Edelman, the leading communications firm, has had made another raft of appointments within its health team. The moves build on several senior hires and other promotions made earlier this year and reflect the diversification and growth of Edelman’s healthcare offer.
Davide Scalenghe has joined as Head of Global Public Health, and will be based in the London office. Davide brings more than 20 years of international experience in strategic communications, content production and broadcasting, with a focus on public health, humanitarian affairs and international development. He has worked with many of the leading organisations in this arena including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNAIDS and Oxford Policy Management. He also spent a year in the field in the Democratic Republic of Congo for Doctors without Borders. Davide’s primary role at Edelman will be to build upon the agency’s existing work in global public health which includes clients like Gavi and MSD. He will also work with his counterparts across the Edelman network, notably those in the US.
Emma Lynn, who joined the agency as Global Health Deputy last year, will expand her role to focus on leading and building Edelman’s growing portfolio of corporate health business. Emma will bring her experience, from more than 16 years in leading corporate affairs roles at Pfizer, to the newly created role of Managing Director, Global Health Sector and Head of Corporate Health UK. Emma’s remit will focus on two growth areas for Edelman: corporate reputation for clients with a health background, and companies who need to communicate about health and wellbeing through corporate storytelling.
Louise Clark joins Edelman from Novartis in a newly created position as Executive Director and AstraZeneca Client Director EMEA. The establishment of this role expands the global leadership team within the agency to support AstraZeneca, one of Edelman’s leading health clients. Leveraging her experience in leadership roles at Novartis and Pfizer, Louise’s appointment will further strengthen the existing bench of senior counsellors, ensuring AstraZeneca clients across EMEA can access the highest levels of expertise. She will also lead and coach AstraZeneca client teams and work closely with her counterparts across the globe.
Edelman is also focused on further expansion of the firm’s regional health hub in London, with the hire of Ross Taylor as Head of Digital Health. His appointment recognises the exponential growth of digital health as a specialism and will build on Edelman’s existing digital capabilities both within the health sector and across the wider central digital team (in London, EMEA and globally). Ross has extensive experience in envisioning and delivering international digital transformation programmes across a wide range of healthcare clients, such as Bayer, Merck, Boehringer and Kyowa Kirin. Ross previously led digital and innovation health teams at RAPP/Omnicom and Digitas Health/Publicis.
The rapid growth seen in Edelman’s healthcare sector through 2021 has continued into this year. In the 12 months to June 2022, Edelman’s health business within EMEA grew by 18.5%, both due to new assignments for existing clients like AstraZeneca and the addition of new clients including Abbott and Sanofi.
Carolyn Paul, EMEA Health Chair, said of these appointments:
“While the impact of COVID-19 may have lessened, the rapid and continuing growth in our health business shows no sign of slowing down. Our existing clients continue to show their faith with new and important assignments, while new clients have been attracted the promise of co-creating award-winning and world-changing work. These new appointments will enable us to continue to deliver on this promise”.