Built for This: Deerfield Group Expands Leadership to Advance Next Phase of Growth, Harnessing Innovation, Technology Anchored in Human Expertise

PHILADELPHIA – September 15, 2026 — Deerfield Group, a leading, fully integrated marketing, communications, and media partner for healthcare and life sciences companies, today announced a leadership expansion to advance Built for This—the agency’s model for its next phase of growth. The company has appointed Brian Rocks as Chief Financial Officer and Shelby Rauen as Head of Strategy, and elevated the roles of Dominic Viola, Chief Innovation Officer, Amanda Sellers, Chief Communications Officer, and Tim Frank, Chief Marketing Officer, who will work alongside existing company leadership organized around Built for This, which pairs senior-level strategy, experience, and relationships with flexible scale and technology to meet every moment. The announcement follows Deerfield's strategic majority investment from Martis Capital to accelerate development of the agency's proprietary solutions for speed to market and return on investment across the brand life cycle. The investment reinforces a founding Deerfield principle: advance and structure the agency to anticipate industry shifts, not react to them.

“Deerfield is an agency on the move. We have challenged the status quo from the beginning and are constantly evolving to anticipate and meet our clients’ changing needs,” said Frank Burrell, Chief Executive Officer, Deerfield Group. “We have always led with innovation, but our core has always been, and always will be, our people. As technology becomes a commodity across the industry, senior-level judgment, experience, and relationships are what set the agency apart.”

Built for This is Deerfield's approach to an industry-wide plateau on which every agency now runs on largely the same AI and technology stack, and as a result, tools and speed alone no longer set anyone apart. Deerfield's model is built around the alternative: pairing advanced technology with decades of senior-level experience, so that scale never comes at the cost of original thinking, true partnership, or client trust.

Deerfield will put Built for This into practice in real time at FiercePharma Week (September 14–17, Philadelphia, Booth #1501), where the agency will collect insights and feedback directly from clients on the key pain points plaguing healthcare marketers and communicators—from budget and timeline pressure to the growing complexity of approvals and channel mix. Those conversations mark the opening phase of a larger industry survey of healthcare marketers and communicators, the Industry Pain Benchmark, with full results to be issued in Q4 2026.

Unencumbered by the layers and silos of legacy agency models, Deerfield combines the substance of scale with senior expertise across marketing, finance, innovation, and strategy—veteran leadership charged with organizing the agency for growth while keeping it nimble, fast, and senior-led. Key leadership responsibilities include:

• Brian Rocks, Chief Financial Officer: With deep industry experience in finance from Heartbeat, Digitas Health, and Publicis Health, Rocks leads Deerfield's finance function with a mandate to build an agile model to flex resources across the agency as client needs shift—replacing the static staffing structures that slow larger agencies down
• Shelby Rauen, Head of Strategy: Previously at AREA 23 and Eversana, Rauen leads Deerfield's strategy practice, organizing it around a more fluid, diversified team model shaped by individual strategists' strengths rather than the industry's traditional brand, medical, and engagement silos, and expanding the discipline beyond promotional work into content, education, and experiences that solve meaningful tensions.
• Dominic Viola, Chief Innovation Officer: Viola spearheads the development and integration of emerging technology adoption and digital capabilities across the agency alongside Deerfield’s dedicated technology team, with a mandate to ensure new tools and AI capabilities buy back time for senior-level judgment and true client partnership rather than replace it.
• Tim Frank, Chief Marketing Officer: Frank leads key accounts to continually evolve how we are serving our teams across growing agency expertise to put client needs first by building a culture of humility, innovation, and agility.
• Amanda Sellers, Chief Communications Officer: Sellers oversees external, internal, and client communications to evolve the agency’s storytelling and connectivity to each of the agency’s audiences.

About Deerfield Group

Deerfield Group is a fully integrated marketing, media, communications, and technology agency built for the pace and complexity of pharmaceutical, biotechnology, health tech, and consumer health companies. Deerfield’s model pairs senior-level strategy and human judgment with technology. A senior core team stays close with flexible capability to scale as needed across strategy, creative, digital, media, PR, analytics, sales enablement, and print. Built for This—and what’s next. Learn more at DeerfieldGroup.com.

Media Contact:
Peg Rusconi

peg.rusconi@deerfieldgroup.com