Exceptional Leader Award, Enterprise Early Career Program - 2nd Place Winner - Mariela Orochena-1
Exceptional Leader Award, Enterprise Early Career Program - 2nd Place Winner - Mariela Orochena

Mariela Orochena
EVP/Exec Director, Talent Acquisition
IPG Health

WINNER SPOTLIGHT

Mariela is Head of Talent Acquisition for IPG Health, a global health advertising network. She leads IPG Health’s Talent Acquisition Center of Excellence, which provides strategic direction and implementation of recruitment efforts and internal mobility globally. This includes hiring and retention of talent, recruiting excellence across a diverse family of agencies and the designing and implementation of related programs. During her 25+ year career, Mariela has remained consistently immersed in the pursuit of diversified talent pools and career development. Prior to IPG Health, she spent several years recruiting digital media and technology talent at Digitas. She began her career as an executive recruiter at Heyman Associates, an executive search firm in PR and Corporate Communications, where she worked with Fortune 500 clients building best in class communication leadership teams. Mariela holds a BA in Journalism from New York University. She currently lives in New Jersey with her husband, son, daughter and two miniature schnauzers.

Career Highlight

"Throughout my 25+ year career in recruiting, I've never let a challenge stand in my way when it comes to building diversified talent pools and career development. As a fierce proponent of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in the workplace, I invent and refine approaches to bring in talent from all walks of life to healthcare marketing. As part of the network’s global EDI+You strategy, I spearhead the reimagining of our approach to attracting, recruiting, developing and retaining the brightest talent from all walks of life, industries and backgrounds. When it comes to recruiting, I advocate for a ‘culture add’ strategy, striving to embrace unique perspectives and experiences, which naturally dismantles historical barriers, including bias, in recruitment and career development processes. This approach has effectively broadened IPG Health’s talent pools, allowing our network to tap into a wealth of unique abilities and backgrounds. The future of health requires us to stay innovative, and fresh perspectives make both the work and the workplace better. Recruiting from different walks of life takes a lot of time and commitment, but I have embraced the challenge full-force. I have successfully piloted several programs to onboard employees and acclimate them to IPG Health, while embracing all the differences that made them desirable candidates from the start.

I was a driving force behind several innovative, industry-leading programs that address specific business needs. Programs include: The Residency – A 10-week program to assist new employees transitioning from consumer to healthcare advertising. The program focuses on fundamental pharmaceutical advertising principles and practices to ensure new hires acclimate as quickly and thoroughly as possible and are set up to continue to learn and grow within the agency for years to come. Bold Beginners – Bold Beginners is a paid nine-week summer internship program, designed to support interns as they gain real-world experience, learn more about healthcare advertising and connect with senior leadership. Unlike many traditional internships, Bold Beginners work together in groups on a pitch for a real client and present their ideas to senior leadership and C-level executives at the end of the summer. Each component of the internship is designed to set participants up for success in their careers wherever they may go. Write It Forward – Our award-winning Write it Forward program recruits, trains and mentors the next generation of science copywriters, from all walks of life. The program is designed to support participants long after it concludes, equipping them with everything they need to keep growing their careers. And most recently, with myself at the helm, IPG Health implemented a new interview training course for managers centered around inclusivity and bias to arm interviewers with the necessary tools and strategies to keep EDI at the center of the hiring process.

While these cutting-edge programs and recruitment strategies have bolstered our network’s pool of diverse talent, I know that development and innovation don’t stop after a new hire’s first 90 days. My ability to seamlessly pivot from incredibly high-volume recruiting to championing internal mobility is a unique skill and demonstrates my forward thinking when it comes to workforce planning – forecasting talent needs for today and anticipating what the business will need tomorrow. My curiosity, fresh thinking and relentless commitment to EDI and creating the talent pool of the future makes me a truly exceptional leader. I have taken on the challenge of building the kind of talent pipeline that many in the industry say is simply not possible, because the talent just isn’t there. If you ask me, I couldn’t disagree with this more and instead, wholeheartedly believe in building it yourself and looking for talent in unexpected, less traditional places. They say a company is only as good as its people and with my leadership, the future of IPG Health is limitless."


Congratulations to Mariela Orochena for placing as the 2nd place winner of the Exceptional Leader Award (leading a team responsible for more than 500 hires a year, and working for a company with less than 10,000 employees)!

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