Meg Alexander
Head of Issues Management Practice
inVentiv Health Public Relations Group
The Crisis Management Expert
It’s no secret that the pharma industry has a reputation problem. So the real question: What should you do when your company or your brand is facing a sensitive issue or even a crisis? The answer is simple. You call Meg Alexander. Meg has helped companies diffuse nearly any and every form of issue including recalls, compassionate use campaigns, lawsuits, pricing debates, contaminants, and activist attacks. She is dedicated to redefining how pharma and healthcare executives envision their ability to engage consumers while protecting the reputation of businesses and their leaders in a complex, evolving world.
Meg understands that we live in an age of new populism, in which patients, advocates, and physicians are openly sharing their opinions about the pharma industry and their products online. One of the most recent examples has been the outrage over the high price of medications. Meg helps companies decide how and when to respond to this kind of criticism.
“We must help companies recognize the tipping point,” she said in a 2015 PR Week Roundtable on Modern Activism. “Analytics, historic baselines, and other indicators help us get a sense of where that tipping point is. It’s crucial to engage at that point because it might help neutralize an escalating issue before it reaches crisis level.”
Meg was able to recognize this growing state of change in the health industry—driven by digital and social platforms—and she developed strategies to allow companies to find new ways to respond and interact with their consumers within the industry’s guidelines and without sacrificing quality, control, or creativity.
For the past decade, she has been applying these innovative strategies to her work with Fortune 500 companies and, in the past year, secured more than 20 wins for new clients and new projects. In her current role leading the inVentiv Health Public Relations Group Issues Management Practice, she has created award-winning corporate reputation programs and risk mitigation strategies for 18 leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies and brands. And she has grown the issues management team six-fold in the past year—ensuring more companies can be prepared when crisis strikes.
