GfK HealthCare Names Team to Unify Global Brand

GfK is restructuring its healthcare management team under a single brand with the appointment of Stephen Hearn to the newly created post of Global Head of GfK HealthCare, and the transition of Richard Vanderveer from CEO of the division to a consulting role.

In his new role, Hearn is tasked with positioning GfK HealthCare as a single global brand across the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America and operating under a single global leadership structure.

As part of the reshuffle, GfK has appointed a global leadership board comprising executives who previously managed country-level health care operations:

• Peter Eichhorn, based in Nuremberg, Germany
• Barry Zimmerman, based in Blue Bell, PA, USA
• Gerald Mueller, based in Nuremberg, Germany
• Chris Krattiger, based in Basel, Switzerland
• Maureen McLaughlin, based in East Hanover, NJ, USA, and
• Jim Callandrillo, based in East Hanover, NJ, USA.

In addition, a dedicated global product development team will be put in place to support the new structure, and GfK HealthCare is to be aligned within GfK's Custom Research sector.

Hearn is also CEO of UK-based crop protection, biotech and animal health industries specialist GfK Kynetec; a subsidiary of GfK HealthCare and a business he founded as dmrkynetec prior to its acquisition by the global group earlier this year. The company had been partially owned by GfK since 2008, and Hearn has been a member of the GfK HealthCare board since 2009.

Hearn told staff in an email: 'We appreciate that you've likely been with our organization during many milestones in these past years of rapid growth. Our expansion in the US, Europe and many other markets has been a progressive and deliberate journey toward refining GfK's healthcare operations on a global basis, and as such it makes this move toward a single global brand and operating structure a natural step rather than an impractical leap.'

Vanderveer - who has been CEO of GfK HealthCare since November 1994 - previously founded US pharma market research firm V2, which was fully acquired by GfK in 2005.

Additionally, GfK HealthCare's Chief Financial Officer Dan Fitzgerald has retired, after 10 years with the company.

Web site: www.gfkhc.com .