Heartbeat is a full-service agency for healthcare Challenger Brands. Challengers are playing a high-stakes game—they must battle behemoth market leaders, upend ingrained treatment habits, or transform a “me-too” product into “yes-please.”
The agency is known for serving up distinctive strategies and differentiating approaches, ensuring clients’ market positions are uniquely owned. Heartbeat designs their organization around a 100% integration model, housing media, strategy, med comms, creative, technology, and even point of care/population health under the same roof for the tightest, most integrated campaigns possible. They price work based on outcomes, not outputs. Their innovative model delivers not only alignment, but powerful orchestration, greater efficiency, and maximum impact for every dollar spent—all the necessary elements for Challengers to triumph.
That’s the philosophy, here’s the creds: 250+ employees between NYC & LA; 6 agency leaders with decades of tenure; a pile of awards from the likes of the Mannys, MM&M Awards, OMMAs, and Clios; an industry-leading commitment to diversity and inclusion (with a Med Ad News D&I Champion nod to match); and a President who dared to be quoted as saying, “We celebrate people who stand up and say, ‘You know what? This is dumb.' Damn straight.
Overview
The VP, Program Management – Digital Transformation leads the end‑to‑end orchestration of a multi‑phased transformation initiative spanning both Client internal capability builds and Heartbeat’s operating model and delivery of work enabled by those new capabilities. This role ensures alignment, governance, and executional excellence across client teams, agencies, and technology partners.
This is a high-impact, highly visible leadership role with the opportunity to shape how Heartbeat and Publicis Health deliver transformation work across healthcare clients including :
- Governance of this large client transformation project
- Cross‑enterprise orchestration
- Agency operating and delivery design
- Change‑management leadership across client and agency teams
Location: New York, NY (Hybrid)
Responsibilities
Program & PMO Leadership
- Define and govern RACI development, program standards, operating models, and workflows across Client, Publicis Health, and Heartbeat teams
- Establish shared delivery frameworks and KPIs that align internal client processes with agency execution requirements
- Serve as a central source of guidance and clarity on process, execution quality, and delivery metrics
- Support process documentation, training, and onboarding across both organizations to ensure alignment and consistent adoption
Program Oversight & Execution
- Lead end‑to‑end delivery of a multi‑workstream transformation program spanning commercial, CXI, IT, data, creative, etc
- Ensure program stays aligned with strategic goals, with clear dependencies, handoffs, and decision pathways
- Drive structured risk, issue, and dependency management, including escalation routines and cross‑functional alignment
- Manage and forecast program resource and capacity requirements, ensuring alignment with budget
- Coordinate with Business Manager to maintain fiscal oversight and proactively address project health, scope, and financial risks
Digital Transformation Enablement
- Partner with client platform owners (CMS, DAM, data, identity, etc) and Publicis Health & Heartbeat teams to ensure technical and operational readiness
- Translate business and transformation goals into executable programs with clear inputs and dependencies
Cross-Agency & Partner Collaboration
- Work across Client, Heartbeat, and Publicis Health partners to align resources, processes, and delivery approaches
- Coordinate with production/delivery teams to ensure smooth program execution
- Improve communication and collaboration across teams to reduce friction and duplication
Client-Facing Program Leadership
- Serve as the senior program partner for client executives, supporting decision‑making, prioritization, and issue resolution
- Establish clear communication rhythms across sponsors, SMEs, and delivery teams
- Help clients navigate cross‑functional governance, ensuring program advances efficiently
Leadership & Collaboration
- Confident, steady presence capable of managing strong personalities and senior partners
- Ability to bring diverse teams together around shared goals
- Able to operate fluidly between strategic guidance and hands‑on delivery
- Knows when to be consultative and when to be directive
Qualifications
- Proven experience in Program Management, PMO leadership, or large-scale delivery roles
- Experience leading large, multi‑stakeholder transformation programs within regulated industries
- Ability to manage both capability‑building initiatives and downstream agency execution programs
- Healthcare or pharmaceutical agency experience required
- Experience working across Agile and hybrid delivery models
- Agile/Scrum certification strongly preferred
- Exceptional planning, coordination, communication, and change-management skills
Additional information
Our Publicis Groupe motto “Viva La Différence” means we’re better together, and we believe that our differences make us stronger. It means we honor and celebrate all identities, across all facets of intersectionality, and it underpins all that we do as an organization. We are focused on fostering belonging and creating equitable & inclusive experiences for all talent.
Publicis Groupe provides robust and inclusive benefit programs and policies to support the evolving and diverse needs of our talent and enable every person to grow and thrive. Our benefits package includes medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401K, as well as parental and family care leave, family forming assistance, tuition reimbursement, and flexible time off.
If you require accommodation or assistance with the application or onboarding process specifically, please contact USMSTACompliance@publicis.com. All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.
Compensation Range: $58.32 - $93.38 hourly. This is the pay range the Company believes it will pay for this position at the time of this posting. Consistent with applicable law, compensation will be determined based on the skills, qualifications, and experience of the applicant along with the requirements of the position, and the Company reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time. Temporary roles may be eligible to participate in our freelancer/temporary employee medical plan through a third-party benefits administration system once certain criteria have been met. Temporary roles may also qualify for participation in our 401(k) plan after eligibility criteria have been met. For regular roles, the Company will offer medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401k, and paid time off. The Company anticipates the application deadline for this job posting will be 03/10/2026.
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