 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Luxcore Expert Team
Luxcore’s team of experts brings sophisticated knowledge and experience in diverse disciplines to our client engagements:
- Wayne L. Pines
- Eric S. Langer
- Lisabeth Blair Simmons
- Miguel Sebastia
- Jeff Richardson
- Bill Rosner
- Kathy Palokoff
- Wanda Zygmuntowicz
- Carey Horwitz
- Susan Webber
- Albert H. Crane
Wayne L. Pines is an internationally-known consultant on regulatory and media matters involving pharmaceuticals, biological products and medical devices. He consults with companies seeking to secure approval of products from the Food and Drug Administration or who are facing crisis situations. He also conducts training programs for companies on advertising/promotion regulations, and for corporate executives on how to deal with the media or with crises.
Mr. Pines formerly was FDA's Associate Commissioner for Public Affairs. He also has been Executive Vice President of Burson-Marsteller and Associate Editor of “The Pink Sheet, ” a drug trade publication. He currently serves as President of Regulatory Services and Healthcare at APCO Worldwide, an international consulting firm.
Mr. Pines is author of the FDA Advertising and Promotion Manual, the standard legal reference in the field. He edited When Lightning Strikes and A Delicate Balance, both crisis management books, as well as A Practical Guide to Food and Drug Law and Regulation and How To Work with the FDA. His latest book is A Framework for Pharmaceutical Risk Management. He is a frequent public speaker and has published dozens of articles in the professional press.
Eric S. Langer is co-founder and Managing Partner at BioPlan Associates, Inc. a biotechnology and life sciences marketing company that has been providing market strategy and analysis to biotechnology and healthcare organizations since 1989. He has over 19 years experience in biotechnology and life sciences marketing management and market assessment. He is an experienced medical and biotechnology market practitioner, strategist, researcher, and science writer. He has held senior management and marketing positions at biopharmaceutical supply companies. He teaches Biotechnology Marketing, Marketing Management, Services Marketing, Advertising Strategy, and Bioscience Communication at Johns Hopkins University, American University, and lectures extensively on pricing and channel management topics. He has a degree in Chemistry and Masters in International Business. He has launched marketing programs for product lines ranging from $5 million to $500 million. He works with both large and small clients in commercial biotechs, non-profit organizations, and governments in assessing and evaluating markets, and marketing strategies and tactics. He has written and consulted for companies involved in: large scale biopharmaceutical manufacturing, cell culture, media, sera, tissue engineering, stem cells, diagnostic products, blood products, genetics, DNA/PCR purification, blood components, and many other areas. He has developed management programs for technical organizations, including customized organizational analysis, managerial needs assessment, and workshop facilitation. He has developed numerous courses, classes and seminar programs, including Marketing Technical Products, and TechniManagement™ -- Managing the Technical Organization.
Lisabeth Blair Simmons is Luxcore’s Director of Market Research and Strategic Planning. She has a proven track record (over 15 years) of identifying and quantifying key market insights and opportunities against an array of product/service categories including healthcare, foods (fast moving consumer package goods) and service industries (including hospitality and retail). Her target audiences include consumer, business-to-business and professional sectors. Her success has been built upon expertise in the design of innovative, actionable strategic market research programs. Her background includes several years of market research and developing marketing strategy and tactics in consumer healthcare for Pfizer Consumer Healthcare, (formerly Warner-Lambert); market research and market planning for Unilever and global strategic market research.
Her many professional achievements include: providing consumer and trade marketing direction in the successful launch of Listerine PocketPaks; leveraging research skills, strategic planning skills and contributing to management approval of a successful plan to help the Benadryl brand defend its market share despite the threats of competitor direct-to-consumer advertising (totaling over $130 million in advertising) while Benadryl’s budget remained well under $30 million. She has provided consumer insights and strategic direction for the successful launch of Lipton “Ready to Drink” Tea and the re-launch of the brand. She has managed the Specialist (modeling group) at Research International, providing business-building solutions for a variety of clients including: Hilton Hotels, Taco Bell, James River Paper and Sears (joint engagement with McKinsey).
