Astellas has reorganised its US corporate affairs teams into a single unit that the company hopes present its internal and external stakeholders with a unified voice.
The new corporate affairs unit combines Astellas’ state and federal government affairs, corporate, employee and business communications, advocacy, corporate branding, corporate social responsibility and corporate events operations.
It will be led by Jeff Winton, senior vice president, chief communications officer, corporate affairs.
He said: “As a leader in the healthcare community, it is essential for the communications function at Astellas to align its employees with organisational priorities and communicate the company’s scientific and medical expertise to patients, healthcare providers and researchers around the world.”
His team will include Julie Monzo, who has been appointed to the newly-created role of senior manager, global medical and development (GMD) communications and will report to Andrew Lewis, head of communications, GMD.
Monzo most recently served as senior manager, enterprise communications and public relations at the College of American Pathologists. She previously worked at the McDonald’s Corporation and various public relations and advertising agencies.
Also new to the team is Tarsis Lopez, who takes up the role of associate director, external and digital communications and will report to Moyra Knight, senior director, employee and corporate communications, in corporate affairs.
Lopez has more than 16 years of comms experience in-house and agency-side, most recently at Takeda Pharmaceuticals International’s vaccines franchise where he supported both external and internal communications for the business. Prior to that he served at Baxter International. where he handled communications for Latin America and Canada.