Service Pivots and Brand Evolution, with Jennifer Sargent
Release Date: 06/10/2026
A Brave New Podcast
Hillery Smith Shay, MBA is chief marketing and experience officer, senior vice president of communications at Children’s Minnesota. Hillery Shay joined Children’s Minnesota in 2021, as VP of marketing and communications and is now chief marketing and experience officer, senior vice president of communications. She provides strategic direction for organizational marketing and communications. She is also responsible for defining and building an organization-wide experience strategy. Ms. Shay brings nearly 25 years of leadership experience in health care and mass communication, with a...
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Jennifer Lazarz is Director of Marketing at Medical Informatics Corp. (MIC), where she now runs the company’s entire marketing function as a sole practitioner. Her work spans brand strategy, demand generation, content, and go-to-market execution for the Sickbay Clinical Platform, an FDA-cleared patient monitoring solution used by health systems nationwide. Since joining MIC in 2022, Jennifer has grown the company’s digital footprint from a minimal presence into a full content and demand engine, driving a 6x increase in website traffic and a 400% increase in content output through an...
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Geoffrey Schiavon is a marketing leader with more than 15 years of international experience driving growth through B2B2C business models across ecommerce and health tech. His expertise spans performance marketing, customer engagement, strategic partnerships, and go-to-market strategy, helping businesses build lasting relationships and drive sustainable revenue growth. Before joining dacadoo as Head of Marketing & Client Success, Geoffrey spent nine years at Webloyalty, where he held a variety of marketing leadership roles, partnering with leading retailers and ecommerce businesses across...
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Ashley Buehnerkemper is Director of Marketing at VitalSkin Dermatology, where she has led marketing and brand strategy since the company's inception in 2019, growing the platform from its earliest locations to more than 40 today. Her role spans far beyond traditional marketing: as a member of VitalSkin's executive leadership team, she owns the martech stack, performance reporting, and brand governance across a fast-growing, multi-brand dermatology group, with a particular focus on driving tight alignment between marketing and operations. Before joining VitalSkin, Ashley spent 11 years at...
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Kristi Annes is a healthcare marketing executive with more than 15 years of experience building brands and driving growth at some of the most influential companies in health IT. Kristi currently serves as VP of Marketing Strategy at IMO Health, a private equity-backed leader in clinical intelligence and data solutions, where she has spent nearly a decade defining how the company shows up in the market. When IMO Health acquired Melax Tech, she led the marketing integration — unifying teams, technology, and execution to deliver impact from day one. Her path to that role ran through one...
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Product Management and innovation enthusiast, Hank Lander, currently serves as a Group Product Manager at HubSpot, focusing on Customer Data Protections. Hank's expertise lies in launching new products and building product pipelines. Prior to his current role, he was the Director of Product at ZoomInfo and worked at multiple early-stage startups. Hank holds an MBA in Entrepreneurship from MIT Sloan School of Management and a BS in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology. What you’ll learn about in this episode: How AI is reshaping sensitive data governance inside HubSpot....
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Josh Dougherty is a brand strategist, speaker, and the founder and CEO of A Brave New, a Seattle-based branding agency that crafts bold and memorable healthcare brands. They have specific expertise in healthcare technology, hospitals and specialty care providers, and healthcare nonprofits. Josh has 15 years experience building new brands from scratch, refreshing existing brands and building strategies to bring those brands to life in the market. What you’ll learn about in this episode: How your brand can serve as a multiplier of your marketing efforts if you’ve take the time to craft a...
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Jennifer is a seasoned healthcare leader with expertise in leading start-up and high growth organizations, with a proven track record of executing on go-to-market and growth strategies in the employer, payor and provider channels. Jennifer currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Pacify Health, a leader in tech-enabled Maternity Management Solutions. Previously, Jennifer served as General Manager and Chief Commercial Officer for Vera Whole Health, an advanced primary care organization and at Optum as Senior Vice President, Commercial Growth. Jennifer serves as a board...
info_outlineA Brave New Podcast
Josh Dougherty is a brand strategist, speaker, and the founder and CEO of A Brave New, a Seattle-based branding agency that crafts bold and memorable healthcare brands. They have specific expertise in healthcare technology, hospitals and specialty care providers, and healthcare nonprofits. Josh has 15 years experience building new brands from scratch, refreshing existing brands and building strategies to bring those brands to life in the market. What you’ll learn about in this episode: Why branding decisions during mergers and acquisitions shouldn’t be treated as an afterthought. The...
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Bridget Locke is Vice President of Strategic Marketing at VitalPath, a leading contract design and manufacturing partner focused on complex catheter solutions for the medical device industry. She specializes in helping highly technical B2B organizations translate complex capabilities into clear market positioning, scalable growth strategies, and high-impact customer engagement. With experience spanning strategic marketing, sales alignment, brand development, M&A integration, and commercial strategy, Bridget has built and led growth initiatives across the medtech manufacturing ecosystem....
info_outlineJennifer is a seasoned healthcare leader with expertise in leading start-up and high growth organizations, with a proven track record of executing on go-to-market and growth strategies in the employer, payor and provider channels.
Jennifer currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Pacify Health, a leader in tech-enabled Maternity Management Solutions. Previously, Jennifer served as General Manager and Chief Commercial Officer for Vera Whole Health, an advanced primary care organization and at Optum as Senior Vice President, Commercial Growth. Jennifer serves as a board member for Zero Health, a leader in employer direct contracting and as the Board Chair for the Minnesota Milk Bank for Babies.
Jennifer holds an MBA from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management and an MS in Kinesiology from the University of North Dakota.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- How Jennifer and the Pacify team made the strategic decision to expand from on-demand lactation into a doula-led maternity management model
- What the research actually shows about doulas' impact on clinical outcomes and birth experience
- How to apply "calculated bravery" when making a fundamental shift to your business model
- Why Pacify chose to evolve its brand positioning rather than rename the company
- How to balance brand messaging across complex audiences, including members, providers, paying customers, and internal teams
- Why education and human outbound calls are essential to driving engagement, even for free services
- How Jennifer thinks about the role of AI and technology in a deeply human care experience
Additional resources:
- Jennifer Sargent on LinkedIn
- Pacify Health’s Website
- Josh Dougherty on LinkedIn
- Josh Dougherty’s speaking site
- A Brave New’s Website