Latest senior appointments across media, AI enablement, and global client leadership deepen the expertise and connectivity that fuel continued partnership scale and impact
NEW YORK, September 28th, 2026 — Inizio Evoke announces the addition of three industry leaders to strengthen its bench of future-facing experts:
Jake Vander Linden has joined as President, Media; Brian Gundich has joined as EVP, AI Enablement; and Barbara Patchefsky has joined as Global Client Lead.
Coming off the heels of the agency’s recent launch of its commercial intelligence platform, Cognitev™, and its query-driven predictive intelligence product, Predictev™ ,the appointments represent the latest step in Inizio Evoke’s continued investment in innovation and best-in-class commercial leadership.
“Building a business that consistently delivers breakthrough work requires exceptional leaders across every part of the organization,” said Reid Connolly, Founder and CEO, Inizio Evoke. “Jake, Brian, and Barbara are the latest examples of the caliber of leadership we continue to invest in. Each brings the experience to navigate complexity, mobilize high-performing teams, and connect innovation to meaningful business outcomes. Together with the outstanding leaders already across Inizio Evoke, they will help us raise the bar for our clients, our teams, and the industry.”
“Building a business that consistently delivers breakthrough work requires exceptional leaders across every part of the organization. Jake, Brian, and Barbara are the latest examples of the caliber of leadership we continue to invest in. Each brings the experience to navigate complexity, mobilize high-performing teams, and connect innovation to meaningful business outcomes. Together with the outstanding leaders already across Inizio Evoke, they will help us raise the bar for our clients, our teams, and the industry.”
The three appointments strengthen distinct but interconnected areas of Inizio Evoke’s model: how intelligence informs media investment, how AI-enabled innovation is operationalized at scale, and how the full platform is mobilized around priority client relationships.
Jake Vander Linden Appointed President, Media
As President, Media, Vander Linden leads Inizio Evoke’s media strategy, planning, activation, analytics and AdTech capabilities. He is responsible for advancing a more connected and predictive approach to media across the commercialization lifecycle.
Vander Linden will further scale Inizio Evoke’s media strategy and activation with the agency’s proprietary behavioral intelligence, advanced analytics, and real-time performance signals—helping teams develop more inventive audience experiences, continuously optimize investment, and demonstrate clearer measurable impact.
With more than two decades of global media leadership experience across the healthcare and consumer sectors, Vander Linden has built and transformed high-performance organizations and led large-scale modernization initiatives spanning analytics, technology and activation.
“Healthcare commercialization is becoming more dynamic and data-intensive than ever before,” said Vander Linden. “Our opportunity is to create more relevant and personalized experiences for healthcare professionals, patients, and caregivers at scale by leveraging Evoke’s deep intelligence, analytics, and AI-enabled optimization capabilities to make every investment work harder.”
Brian Gundich Appointed EVP, AI Enablement
Gundich joins Inizio Evoke in the newly created role of EVP, AI Enablement, a role that reflects the agency’s sustained strategic investment in data, technology, and AI. He is leading the integration of AI across the business: building an AI-enabled operating model with established governance, secure infrastructure, and execution standards that turn investment into consistent, scalable value.
Gundich is at the forefront of a business transformation designed to position Inizio Evoke as a modern partner able to deliver great precision, at greater scale, and faster than ever before. He brings extensive experience leading operational transformation across complex global organizations. Most recently, he drove enterprise-wide intelligence and operations transformations at Interpublic Group.
“Clients are ready to put AI to work against meaningful business challenges,” said Gundich. “By empowering our teams with intelligent technology, we can work with more precision and speed at scale that wasn’t possible before—without losing the rigor and compliance healthcare demands.”
Barbara Patchefsky Appointed Global Client Lead
Patchefsky joins Inizio Evoke as Global Client Lead. In this role, she will serve as a senior commercial and strategic leader across priority client relationships, connecting clients’ business objectives with the full breadth of Inizio Evoke’s integrated platform.
She will focus on solving clients’ most pressing commercial challenges, deepening executive-level partnerships, shaping account strategies around each client’s growth agenda and mobilizing the right capabilities and teams against client priorities. Her appointment is intended to make it easier for clients to access the right expertise at the right moment—and to turn innovative ideas into connected programs that can be implemented across their organizations to accelerate growth.
Patchefsky brings more than 20 years of healthcare agency and client leadership experience. She most recently served as Global Client Director at Havas Health & You, where she held progressively senior roles spanning client services, account leadership, and business growth. Her career also includes senior positions across the Havas Health network and The CementBloc.
“The strongest client partnerships are built when teams can connect deep expertise around a shared business agenda and then translate that thinking into action,” said Patchefsky. “Inizio Evoke has the talent, intelligence, and integrated capabilities to turn ambitious ideas into work that can scale. I’m excited to help our clients solve their toughest commercial problems, move faster against their goals, and accelerate their growth.”
Together, these three latest appointments build on the strength of Inizio Evoke’s existing leadership team and reinforce the company’s commitment to placing experienced, connected, and commercially minded leaders around its clients’ most important opportunities.
By continuing to deepen leadership across media, AI-enabled operations, and enterprise client partnership, Inizio Evoke is strengthening an integrated model designed to produce bolder work and accelerate growth. Vander Linden, Gundich and Patchefsky are the latest additions to a leadership bench built to help ambitious healthcare organizations move from possibility to measurable impact.
About Inizio Evoke
Inizio Evoke is a full-service global life sciences Commercialization, Creative, and Communications Engine—purpose-built to help healthcare brands unlock growth in an increasingly competitive market. Powered by Cognitev™, Inizio Evoke uses proprietary behavioral intelligence to design intuitive, people-centric brands, experiences, and businesses that drive measurable commercial impact.
Inizio Evoke is the partner of choice for ambitious health organizations—supporting many of the industry’s most valuable assets and critical launches. From blockbuster growth to mature brand precision, we combine data, creativity, media, medical rigor, and applied AI innovation to make health more human™—and more effective.
For more information, visit www.inizioevoke.com.
About Inizio
Inizio is a commercialization partner providing tailored, innovative solutions to help health and life sciences companies across the clinical development
and commercialization journey. By simplifying the complex and enhancing
outcomes, Inizio helps unlock value at every stage of the asset lifecycle.
Learn more at www.inizio.com.