Post-acute healthcare provider AccentCare has hired Heather Wilson as SVP and head of marketing and communications. 

Starting at the end of March, Wilson is overseeing all marketing and communication functions at AccentCare, including a marketing and comms team of 20. Her role encompasses corporate communications, employee engagement internal and external comms, crisis comms, all things marketing and working with AccentCare’s government relations team on public affairs initiatives. 

She reports to general counsel and secretary Tim Ryan in this role.

The marketing and comms lead position has been vacant for over a year. When Laura Tortorella joined AccentCare as CEO in October, one of her focuses was to reinvigorate the communications and marketing function, Wilson explained, which ultimately led to her being brought on board. 

“I could see there was an untold story with AccentCare on the amazing work that the caregivers and the clinicians were doing, and the ability to to help tell that story was really exciting to me,” Wilson said of her decision to move in-house. “There’s so many amazing stories that I hear every day with our caregivers out in the field and patients and families. I really want to be able to help tell that story better.”

Wilson joins AccentCare from TrailRunner International where she served as an MD in Los Angeles on the agency’s crisis and litigation team. Her replacement at TrailRunner has not been named. 

Before that, Wilson was a senior consultant at Silicon Valley communications firm Big Valley Marketing; MD and head of California for SKDK; and MD and head of the San Francisco office of Abernathy MacGregor, where she also led the firm’s digital and social media strategy. Wilson has also led corporate and crisis communications on the West Coast for Weber Shandwick, where she was EVP of corporate affairs. 

AccentCare is a nationwide post-acute healthcare system headquartered in Dallas. A subsidiary of Advent International, the company has regional partners in more than 250 locations across 31 states and offers services in personal, non-medical care, home health, palliative care, hospice, telehealth and care management.  

This article originally appeared on PRWeek US.