advisory work we provide to CCOs,” said Jordan. “So rather than the blocking and tackling that might be done at a broader-based full-service agency, we wanted to focus on how to bring insights to the CCO.”
Jordan joined Moderna as chief corporate affairs officer in June 2020, reporting to CEO Stéphane Bancel, and was also a member of Moderna’s executive committee. While there, he worked on comms for the company’s COVID-19 vaccine. He left the company in September 2021.
Jordan has also worked at Amgen, which he joined in October 2012 as SVP of corporate affairs. He led communications for six product launches over a six-year period, according to a Moderna statement.
Jordan also led communications at Johnson & Johnson for nine years, starting the company’s first blog and enhancing its social media use. He was routinely featured on PRWeek’s Power List while at J&J.
Previously, Jordan worked in various positions at Pfizer for 17 years, most recently as VP of communications and information.
This story was first published on prweek.com.
