Heartbeat Names Kris LoCascio New Executive Creative Director

October 24, 2022

New York, NY, October 24, 2022 — Leading healthcare marketing agency Heartbeat has named longtime creative leader Kris LoCascio as its new Executive Creative Director. LoCascio previously served as Group Creative Director, guiding creative development across many of the agency’s highest-profile accounts.

LoCascio’s extensive healthcare experience spans nearly every therapeutic category, with brands both big and small, on products both blockbuster and niche. Since joining Heartbeat in 2008, LoCascio has been one of the agency’s premiere creative talents over the course of his 14-year tenure.

Responsible for some of Heartbeat’s most critically acclaimed and highly decorated campaigns, his work has garnered more than 70 major industry honors. Most notably, LoCascio’s campaigns for XenoPort’s Horizant alone earned more than 20 awards over the course of the four-year client engagement, including a Clio for Best Pharmaceutical Digital Campaign, a Med Ad News Manny Award for Best HCP Campaign, and an OMMA Award for the brand’s groundbreaking rich media campaign.

In his new role as Executive Creative Director (ECD), LoCascio will focus on the means and methodology behind Heartbeat’s creative operations while inspiring a creative community of more than 70 talented craftspeople. LoCascio will also guide Group Creative Directors and their teams to further elevate the quality of Heartbeat’s award-winning creative product, as well as reimagine how it exists in the world.

“Heartbeat has been my home for most of my career and has been instrumental in shaping who I am as a leader and as a Creative,” said LoCascio. “I’m excited to build on the legacy here, ushering in a new era of creativity that pushes the boundaries of how people think and care for their health and the health of those around them.”

Heartbeat President James Talerico, who held the ECD title for the past 15 years, will now step into the role of Chief Creative Officer, focusing more broadly on the Heartbeat brand and the creative vision driving the agency.

“Kris LoCascio is a brilliant creative mind and a ‘Creative’s Creative’ who understands that great ideas don’t simply emerge from the ether. They come from talented humans who trust one another and the structures they rely upon to create,” said Talerico. “Kris will help all of us generate better, more compelling, more powerful communications—communications built to thrive in our multiplatform, post-COVID reality.”

Along with LoCascio’s transition to ECD, fellow Creative department leaders Chris Whaites and Jillian Anderson are being elevated to Senior Vice President, Group Creative Director, where they will expand their leadership responsibilities and management of Creative staff on client accounts, find new creative opportunities for brands to engage with their audiences, and raise the bar for Heartbeat’s day-to-day creative output.

About Heartbeat
Heartbeat is a full-service agency for healthcare Challenger Brands. Challengers are playing a high-stakes game — they must battle behemoth market leaders, upend ingrained treatment habits, or transform a “me-too” product into “yes-please.”

The agency is known for serving up distinctive strategies and differentiating approaches, ensuring clients’ market positions are uniquely owned. Heartbeat designs its organization around a “100% Integration” model, housing media, strategy, med comms, creative, technology, and even point of care/population health under the same roof for the tightest, most integrated campaigns possible. It prices work based on outcomes, not outputs. Its innovative model delivers not only alignment but also powerful orchestration, greater efficiency, and maximum impact for every dollar spent—all the necessary elements for Challengers to triumph.

That’s the philosophy, here’s the creds: nearly 300 employees between NYC & LA; multiple agency leaders with decades of tenure; a pile of awards from the likes of the MANNYs, MM+M Awards, OMMAs, and Clios; an industry-leading commitment to diversity & inclusion (with a Med Ad News D&I Champion nod to match); and a President who dared to be quoted as follows, “We celebrate people who stand up and say, ‘You know what? This is dumb.'” Damn straight.

For more information about Heartbeat, please email marketing@weareheartbeat.com.