Medicine Avenue: People On The Move
Intouch Solutions Promotes Four
Four employees have been promoted within Intouch Solutions’ Kansas City office: Debbie Smith, Michelle Armbruster, Katima Adriyel, and Chris Knoll.
Smith has been promoted from senior marketing analyst to manager of marketing analytics. She joined Intouch in October 2011. In her new role, Smith leads the day-to-day operations of a team of marketing analysts, managing workloads and coordinating deliverables. She also helps guide her team to enhance data interpretation and storytelling, as well as interface heavily with other analytics team members and various subject matter experts, including web developers, web designers, RM specialists, marketing strategists and account management.
Armbruster, who began working at Intouch in July 2013 as senior manager of relationship marketing, has become director of eCommunications. Armbruster now acts as senior contributor to client relationship marketing projects, focusing primarily on email and SMS implementation and deployment strategy.
Adriyel joined Intouch in 2008 as an account manager and now is director of marketing operations. In her new role, Adriyel leads the marketing operations department that supports Intouch on enterprise initiatives, global communications, compliance and data management.
Knoll is the longest-serving member of the quality services department, and in his new role as senior quality architect, he provides guidance for testing mobile applications, including Android and Apple solutions. Knoll’s new role is designed to capitalize on his strategic focus to improve mobile testing processes using standard best practices and new coverage techniques, as well as analyze potential impacts of mobile software and hardware changes upon Intouch projects.
New Senior VP at GA Communications Group
GA Communication Group has hired veteran marketer Chris Weber as senior VP, group account director.
GA executives say Weber, with his 24 years of healthcare agency experience on both the creative and account sides of the business, will help lead GA through a period of strong business growth. The agency expects that Weber’s deep experience in oncology and neurology will support the launches of multiple new brands and new drug indications, initially for products treating chronic lymphocytic leukemia and epilepsy. He reports to Nancy Finigan, president of GA.
“Chris is a wonderful hybrid whose professional expertise spans many areas of our business,” Finigan notes. “His combination of first-rate account management skills and award-winning creative talent make him a strong and welcome addition to our company, especially during our continuing expansion.”
According to agency leaders, Weber’s arrival comes at a crucial time in the agency’s history. GA has grown significantly in the past five years, launching 25 new brands and doubling its staff and revenue during that period.
Weber joined GA from Flashpoint Medica in New York, where he worked for two years as senior VP, planning director, on major U.S. and global accounts in oncology and diabetes. He also served as the strategic lead on the U.S. launch of a respiratory disease product.
Over the preceding 22 years, Weber worked in a succession of increasingly responsible leadership roles at Corbett Accel Healthcare Group (CAHG) in Chicago, starting as a copywriter in 1991 and rising through various creative and account management positions to the role of senior vice president, category leader, in 2012.
During this time, executives say he established himself as a gifted strategist and developed strong credentials in a wide range of disease categories, including ophthalmology, diabetes, HIV, CNS, and cardiology. He also played key leadership roles with two business units of CAHG, serving as senior vice president, group creative director of Surge Worldwide Healthcare Communications in New York from 2005 to 2006, and as senior vice president, managing director of Chicago-based Iris Global Clinical Trial Solutions in 2007.
A copywriter and creative director for almost 15 years before becoming a senior account leader, Weber has won numerous professional awards for his work, including prestigious Global Awards and Rx Club Gold Awards. He holds a B.A. in English from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill.
