ACUMED:SMT Overview

Senior Management Team Overview

At the heart of every successful business is a management team that leads the business forward and gives it purpose and direction. The senior people in the organisation reflect its style, its behaviour and its character and, while they of course have commercial success at the forefront of their minds, at ACUMED® our senior team are just as likely to be the ones who get the coffee or roll their sleeves up on-site and help out.

Shaun Chilton

Shaun has 18 years’ experience within the pharmaceutical industry both on the client and service sides of the business. Following sales and marketing roles for both Sanofi-Aventis and Pfizer, Shaun has held various commercial leadership positions in healthcare communications in both Europe and the USA, Shaun’s role is to ensure ACUMED delivers to the highest standards of quality in strategic and tactical scientific and commercial direction and delivery.

Outside of work, Shaun recently survived the Great North Run and is still feeling the pain of adjusting his expectations as a Leeds United supporter!

Melissa Piper

Melissa joined ACUMED in 2000, direct from a product management role with a leading pharma organisation. As a Senior VP at ACUMED Melissa is responsible for the overall management of a range of client business and the associated agency team, who deliver results to the highest standards. She drives for success in everything she does and is fiercely committed to supporting her team and her clients. Melissa’s strengths lie in developing strategic communications programmes to effectively position her clients now and in the future. As an active mum of two, Melissa is proficient at juggling, multi-tasking and forward planning. However, her dancing leaves a little to be desired!

Gill Adair

Following university, Gill gained six years experience in the pharmaceutical industry in various sales roles in the UK before joining ACUMED. She has progressed consistently in her 10 years with the agency into senior management as a Senior Vice President. Gill’s creative and business strengths are her ability to add a different dimension and commercial insight to client’s short and long-term challenges in all aspects of strategic healthcare communications. Along the way she has crossed many time zones and completed light years of travelling and, aside from her impressive collection of airline loyalty cards, she now has an extensive knowledge of many different clients, products, cultures, languages and airports! Of course all this globe-trotting has added a healthy measure of spice to Gill’s life, not least of which involves her interesting interpretation of foreign wine lists and numerous diverse shopping trips; from street markets in South Africa to Haute Couture in Paris and Manhattan.

Liz Boden

7 years of pharma experience and 13 years at ACUMED have seen Liz in a variety of commercial and client services roles, working on products that affect parts of the body most people don’t know exist, getting excited about scientific data and deciding how best to communicate it. Her career has taken her all over the world, requiring her to work at all times of the day and night and to overcome many language barriers to make herself and the needs of her clients understood.

Along the way, it’s been tremendous fun and she’s met some amazing people. Liz finds it very rewarding to work in an industry committed to improving diagnosis, treatment and survival of many common diseases that could affect us all. She’s proud to claim expertise in business acumen, motivational team leadership and strategic and creative solutions for all types of healthcare communications.

More recently Liz is pleased to have achieved a work/life balance working part time and being mum to 2 young children. Never a dull moment at work or at home!

Karen Forrest

Originally from Canada where she began her career in radio and television advertising, Karen joined ACUMED in 2002 as an Account Manager from a direct marketing and advertising company. This was her first foray into the world of pharmaceuticals. In addition to various Account Management responsibilities, Karen played a significant role in New Business generation and the development of new client relationships. As VP, Client Services, she has extensive experience in both commercial and clinically focussed medical education programmes. Karen is currently on maternity leave following the latest addition to her family.

Andrew Thompson

To sum Andrew up you need just one word – personality! His former career in marketing with British Airways saw him living out his dream in Sydney but with the downturn in the travel industry and on his return from ‘Down Under’ he decided to transfer his skills to the agency world.

Now, with seven and a half years’ experience to add to his marketing background, Andrew has risen from Account Manager to Vice President, Client Services. He combines his people-oriented attitude to life with a strong work ethic to achieve outstanding results for his clients, ACUMED, his team members and above all himself. He maintains a healthy work/life balance with his wife and two young children and lately he’s been playing the extra role of ‘Mr Mum’ as his wife has started a teacher training course – mornings have never been such good fun! As for interests, Andrew is passionate about golf, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and all things Manchester United.

