Stephanie Trunzo — Chief Executive Officer
Stephanie Trunzo is a seasoned technology executive, entrepreneur, and thought leader with 20+ years of experience leading digital transformation for the world’s largest companies. Stephanie currently serves as the CEO of MERGE, where she leads the company’s vision to redefine experiences in the digital and physical worlds. At MERGE, Stephanie is blending technology, design, and human insights to create personalized, data-driven, intuitive experiences for health, wellness, and lifestyle brands, building on her passion for using tech and creative marketing to make meaningful impacts on everyday lives.
Prior to MERGE, Stephanie played a strategic role as SVP & GM at Oracle, especially in advancing healthcare, including leading Oracle’s major Cerner acquisition. Her work at Oracle aligned closely with her dedication to human-centered solutions, helping bring data-driven, patient-focused innovation to healthcare. During her time at Oracle, Stephanie also led GTM approaches across all of the industries, and led digital transformation for Oracle’s most strategic cloud customers.
Prior to Oracle, Stephanie held executive roles at IBM, from global product development to leading IBM Garage, a global network of studios fusing industry practices with startup agility. As an entrepreneur, Stephanie also served as the President/Chief Operating Officer at PointSource, a digital transformation agency, where her leadership contributed to rapid growth and the company’s public acquisition by Globant. While Chief Digital Officer for North America at Globant, she focused on digital transformation that emphasized a blend of technology, design, and business strategy for the company’s largest region.
An advocate for a more inclusive tech landscape, Stephanie dedicates time to mentoring rising female leaders and diverse community organizations. She frequently speaks and writes on topics such as inclusive leadership, digital innovation, and the future of consumerism and health, bringing warmth and insight to her talks. This year, she was chosen to join FCV Collective, a group of top-level industry executives dedicated to innovation and healthcare advancement. As a licensed yoga instructor, Stephanie also infuses her professional work with movement and meditation. With her blend of big-picture vision and human-centered approach, Stephanie Trunzo showcases how technology and design can drive positive, lasting change.
Nicole Turner — Chief Marketing & Brand Officer
As Chief Marketing & Brand Officer, Nicole Turner leads our Kansas City office and our marketing organization to achieve brand goals, inspire teams, guide business decisions, and develop trusted client partnerships. Nicole brings 20 years of experience building and growing national brands, leading large-scale omnichannel efforts, developing modern marketing solutions, and driving positive business outcomes to clients.
Her category expertise ranges from Fortune 500 to emerging companies, with a passion for getting deep into a client’s business to shape brand decisions that impact every aspect of customer experience. With a customer-centered approach, Nicole brings a unique background in retail and experience marketing, focusing on opportunities to create meaningful engagements that drive conversion along the path to purchase. Brand experience includes Abbott Nutrition, Bayer, Bloomin’ Brands, Elanco, John Deere, LG Electronics, Sonic Drive-In, Subway, and T-Mobile.
Kyle Smith — Chief Technology & Digital Officer
Kyle Smith, Chief Technology & Digital Officer at MERGE, provides strategic vision and leadership in the company's adoption of emerging technologies and its overarching digital transformation strategy. His approach is deeply informed by a distinguished career as a strategic consulting partner, where he guided numerous global enterprises through complex technology modernization initiatives.
Throughout his consulting tenure, Kyle consistently delivered significant operational improvements and spearheaded the development of cutting-edge capabilities that demonstrably enhanced client differentiation and elevated customer experience.
As the leader of Merge's AI Garage, an internal incubator for AI-enabled solutions, Kyle is also bringing powerful AI solutions to both Merge teams and customers. At MERGE, Kyle leverages this extensive experience to drive impactful technology solutions, benefiting both the company's internal operations and its diverse clientele.
Cait Smith — Chief Design Officer
As Chief Design Officer, Cait Vlastakis Smith brings proven leadership in digital strategy, creative storytelling, and experience design across technology and healthcare brands.
At Meta she led content and UX teams building privacy and safety features for Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram, deepening her expertise in data-driven content strategy, design systems and scaling experiences for global audiences in regulated markets.
Prior to Meta, she led brand strategy efforts for emerging SaaS, open source and tech clients at brand agency New Kind, and served as Executive Strategy Director at Centerline Digital, leading creative strategy, global website redesigns, and content marketing campaigns for IBM, First Citizens Bank, Red Hat, GE, Quintiles (IQVIA), and Duke Clinical Research Institute.
At technology company Globant, she led the digital strategy practice, partnering with insurance and healthcare clients to transform customer journeys through service design.
She also worked at Campbell Alliance (Inventiv Health), a pharmaceutical and biotech consulting firm, building repeatable methodologies, playbooks, and tools for managed markets, sales, and clinical development teams.
John Bracey — Chief Data & Performance Officer
John Bracey has a distinguished history of guiding global brands in their transformation into data-driven organizations as a seasoned data science and analytics executive. He is recognized for cultivating high-impact teams and pioneering innovative, compliant data strategies across diverse industries such as pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, and retail.
John has a proven talent for delivering significant growth, enhancing efficiency, and maximizing ROI by expertly applying audience segmentation, machine learning, automation, and cross-channel analytics. His leadership has been instrumental in modernizing marketing efforts for world renowned brands and achieving award-winning, multi-million dollar results.
Heidi West — Managing Director
With over 30 years of sales leadership experience, Heidi West has a distinguished track record of delivering impactful technology solutions across healthcare and other diverse sectors. She has held pivotal sales and leadership roles at industry-leading companies such as Cisco, Nutanix, and Booz Allen, and ran the healthcare division at Zoom, where she consistently drove impressive results.
