POSITION OVERVIEW:

Ogilvy Health is seeking a highly motivated and experienced VP, New Business to lead and drive strategic pitch processes for large, complex healthcare opportunities. This key role will be highly visible at the most senior levels of Ogilvy Health and will require collaborative leadership across highly specialized, cross-disciplinary teams. Reporting to the Chief Growth Officer, this role will be responsible for leading and supporting purposeful growth across our teams in North America.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Pitch Leadership: Lead mid-to-large new business pitches for as a strategic architect, facilitating the entire pitch process from opportunity qualification through proposal development and pitch delivery. Guide integrated teams crafting compelling strategies and narratives that balance breakthrough, culture-shifting creativity with medical/scientific accuracy and regulatory compliance.
• Creative Ambition: Works across disciplines to foster a culture of creative ambition, championing bold and winning creative concepts that go beyond the RFP by showcasing a creative vision that challenges standard healthcare communications conventions.
• Scientific & Creative Integration: Partners closely with scientific, medical, strategy, and creative leads to ensure clinical data and complex disease-state landscapes are translated into compelling, human-centric creative narratives.
• Strategic Alignment: Leads discussions with pitch teams on “what will win this” and “how do we make this even better?,” ensuring our recommendations addresses specific commercial challenges and tell a compelling story for our prospective clients, helping them envision their brand’s highest potential.
• Pitch Preparation: Ensures the pitch team has relevant brand, clinical, regulatory, and competitive background. Gives strategic and effective feedback to the team throughout the process.
• Client & Procurement Relations: Helps build relationships with C-suite, commercial leads, and pharmaceutical procurement teams throughout the process. Develops and owns relationships with key health-specific pitch consultants.
• Ogilvy Group & WPP Integration: Serve as a partner and collaborator both with our sister agencies in Ogilvy Health Group and our WPP partners, providing leadership and support to help drive network and integrated pitches.
• Financial & Operational Oversight: Works with Project Management and Finance on the best financial and staffing model approach (SOWs, FTE allocations, and rate cards specific to health/pharma). Understands internal resource costs and aligns growth goals to investment and expected ROI.
• Quality & Execution: Ensures everything delivered meets our exceedingly high standards—both in scientific content accuracy and design/creative execution.
• Industry Expertise: Acquires and maintains a thorough knowledge of major pharma, biotech  and consumer health care trends, therapeutic categories, digital health innovation, and market access/payer dynamics to regularly educate agency leadership on market developments.
• Talent & Culture Management: Manages and nurtures talent on the New Business team, creating an inclusive environment supporting equity and professional growth. Conducts regular team meetings, sets clear goals, and leads through the lens of our core values.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

• 10+ years’ experience in a Business Development or senior Client Services/Account Leadership role within recognized healthcare, pharmaceutical, or wellness marketing agencies.
• Pharmaceutical Landscape Expertise: Deep understanding of the pharmaceutical commercialization process, including what drives Pharma CMO, Brand Director, and Procurement decisions across Professional (HCP), Patient (DTC), and Payer/Market Access audiences.
• Regulatory Familiarity: Solid understanding of FDA, OPDP, and global regulatory environments, with an appreciation for how to push creative boundaries safely and strategically within highly regulated parameters.
• Outstanding Communication: Exceptional oral and written communication skills with a proven ability to deliver professional, highly persuasive, and scientifically sound presentations.
• Analytical & Cultural Instincts: Demonstrated talent for abstract thinking, spotting health and wellness trends, an innate curiosity about human behavior/patient journeys, and a nuanced understanding of outstanding creative work.
• Strategic Planning: Strong leadership, long-range strategic planning, budget management, and operational/time-management skills.

 WHO YOU ARE:

• Problem Solver: Excited by the opportunity to identify challenges, diagnose them and provide solutions
• Adaptable: Ready and able to embrace change 
• Ambitious: Motivated by collective success, with a competitive spirit and strong desire to win
• Accountable: Always there for your teammates and reliable
• Creative: Putting together pieces in new ways to create new approaches that inspire teams and keep our new business work fresh
• Action-Oriented: Acting on ideas to make things happen and get stuff done 

• Collaborative: Focused on the greater good with generosity as a core value