HAVAS Red promotes Nicole Phillips and Myrna Van Pelt to managing partners

HAVAS Red Australia, the integrated PR, social, content, and experiential agency, has kicked off the year announcing the promotions of Nicole Phillips (far right) and Myrna Van Pelt (left) to Managing Partners of its healthcare and corporate practices, respectively.

The duo helm two of the agency’s most strategic practice areas, with HAVAS rapidly expanding its healthcare and pharma communications footprint both globally and in Australia, while demand continues to grow among brands and executives requiring corporate and B2B communications, issues management, crisis response, and technology PR.

Based in Sydney though managing national remits, both Phillips and Van Pelt have enjoyed long and illustrious careers in the communications sector as practitioners, advisers, executives, leaders, and mentors.

HAVAS Red Australia CEO Shane Russell (centre) said the promotions, which were among 15 across the agency in the past 9 months, symbolised Red’s next phase of growth after a year in which it added several world-class brands across healthcare, corporate and B2B, technology, and consumer: “We feel incredibly lucky to have a bench of industry leaders such as Nicole and Myrna, at a time when clients are leaning more on agency partners for strategic counsel and offerings. Brands face entirely new challenges and opportunities in 2025, requiring agile and integrated communications offerings and the ability to stretch across all earned and owned channels, regardless of industry or audiences.”

From a corporate perspective, Van Pelt added there were many opportunities arising from what was an unsettled global economic climate, which has seen leading brands grapple with how to pivot or align their corporate narratives, in a fast-changing landscape: “We’re seeing a surge of firms coming to us to understand what the new purpose agenda should look like and how that impacts their narrative, equally, the pivot to a greater focus on people-to-people communications in the corporate sector has accelerated our leadership content creation.”

In the past year HAVAS Red formalised and announced the launch of INDUSTRY, its global strategic communications offering initially driven out of Australia that brings together B2B expertise across multiple industries and markets. The Australian team also continued to roll out global specialisations in executive branding (Peaks), purpose and sustainability (Red Impact), and healthcare.

From a Healthcare perspective, Phillips says: “Earlier in my career healthcare communications, just like health, was in its own silo. However, there’s no disputing that health is now woven into the fabric of our lives whether at home and work. A wave of disruptions and technologies such as COVID-19, Artificial Intelligence, and the GLP-1 therapeutic class are transforming not only healthcare, but many other industries simultaneously. Affirming we are in the age of health.

“Patient-led care is changing how we connect and interact with our health services, treatments, and system. We’re passionate about the work we’re doing with MedTech, bioscience, and patient advocacy organisations to tap into audience insights and start conversations that matter. We’re fostering partnerships with relevant storytelling and meaningful experiences to change the status quo, helping to increase health understanding, care, and outcomes.”

Alongside its people, HAVAS Red continues to invest in developing best-in-class research, data, and thought leadership to bring insights to clients and the broader industry. In 2024 the agency launched 10 new reports, including the annual Red Sky Predictions, and white papers tackling how brands can turn purpose into impact, person-to-person communications, and the state of the influencer.

For more information about HAVAS Red and its services, please visit www.havasred.com.au.