Hee Sun Yu has spent most of her career in health care marketing and communications and today works as a health care and managed markets marketing consultant within the biotechnology and life science industry, serving as a thought partner and support strategy development for life sciences organizations across a breadth of specialty therapeutic areas, including oncology and rare diseases.
Ms. Yu’s deep expertise in delivering meaningful brand strategy through strategic application of scientific, behavioral and health economics data, health care policy, information technology, market access and reimbursement sets her apart from others because she has the ability to take an overall view of the health care ecosystem as well as bring insight and solutions for her clients that had never been able to be delivered before. Most rewarding, she says, is ensuring that all appropriate health care stakeholders are connected and making treatments affordable and available for patients when and where they need them.
Along with being highly regarded as a problem solver and getting to the heart of matters, Ms. Yu’s unique professional capabilities are the result of her having earned an executive Master of Science in health systems from the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science at Binghamton University, State University of New York. Beforehand, at Binghamton University, she completed her Bachelor of Science in psychobiology and Bachelor of Arts in romance languages. Additionally, today, Ms. Yu sits on the student leadership board of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers.
Prior to consulting full-time, Ms. Yu was president of VMLY&R Market Access Group, a global marketing company. She considers the role to be one of her best career achievements to date along with earning an executive master’s degree as a young adult. She left her position at VMLY&R to take care of her mother, Han Hee Yu, who suffers from illness yet has always been a fighter and the primary inspiration for her daughter’s success. The younger Ms. Yu also credits her achievements to receiving personalized career coaching, which helped her to prioritize her individual growth and strategize how to provide the best professional service possible. While she likes the freedom and empowerment of working with different organizations that consulting offers, at some point in the future, she would love to return to leading a company or start her own consulting firm and provide more innovative business solutions applying AI and predictive modeling to help more health care stakeholders deliver equitable, accessible, affordable, and quality care to all patients.
A sampling of Ms. Yu’s other previous positions were as the senior vice president of client engagement for managed markets at the WG Group, a freelance strategic account manager, the senior vice president of account management for Maxcess Managed Markets, the senior vice president and group account director at Medicus Life Brands, the senior vice president and managing supervisor at CDM New York, the senior vice president and account group supervisor with Draftfcb, and the vice president and group account supervisor of JUICE Pharma Worldwide. Further, serving the global community, she was a board member for United Way Worldwide.
As Ms. Yu looks back on her career, among the most fulfilling times, she recalled, was when she performed the vital work of promoting adult vaccines. At the time, she had clients who were new to marketing vaccines, which, she explains, is more complex than promoting pediatric vaccines as well as more commonly used prescription drugs. Ms. Yu enjoyed partnering with her clients, one of whom sent a letter to the president of the company she worked for then, saying how valuable her contributions were. Her boss was very proud, had the letter framed, and gave it to Ms. Yu. That said, she is especially grateful for all women mentors who have helped guide and inspire her every step of the way. Looking forward, Ms. Yu says she wants to use today’s technology to create more solutions that leverage predictive modeling for clients and marketing companies to develop modeling scenarios on how different drugs could further improve outcomes for all stakeholders within the health care ecosystem.
