A group of former leaders from health comms giant Inizio Evoke have come together to launch Flex Marketing, a new agency catering to pharmaceutical, biotech, medtech and health tech clients.
The independent agency is built around “core principles of flexibility and adaptability,” according to Thursday’s launch announcement, which Flex said will allow it to offer “greater speed, innovation, and effectiveness” as it serves clients looking to boost their market impact and brand potential.
Flex is based in San Francisco and will serve clients across the globe. Its services include market and customer research, strategic planning, market conditioning, brand development and data-driven analytics.
“The healthcare marketing landscape is at a critical turning point,” Adam Gelling, one of the company’s founders, said in the announcement. “As the big networks seek to increase their revenue and capabilities through acquisition, the result is often a diluted service offering with large teams of junior staff in overlapping roles, which doesn’t produce the best work or consistent output. These larger teams that bill by the hour are also disincentivized to leverage the efficiencies inherent in emerging AI technologies.”
He continued, “At FLEX, we deploy custom teams and technology with a next-generation vision. We’re committed to creating customer-centric, scalable experiences that enhance what healthcare brands can achieve and at a significantly lower cost.”
The agency was founded by a quartet of health marketing veterans with several decades of combined experience in the space. All four will hold the title of partner, with each focusing in a different service area.
Gelling, who will head up client engagement at Flex, spent more than a decade at San Francisco-based Giant Creative Strategy, where he was president until its 2018 acquisition by Evoke. He then served as president of the parent agency’s office in the city for another five years.
Amber Rogers will lead brand strategy at the new agency. She racked up nearly 15 years at Evoke—which officially became Inizio Evoke in early 2024, tacking on the name of its parent company—culminating in a stint as executive VP of brand strategy there. Before that, she too spent time at Giant and also led the West Coast office of Dorland Global Health, during which time it was acquired by Huntsworth Health, which would later become Inizio.
Flex’s omnichannel strategy lead will be Jason Luis, who previously led analytics departments at Doremus, FCB Global and, yes, Evoke. He was at the latter agency from late 2014 to early 2024, a tenure that included roles as executive VP of channel strategy and analytics and managing director of omnichannel.
Rounding out the founding group is Michelle Green, who is tasked with spearheading Flex’s creative department. She got her start working as a copywriter at multiple agencies, including Kane and Finkel, where she ultimately spent 13 years and worked her way up to the role of creative director. After that, she spent a decade at Inizio Evoke in creative director roles of increasing importance.