Media Director, Healthcare & Pharma

Mediaspace Health; Minnesota; On-site; USD 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Mediaspace Health in Minnesota seeks a senior healthcare media leader to guide integrated strategy, media planning, budget stewardship, and client leadership for pharma and healthcare brands.

You will oversee campaign oversight, vendor management, performance reporting, and cross-functional collaboration while mentoring teams and helping win new business through compelling recommendations.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of media planning, buying, strategy, and leadership in healthcare/pharma.
• Experience developing integrated media recommendations for clients or senior stakeholders.
• Experience mentoring media planners, buyers, or cross-functional teams.
• Strong knowledge of offline and online media channels and pharma considerations.
• Ability to translate client objectives into strategic media plans and actionable recommendations.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; advanced MS Office proficiency.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of integrated healthcare and pharma media strategies across multiple audiences.
• Shape compelling media recommendations and pitch decks for new business and existing clients.
• Oversee media plans, budgets, partner evaluations, and execution details.
• Provide leadership across campaign setup, pacing, optimization, reporting, and post-campaign analysis.
• Mentor and develop media planners, buyers, and cross-functional team members.
• Maintain strong client relationships and ensure high-quality work and accountability.

Skills

Media planning

Media buying

Strategy

Account leadership

Healthcare/pharma knowledge

Presentation skills

PowerPoint proficiency

Excel proficiency

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in marketing/advertising/communications/business

Tools

Google Campaign Manager

Basis

Rover

IAS

PowerBI

GA

Adobe Analytics

Job description

Mediaspace Health is a healthcare and pharma-focused media agency built to help brands navigate complex, regulated markets with clarity, precision, and confidence. We specialize in strategic media planning, buying, and measurement across professional, patient, caregiver, payer, and healthcare stakeholder audiences. Our work spans rare disease, specialty pharma, diagnostics, medical devices, healthcare services, and emerging health innovations.

We need a seasoned media professional who can bring strategic leadership, healthcare expertise, operational discipline, and client confidence to a growing business. This person should be equally comfortable shaping a new business pitch, developing a strategic media recommendation, leading internal teams, negotiating with partners, and helping clients understand how media can support business goals. Mediaspace Health employees have strong organizational skills, excellent communication, and a desire to learn and grow within the company. We are looking for someone with an entrepreneurial spirit who works independently and is willing to jump in where needed to grow the business.This position reports to the Director of Healthcare Media.

Position Overview

This position plays a critical leadership role within Mediaspace Health, overseeing the development of integrated media strategies for healthcare and pharmaceutical clients. This role is responsible for leading media planning, partner evaluation, tactical recommendations, budget stewardship, campaign oversight, optimization direction, and performance reporting across all healthcare audiences.

This individual will serve as a strategic media lead for both existing clients and new business opportunities, helping translate client objectives, audience insights, market dynamics, and regulatory considerations into smart, actionable media plans. The ideal candidate brings deep experience in pharma or healthcare media, strong digital fluency, an understanding of healthcare and pharma media environments, and the ability to operate in a nimble, collaborative, growth-focused agency environment.

This is a senior, hands-on role for someone who can lead strategically while still engaging in the details needed to deliver excellent work.

Core Responsibilities

Strategic Media Leadership

• Lead the development of integrated healthcare and pharma media strategies across HCP, patient, caregiver, payer, and healthcare decision-maker audiences, understand how audiences differ in media behavior, targeting options, compliance considerations, and measurement expectations
• Translate brand goals, market challenges, audience behaviors, treatment journeys, stakeholder dynamics, and competitive context into clear media strategies and tactical recommendations
• Develop channel strategies across endemic healthcare media, programmatic, paid search, paid social, video, display, native, email, conference support, peer-to-peer environments, point-of-care, print, and emerging media channels
• Understand the nuances of pharma media planning, including branded vs. unbranded communications, disease awareness, rare disease market development, launch planning, adherence support, and non-personal promotion
• Support our position as a strategic media partner by contributing media perspective, category insight, and thoughtful recommendations that go beyond placement execution

New Business & Growth Support

• Participate in new business strategy, client discovery calls, RFP responses, and pitch development
• Shape compelling media recommendations and pitch decks that demonstrate understanding of the healthcare landscape, audience dynamics, and client business challenges
• Present confidently to prospective clients and agency partners, clearly explaining recommendations, media opportunities, and expected outcomes
• Identify opportunities to expand existing client relationships through strategic thinking, proactive ideas, test-and-learn recommendations, and strong business stewardship

