• by Larissa Faw , May 3, 2018

Industry veteran Ned Russell is leaving Publicis Groupe to join MDC Partners as managing partner, Healthcare as the network seeks to grow its healthcare-sector business.

In this newly created role, Russell will partner with MDC's healthcare agency Concentric, and with over a dozen other agencies throughout the network to help attract health and wellness clients. He will be based in New York and report to MDC Global Chief Marketing Officer Bob Kantor.

At Publicis, he lead healthcare and digital efforts on behalf of the Groupe’s SapientRazorfish and Digitas subsidiaries. He joined the company in 2009, first as group managing director of Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, and then as a global client leader for the worldwide Publicis organization. In these roles, he has led engagements with Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Company, Nestle and Allergen, among others.

“Healthcare is an industry in a full state of disruption, and when I saw that MDC Partners is working with the companies leading disruption in other categories – brands like Amazon, Uber, Google, and Airbnb – I thought ‘What happens when this talent gets unleashed into healthcare?’" Russell stated. This is "exactly the right time for our agency partners to make a bigger impact for the category."