She is expert in the application of volumetric forecasting, market structure, quantitative assessment of brand equity (identifying next steps) for such clients as Bristol Myers/Squibb (formerly Bristol Myers), Dial Corporation and Scott Towel. Additionally, she has extensive model development experience (including her work on NPD’s Rx-to-OTC switch model) which was used in opportunity assessment by Sandoz. At Research International’s Specialist model group, she was responsible for growing the U.S. Division from $400,000 to $4 million in sales. She provided market research and strategic insights to develop the Pfizer global oral care 5-year strategic plan and new product roadmap (including Listerine), an upper respiratory relationship marketing program. Finally, as part of developing Market Research Best Practices for Pfizer's Consumer Healthcare Division, she worked with different business teams to improve the new product innovation process. One improvement, a cost efficient early idea evaluation research technique, allowed more ideas to be evaluated for the same budget. Recommendations were implemented by the Vice President of Innovation.
Miguel Sebastia is President of i-Latina, part of a new generation of boutique advertising agencies and marketing communications firms that take a comprehensive approach to better serve and partner with its clients. Capitalizing on the experience of recognized leading professionals in the fields of creative advertising, corporate design and marketing, i-Latina uses traditional advertising formats combined with new media technology to deliver effective and high-impact fresh i-deas to the global Latin marketplace around the world.
i-Latina is most valuable to companies with a particular interest in effectively reaching the US-Hispanic and Latin American markets, two of the fastest growing market segments.
i-Latina develops the most creative and effective communication and promotion strategies for clients and successfully builds their brands, predominantly in these US-Hispanic and Latin American Markets. It offers clients innovative marketing strategies and corporate alliances to penetrate the US-Hispanic markets, and to enhance long-term brand equity, while meeting client short-term goals.
Jeff Richardson has for more than 15 years used strategic public relations to support, defend and counsel companies ranging from the nations’ largest savings bank to top tier healthcare companies, universities and government. He has planned and implemented the worldwide introduction of several new medications for Glaxo, Amgen and DuPont, creating brand public relations media launch plans, setting up and serving as chief media spokesperson at major global medical meetings, and creating communications plans to aid in regulatory reimbursement. He has created and implemented a worldwide strategic communications plan during a time of great controversy for the maker of Botox®.
In addition to his extensive Mergers & Acquisitions experience, he has devised and executed crisis communications plans for major companies: performing the communications audit; establishing crisis boards and scenario planning; and making presentations to Boards of Directors. He has served as chief media spokesperson for government, universities and Fortune 500 companies, and placed major media stories in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Business Week. Experienced in issues management, he has provided communications counsel on major legal issues facing companies, and shared his expertise in employee and financial communications. He has served as a speechwriter to five Fortune 500 CEOs.
Bill Rosner is founder of Rosner Associates, who develop brand identity and communications programs that make a direct contribution to clients’ success. They create work that is striking, functional and, most important, designed to support client business strategy and positioning objectives. They don’t view design and content as an end product, but as a means to an end – tools that help you manage perceptions of your company, tools that help you sell, raise investment capital, and attract the best employees and strategic partners.
Over the last twenty-five years, the principals of Rosner Associates have worked with large and small companies in almost every sector of the economy, from heavy industry to high tech. They have developed brand identity strategies, names and nomenclature systems, visual identity systems, and print and Web-based communications, crafting these elements to help clients achieve their business and positioning objectives.
Kathy Palokoff is the founder and CEO of CUSTOMERicity. Her credentials include an almost Ph.D. from Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute; 10 years with Saatchi as an account planner and public relations guru; 20 years as a brand-builder for multi-national companies across industries; five years with three start-up technology companies; and 15 years in training, instructional design and marketing research.
Wanda Zygmuntowicz is managing partner and Chief Operating Officer of CUSTOMERicity with a passion for creating new, actionable, customer-based insights. Her experience and knowledge has increased sales worldwide for a wide range of products and services for firms such as Alcatel, Corning, DuPont, Hilton Hotels, Hollister Medical, Kodak, Quaker Oats, Prudential and Schwinn. Through writing copy for Allstate, or directing all North American marketing communications activities for Marine Midland Bank (now HSBC Bank USA), or serving in management at blue chip agencies like J. Walter Thompson and Saatchi & Saatchi, she has developed a deep understanding of marketing, customer relationship management, brand communications, research, technology and training.
