Klick’s recent expansion and hiring spate is sounding more like a resounding “BOOM” than a subtle “click.”
The pharma marketing agency’s CEO Lori Grant announced the appointments of a slew of industry veterans to head the company’s newly expanded global leadership team.
Jennifer Lambert and Roberta Raduan have joined as the company’s first global managing directors in charge of Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Latin America (LATAM), respectively, with Michael Becker, Shaun Chalk and Catherine MacInnis leading global operations and growth. The new hires will work with longtime “Klicksters” Glen Webster, who is now executive vice president of global operations, and Jennifer White, global head of growth.
These hires follow on Klick’s massive expansion from North America into hubs in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, EMEA and LATAM.
It’s all a lot really fast; what’s the rush?
“I think it the the answer really lies in the reimagining of the model, and the ability to have a frictionless deployment of your talent around the world,” Grant said. “So rather than kind of going one by one, which is traditionally what you see, our approach has been. ‘Listen, let's just arrive, shall we?’ And when we arrive, we will have the talent in place. The clients will experience a frictionless model and it will be a reimagined version of what it is to be global.”
Klick prides itself on being different in how it does things, and much of that is tied to a strong focus the company’s culture, which is at the core of everything it is and does.
“There's something uniquely Klick about the fact that we're doing it this way,” Ari Schaefer, co-president of Klick Health, agreed. “We see these types of opportunities and challenges as being solvable by us and in ways that others can’t—because of our heritage, our hacker roots and our willingness to see problems as interesting opportunities to solve with interesting solutions and incredibly talented and passionate people to help solve them.
"The other thing is that we're also moving at the speed because there's an incredible amount of demand. Our clients are clamoring for this type of delivery model, this type of strategic model, this type of talent that we're able to pull in across the organization across the global markets. So moving quickly really gives us an advantage because we believe we're creating something that's differentiated and we expect to get a lot of attention for that.”
Schaefer points out how the whole project is being built from the ground up, so there’s no cobbling together to try to integrate all the locations, meaning it’s all up and running in Klick fashion very quickly (Klickly?), which makes for seamless integration between all offices even if they are on different continents.
“There's an opportunity to use a resource in our U.K. office for some critical need in Singapore because of their skill. We don't have to go through any excessive rigmarole to make that happen. It operates that way because it's designed to operate that way.”
In addition to the talk of culture, another aspect of the company is very proud of is its focus on healthcare and only healthcare. Klick considers this part of the secret of its success—no matter what country its in.
“I think the focus on health is a plus when you go to local markets,” Raduan, the new global managing director of LATAM, said.
"Of course, we have competitors here, but they do everything and health. What we're talking here is that we're building something with a network that is 100% focused on health, which is different.”
But it always comes back to the Klick culture for the clients and the employees.
Lambert, who’s heading EMEA, says, "I was really inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit that Klick offers. That's something really unique and something that really excites people, being able to be part of something from the ground up is is a very exciting thing. I think the culture is one of the things that really attracted me to not only this role, but to be the part of the team to be a ‘Klickster.’"