Lisa Druce

One of the more recent additions to the ACUMED Senior Management Team. Lisa joined us straight from University as a Project Assistant and in the 8 years she has been with the company she has worked her way through 5 promotions to VP, Client Services. Lisa has broad experience with products spanning the various life-cycle stages and is known for her strength at building client relationships. When not en-route to Switzerland, Lisa can be found pounding the netball courts around Manchester.(not that she’s competitive!).

Stephen Jones

With a diverse background, including farming in Wales and dentistry, a new career path into medical journalism brought Stephen to ACUMED in a medical writing role. The last 15 years have seen Stephen visiting all corners of the globe, conversing with clients and experts in every therapy area you can think of and managing teams of writing staff to deliver the extensive range of healthcare communications an evolving pharma industry dictates. At the forefront of compliance and scientific strategy, Stephen is an active member of ISMPP and was one of the first to become a certified medical publications specialist.

In his spare time, Stephen stays true to his roots, being one of the few Wrexham supporters willing to be identified, following the Scarlets at rugby and raising his heart rate by running 10k through the Welsh hills and valleys.

Bill Sargent

Bill joined ACUMED after careers in both academia and the pharma industry. With a Ph.D. in physiology and after a number of years conducting research and teaching at a medical school, he joined Hoechst-Roussel in the Scientific Affairs department where he held a number of senior positions including Director of Product Development and Director of Regulatory Affairs. He then joined Searle Pharmaceuticals as President and General Manager of Lorex, a joint venture with Synthelabo before moving to Pfizer as Senior Director for Antiangiogenic Agents in the Medical Affairs group. Bill joined ACUMED in 2007 to apply his considerable experience to establishing and growing the US office in Manhattan.

Outside of work, Bill interests include travel, golf and a formidable reputation as a wine connoisseur.

Chrysta Dick

Chrysta joined as HR Manager in mid 2009 and enjoys being part of the ACUMED senior management team as well as the global HR team for the group. She has over 8 years HR experience in professional services and recently returned to full time work after a period of maternity leave.

Working alongside extremely talented, professional and creative individuals makes HR life very challenging, rewarding and fun! A strong reputation for excellent talent management and people development enables ACUMED to attract and retain the best talent in the business. Chrysta is committed to providing a high level HR service to the business and works closely with managers to equip them with the necessary skills to become the best people managers.

Chrysta once auditioned to be the ‘Big Breakfast’ weather presenter and has also appeared on ‘Bargain Hunt’!

Neil Marmont

Neil joined ACUMED in 2006, after several positions with other medical communications agencies in London and Cheshire. Prior to this, Neil worked in pharma in various commercial and scientific roles, providing a solid grounding for his career in med comms. As Vice President, Medical and Scientific Services, Neil’s role is to lead the team to develop and implement the highest-quality medical education programmes which deliver on strategic and educational objectives. Neil has significant experience in line management and works closely with the other members of the ACUMED SMT on ensuring that ACUMED offers opportunity and development for all members of the scientific team. team. Outside of work, Neil is an avid sports fan and follower of Liverpool FC. However, his time on the golf course has been curtailed in recent years following the arrival of two young sons!

Tim Mustill

Tim is both the newest (started with ACUMED in 2010) and one of the oldest (25+ years in healthcare) members of the ACUMED Senior Management Team. After 12 years in the pharma industry in a range of roles across clinical research, training, sales and marketing he has been plying his trade in medical communications for a further 14 years. There are very few therapy areas in which he has not worked and Tim brings with him experience of all stages of the product life cycle. When not helping our clients with their strategic planning or supporting the client services team he can be found on the piste or on the golf course (if he had his way, simultaneously!).