Seasoned human resources executive Harriet Shurville has joined Avalere Health as our new Chief People Officer. She will spearhead the next phase of our integration strategy and oversee our career experience programs; diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; and global mobility.

As Avalere Health continues to expand our interdisciplinary services across our core disciplines—Consulting; Medical; Marketing; Policy, Value, Evidence, and Access; and Digital Experience Technology—Harriet will play a critical role in empowering teams and cultivating an environment in which they can thrive, collaborating and innovating to positively impact healthcare outcomes.

Established in 2001, Avalere Health has since acquired 19 companies. Over the past two years, we have meticulously integrated these organizations culturally under shared vision, purpose, values, and behaviors, as well as uniting its varied platforms and processes through a technological ecosystem to facilitate a common way of partnering with colleagues and clients across the product life cycle.

“Harriet Shurville joins us during an important time for the company,” said Jon Koch, Chief Executive Officer. “Avalere Health has evolved into a deeply connected organization, delivering unified services from pre-clinical to launch and beyond. We are motivated to continue this journey because of our success in helping clients connect patients with life-enhancing therapies. Harriet’s experience in thoughtfully bringing together teams across agencies and geographies is essential as we continue to unify our capabilities.”

Harriet’s appointment is one of several senior hires and promotions that we have made to drive our integration and growth efforts. Recently, Lara Hancock was promoted from leading one of our medical business units to Group Head of Strategic Client Partnerships, connecting clients with the breadth of the company’s commercialization services and driving common standards for client experience and satisfaction across the business.

In February 2023, Mario Muredda joined the company as our new President of Marketing. Most recently, Ryan Mason was promoted to Chief Marketing and Creative Officer to bring together the creative, brand and engagement strategy, and media and analytics teams to seamlessly deliver connected customer experiences built on data-driven insight.

This year, we also launched our new Digital Experience Technology capability, led by Geoff Thorne, who joined the company in September 2022 as Chief Technology Officer. His focus includes integrating Avalere Health’s technological expertise under a new service set designed to take a strategy-first approach to solve client marketing, data and technology challenges, and deliver world-class personalized experiences.

“What excites me about Avalere Health is its progressive culture of inclusivity and collaboration and its determination to promote and hire the right leadership to drive business and people objectives,” said Harriet. “Many agencies and networks say they are integrated but are truly not. This belief that we are stronger together than separate is motivating and is one of the reasons that attracted me to Avalere Health. The company is putting in the hard work behind the scenes to make integration a reality. I’m looking forward to working with other leaders across the group to bring our vision to life.”

As Chief People Officer, Harriet will sit on the company’s Executive Committee, helping define and shape strategies for retention, recruitment, and business performance. As a female executive, she is also passionate about mentoring young women to leadership positions and executing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Drawing on her expertise in HR business partnering and her academic background—a master’s in occupational psychology from London Metropolitan University, a post-graduate diploma in human resource management from the University of Hertfordshire, and qualification from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development—Harriet brings a wealth of knowledge to enhance organizational and people capabilities.

Prior to her current role, Harriet gained valuable experience leading the global people function at Iris Worldwide, a creative and strategy company. She was responsible for incorporating multiple agencies and over 1,000 employees under one umbrella, fostering a progressive culture across the company. This offers an excellent foundation for her pivotal role at Avalere Health where she takes on a global remit and brings life to our People strategy.

This article was originally published on June 27. 2023.