Less than five months after getting off the ground, Consulting at McCann Health is adding two top leaders to manage its rapid growth.
The hiring of managing directors Jamie Avallone in New York and Mark Archer in London is driven by client demand, Simon Holt, president of Consulting at McCann Health, said in an email interview. The practice consolidated McCann Health’s consulting groups in September with the intent to bring fresh thinking to healthcare and pharma strategy. One of its goals is to help pharma companies develop as lifestyle brands versus being simply the product brand owners.
Avallone joins from Manhattan Research, where he headed advisory services, and Archer joins from inVentiv Health, where was executive VP and global head of business development. Archer previously held top roles at Sanofi and pharma services company Quintiles.
“Clients are increasingly inviting us to consult for them as they look for alternatives to their incumbent advisors, particularly when new points of view or fresh energy is required to address often stubborn issues in strategy and operations,” Holt said.
While declining to discuss specific new business, he said the outreach to the new organization has been “terrific” and that the team has worked on several large-scale projects, including handling all commercial functions for organizations and reinventing approaches to issues such as evidence generation and pricing.
As for the future? “One thing for sure, we’ll be steering toward stubborn issues that have driven C-suite executives crazy in pharma and healthcare companies,” he said, while moving away from “the same old same old in professional business advisory services.”