Heidi excels at building and nurturing high-performing sales teams, fostering a culture of care and excellence that aligns with MERGE's company values. Beyond her professional achievements, she is a passionate advocate for women in technology, actively mentoring and supporting STE(A)M initiatives
Erica Denner — Chief People Officer
As Chief People Officer at MERGE, Erica Denner leads with expertise in people strategy, adult learning, change management, leadership coaching, and operational excellence. Passionate about fostering high-performing and growing teams, she brings a unique ability to align talent initiatives with organizational goals, cultivating environments where individuals and teams can thrive.
Erica holds a master’s degree from Northwestern University in Learning and Organizational Change, a program dedicated to developing leaders equipped to drive transformation in complex environments. Erica is guided by her core beliefs in assuming positive intent, staying curious, asking thoughtful questions, recognizing biases, and solving problems with focus and clarity. She excels in partnering with leaders to unlock potential, navigate growth challenges, and deliver measurable results, ensuring teams remain agile and energized in dynamic, fast-paced settings.
Chris Esposito — Chief Financial Officer
As Chief Financial Officer at MERGE, Chris Esposito works closely across teams to strategically invest in key growth areas, scale operations, and build on MERGE’s deep understanding of the health and wellness consumer. With over 17 years of exceptional financial leadership experience, Chris’s professional career offers an exceptional blend of operational expertise and forward-thinking strategy.
As the global CFO at Grey, an agency within WPP, Chris was instrumental in leading financial operations including hiring and developing BIC talent across 40 international markets. His ability to centralize operations, drive capability expansions, and lead growth initiatives from acquisitions to regional restructures stands out as remarkable. His background also includes key leadership roles at Ernst & Young, underscoring Chris’s strong foundation in financial best practices for the dynamic and evolving advertising industry.
Pat McGloin — Managing Director
Pat McGloin has been with MERGE for 12 years and is currently Managing Director. Pat has extensive experience building and executing commercial strategies on the client side, including at Johnson & Johnson, where he began his career in sales and marketing. He brings an MBA and close to 30 years of marketing and commercial leadership experience to the agency, having spent decades growing life science organizations in both biotech and medtech.
Prior to joining MERGE, Pat was Chief Commercial Officer for a global life sciences company and had responsibility for North America, leading strategy while running sales, marketing, distribution, and customer service. At MERGE, Pat has helped lead and launch commercial strategies for Roche, Supernus Pharmaceuticals, Flexion Therapeutics, Viatris, Biocon Biologics, UCB Pharmaceuticals, Astellas, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, B. Braun, and CSL, among others.
Elizabeth Hart — Chief of Staff
As Chief of Staff, Office of the CEO, Elizabeth is a strategic partner to our executive leadership team and drives organizational growth and effectiveness. Her experience spans Fortune 500 companies, building organizations from the ground up.
At Oracle, she managed a $38M budget and led a 100+ member team across Oracle Industries, developing OKRs and implementing innovative tools to drive success. In addition, at IBM, she led a 10x team expansion within the IBM Garage.
Elizabeth also has entrepreneurial initiative, including having an instrumental role in building and scaling the McNair Institute for Entrepreneurism and Free Enterprise at the University of South Carolina. Throughout all of these experiences, she remains passionate about fostering a culture of collaboration and high performance.
Jean May — Chief Client Experience Officer
As Chief Client Experience Officer, Jean May leads the charge by fostering exceptional client experiences and empowering teams to deliver meaningful results for our clients. Leveraging over 20 years of expertise in client service, operations, and project management, Jean ensures that MERGE is delivering efficiently and effectively with a client-centric and unified approach.
Jean is a results-driven leader and excels at building and nurturing high-performing teams. With a deep understanding of marketing and technology principles, she oversees the end-to-end client journey, ensuring every interaction reflects MERGE's commitment to excellence. Jean's ability to marry strategic thinking with operational execution makes her a pivotal force in MERGE’s mission to promote health, wellness, and happiness through the power of storytelling through technology.
Andrew Pelosi — Chief Commercial Officer
As Chief Commercial Officer, Andrew Pelosi elevates and advances commercial operations to the betterment of both MERGE and our blue-chip clients across the spectrum of health, wellness, and happiness. Prior to joining MERGE in 2012, Andrew was SVP, Group Account Director at Boston agencies Hill Holliday and Mullen Lowe, and Manager, Digital Strategy at Digitas North America.
Andrew’s work touches all aspects of sales, contracting, and nurturing successful, long-term client partnerships. Always willing to jump in, Andrew possesses a knack for simplifying complexity and fostering a calm, productive work environment. His experience, curiosity, and passion are instrumental in the organization's ability to identify and unleash the potential found at the intersection of creative, media, data, and technology.
Paul Buranosky — Chief Marketing Officer
Paul Buranosky is the Chief Marketing Officer of MERGE. A global marketing and communications executive with more than twenty years of experience, he has successfully driven brand growth and innovation, led marketing organizations through major acquisitions, and reimagined marketing departments for elevated brand awareness and industry impact. His leadership has regularly resulted in significant revenue growth and industry recognition. A constant advocate for thought leadership and reinvention, Paul is passionate about using emerging technologies to create impactful brand experiences.
Paul has held several key leadership roles throughout his career, most recently as the marketing and communications lead for the dentsu Solutions team. He has also served as Vice President, Global Marketing and Communications for LiveArea and as both Marketing Director for Isobar US and Global Director of Analyst Relations for Isobar. His key achievements include orchestrating the successful merger of LiveArea into Merkle, integrating Isobar US into a global network, and securing placements in prestigious publications such as the Harvard Business Review and The Wall Street Journal.
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