Media Planning, Buying & Partner Management

• Oversee the development of media plans, tactical recommendations, flowcharts, budgets, investment allocations, partner evaluations, and execution details
• Evaluate publishers and platforms across the media landscape guiding teams on how to use them and when to incorporate into media recommendations, effective negotiations, audience guarantees and measurable deliverables

Campaign Oversight, Optimization & Measurement

• Provide leadership across campaign setup, launch, pacing, optimization, reporting, and post-campaign analysis, partner with operations, trafficking, analytics and reporting to ensure campaigns are implemented accurately and managed effectively
• Help clients and internal teams define KPIs by audience and campaign objective including proxy measures where direct attribution may be limited
• Understand healthcare-specific measurement challenges, including HIPAA, PHI, patient privacy, NPI-level reporting, publisher-reported PLD, engagement quality, conversion limitations, and rare disease measurement realities
• Serve as a trusted media lead communicating clearly and confidently for clients, agency partners, publishers, and internal stakeholders
• Build strong client relationships through responsiveness, strategic thinking, attention to detail and accountability. Anticipate client questions, identify potential concerns early, and proactively recommend solutions

Team Leadership & Internal Collaboration

• Manage, mentor, and support media planners, buyers, and cross-functional team members involved in healthcare and pharma media business
• Provide guidance and help train and develop team members by sharing healthcare media knowledge, planning best practices, vendor insights, and strategic frameworks
• Identify workflow improvements, planning templates, partner evaluation processes, reporting standards, and operational efficiencies that support continued growth

Healthcare, Pharma & Regulatory Expertise

• Maintain a strong working knowledge of the healthcare and pharma media landscape, including HCP media, patient media, caregiver engagement, payer audiences, medical journals, endemic health platforms, professional networks, programmatic healthcare platforms, and emerging digital channels
• Understand the importance of compliance in healthcare and pharma media, including MLR review processes, fair balance considerations, branded vs. unbranded environments, patient privacy, HIPAA/PHI sensitivity, targeting restrictions, and appropriate media measurement practices
• Stay current on media trends affecting healthcare and pharma, including identity resolution, cookieless targeting, AI search, social platform changes, programmatic quality, privacy regulation, HCP data availability, and evolving measurement approaches
• Bring curiosity and informed perspective to new categories, disease states, audience segments, and media partners.

Required Experience & Qualifications

• 8+ years of media planning, buying, strategy, and account leadership experience, with meaningful experience in healthcare, pharma, life sciences, diagnostics, medical device, or another highly regulated category
• Strong understanding of healthcare and pharma media strategy across HCP and patient audiences
• Experience developing and presenting integrated media recommendations for clients or senior stakeholders
• Experience managing or mentoring media planners, buyers, or cross-functional team members
• Strong knowledge of offline and online media channels, including programmatic, paid search, paid social, email, audio, video, DOOH and content-based media programs and challenges within the pharma landscape
• Working knowledge of print and medical journal media is strongly preferred
• Experience with pharma campaign considerations, including MLR review, branded/unbranded media, audience targeting limitations, privacy considerations, and healthcare measurement challenges
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret campaign performance and translate results into meaningful insights and recommendations
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to build clear, persuasive presentations
• Advanced proficiency in PowerPoint, Excel, Word, and Outlook
• Experience with tools such as Google Campaign Manager, Basis, Rover, IAS, PowerBI, GA, Adobe Analytics or similar media planning, trafficking, reporting, or analytics platforms is preferred
• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, advertising, communications, business, or a related field preferred

Key Attributes

• Strategic thinker with strong executional judgment
• Highly organized with excellent attention to detail
• Strong client presence and presentation skills
• Able to manage multiple priorities and competing timelines
• Collaborative, positive, and solutions-oriented
• Strong negotiator who understands media value, not just cost
• Curious about healthcare, pharma, media innovation, and audience behavior
• Able to simplify complex topics for clients and internal teams
• Comfortable managing different personalities, work styles, and levels of media experience
• Willing to wear multiple hats in a growing healthcare media business
• Committed to building strong teams, client relationships and high-quality work

Travel

Limited travel may be required

Salary Range

$100,000 - $140,000 depending on experience and qualifications