OPEN Health: Announcing Our New Communications CEO, Margot Hannah

OPEN Health recently appointed Margot Hannah as the CEO of the Communications Practice and as such has overall accountability for the Medical and Brand Communications services, including publications, medical education, learning and development, and creative and digital services. The agency, now in its 10^th year, has been growing leaps and bounds both through acquisition and creation of new centres of excellence to meet the changing needs of a dynamic health communications market. As the business transforms from a small independent agency to a global Communications and Evidence powerhouse, it is celebrating the coming together of specialist agencies now united as one company. The mission moving forward is to harness the power of the collective resources and skills to deliver high quality solutions for its pharma and biotech partners. 

During her tenure, Margot has played an instrumental role in OPEN Health’s thriving Medical Communications centre of excellence, helping to shape it from a small agency to a collective of divisions, each operating under her leadership. Having started her career in the Pharma industry with posts at AstraZeneca, Takeda, and Merck, Margot realised early on that success and growth would not be achieved through micromanagement of her teams, but rather through empowerment. Having worked at one other healthcare agency before joining OPEN Health, she’s also experienced the age-old struggle in the service industry between the desire to put agency staff at the heart of the business whilst aiming to meet P&L requirements and client demands.

So, it is not surprising that when Margot was appointed CEO of the Communications Practice – with responsibility for more than 500 people, she made career development one of her top strategic priorities. This was not a post-pandemic response but rather a long-held belief that talent must be nurtured, and her commitment to talent development is recognised not only by her staff but the communications industry as well, having been awarded the Medical Affairs Agency of the Year in 2020.

What is Margot’s plan to integrate talent development and empowerment in the broader Communications Practice? A close partnership with Human Resources has already been formed to expand the Career Mapping exercise, initially created in Med Comms, to the wider Communications Practice. This is a comprehensive picture of the core functions for each role across the Practice, outlining the skills sets and development areas required to progress to the next post. Viewing the agencies as an ecosystem of talent, fosters transparent development opportunities and a clear understanding of the training investment coupled with on-the-job growth opportunities for individual staff members. And, equally important, it also allows for strategic succession planning for the business to align with ambitious growth plans.

This may sound like a wonderful theory, but Margot has already seen the approach pay dividends. Her rise to CEO was only made possible through strategic career development within her team because on the very same day Jen van Zwieten, who joined OPEN Health in 2014, was poised and ready to step into Margot’s role as President of OPEN Health Medical Communications. Similar examples of talent development can be seen across the Practice, and it’s this people-first approach that opens the door to exciting opportunities for new talent who are keen to start a career in the Health Communications sector in roles ranging from account management, strategy, medical writing, editorial and creative – just to list a few.

At time of this posting OPEN Health had 60 roles available across the UK and US operations and are inviting candidates to experience, to share and to grow with them as they embark on the next chapter.