Carey Horwitz has for more than two decades helped guide organizational response to change and align communication strategies with enterprise objectives. As a senior vice president with Hill and Knowlton, the public relation/public affairs firm, he supervised major communication activities undertaken on behalf of clients, including strategic and tactical planning, organizational and labor-management communications, corporate-identity and advocacy advertising, crisis response and conflict resolution, merger-and-acquisition communications, marketing program planning, and media-response training. As a principal and head of marketing publications for William M. Mercer, Incorporated, the human resource consulting firm, he supervised the production of materials for the firm’s major national and worldwide practices, counseled on communication strategies, and helped develop and implement national marketing and advertising initiatives. He has also worked with IBM, helping the company plan and execute a series of bylined articles and op-eds addressing critical issues in the development and use of information technology.
Mr. Horwitz has helped organizations develop communication goals, tactics, and vehicles to reach their various constituencies. He has worked with Fortune-500 companies, investment and brokerage firms, consulting companies, and trade associations to produce targeted communications. And he has assisted unionized organizations in fostering cooperative working relationships within the collective-bargaining framework, training labor-management teams to recognize and develop communications as an essential element in a new, non-adversarial organizational culture.
Mr. Horwitz was previously an associate editor at Library Journal magazine. He has served on the Communications Committee of Healthy Companies, a Washington-based organizational research and consulting firm. He has been a member of the board of trustees of Jennifer Muller and The Works, a New York-based dance company, and has served as a consultant to the Arts and Business Council, the American Film Institute, the Negro Ensemble Company, the Roundabout Theatre Company, and the Management Decision Laboratory at New York University's Graduate School of Business Administration. He also has been a book reviewer for Saturday Review and Library Journal magazines and a member of the National Book Critics Circle.
Susan Webber is the founder of Aurora Advisors Incorporated, a management consulting firm based in New York and Sydney, Australia, specializing in transaction advisory and financial services. She is a senior management consultant and corporate finance advisor with over 20 years experience in financial services and major corporate transactions (mergers, joint ventures and minority investments), with a proven track record of creating significant economic value for clients. She is recognized for devising practical solutions to complex, difficult problems and leading first-phase implementation. A prolific author, she possesses extensive international experience, particularly Pacific Rim, having served as head of Mergers and Acquisitions of The Sumitomo Bank, Ltd.
Albert H. Crane is an innovative advertising sales executive with an entrepreneurial spirit and a depth of expertise, currently serving as President and CEO of Crane Media Services (CMS). His firm focuses on new media opportunities including Audio Streaming, Out-of-Home Television and Electronic Billboard opportunities. Mr. Crane has held senior Internet management positions at the CEO and COO levels, as well as the position of Vice President of Sales for major outlets in Network TV (CBS Television Network), Cable (Travel Channel, VISN-ACTS (now Hallmark), and MEU (the Military Channel and NBC Sat. He has directed syndication and Internet (with Salon.com, Cursormate.com, and Lawstreet.com). He has a record of successful experience in the fields of Internet Radio, Internet start-up management and funding, Internet strategic planning, sales management, marketing, competitive intelligence, distribution channels. His firm possesses deep relationships with a large network of financial executives, investment bankers, clients, advertising agencies and media services companies.
Crane Media Services is an interdisciplinary multimedia sales and marketing services company representing innovative advertising opportunities, such as Webhound, an ad-supported free and legal music downloading medium, and Lawstreet.com, a leading search Web site for attorneys. Mr. Crane has recently represented AT&T Interactive, American Express’s ATM advertising, Hiwire’s Internet Audio Streaming and LIVE TV, (www.ifetv.com) the first and only “live television” out-of-home experience on airplanes. He has performed work for other major recent clients, including Grapevine, (www.elcotel.com) the in-airport (JFK and LaGuardia) telephone service offering advertising on new Internet enabled AT&T phones.
