SENSEI masterful health communications

Sarah Oetgen
Executive Vice President

What is your role at SENSEI?
I'm the Executive Vice President. I work hand-in-hand with Susan on account, company and staff issues. I work on several of our medium-to-small, but very important accounts, (actually they're all important to us) which I love, because it's a lot of different topics and clients. It gives me a good variety and an opportunity to work with almost everyone at the agency. That's especially nice for me since I'm not in the New York office everyday. (I'm in New York two days a week and in New Haven the rest of the week.)

How long have you been in healthcare communications?
I started in 1995.

What is your background?
I started at Medisphere Communications and was there for three years. I worked on various health issues including HIV, children's fever, skin care, osteoporosis, arthritis, pediatric pain and hypertension. I got to know what it was like to work with people you like and to be surrounded by smart and thoughtful people. After Medisphere, I worked at a larger agency for two years, which I also loved. It took me a while to get used to the culture; it was like being at a new, bigger school. There, I supervised and implemented consumer and patient outreach programs on a huge account for an arthritis treatment.

How did getting your Master's in Public Health (MPH) help?
We really do a lot of public health programming here, so I get to use my MPH a lot. It helps with ideas for programming and strategy. Also, I learned about other health issues that I hadn't been exposed to through work, which has given me ideas about accounts and organizations we'd like to work with.

How would you describe your work style?
It's very organized. I'm very detail-oriented, but through growing, learning and moving into this role of managing a lot of accounts, you need to be able to let go and let the account people handle a lot of the details, so I've consciously tried to not obsess as much about those things. There's nothing worse than a manager who keeps saying, "Did you think about that? Did you think about that?"

What is your area of expertise?
Media focus. The nuts and bolts of what we do is media. I help people understand the importance of media and everything from how a press release should be written to your strategy for talking to reporters.

Where do you feel like you've made the most impact (so far)?
Staff management and teaching. It's more than assigning people, it's teaching them so that they can go and manage somebody else. I feel like I have a really open relationship with the people I work with, and they can come to me with anything. It's a colorful staff, and people have great backgrounds and personalities.

Do you have a quintessential SENSEI? experience?
We were down in New Orleans for a new business meeting. We were there because the client was attending the American College of Cardiology annual meeting. We gave this presentation and it went really well and we were having lunch afterwards at some dance hall eating crawfish -- a fun New Orleans place. These twoheavy-hitter reporters come in who were attending the conference, and they were like, "Hey Susan!" We ended up talking about our cardiology clients, our oncology clients -- all the world was colliding. It's quintessential SENSEI to have things just come together like that.

What is your favorite thing to do?
A successful media outreach. Actually seeing the article the way you hoped it would be. We do all this background work to get to that point, so it's the reward. It's a tangible win. It's what our clients hired us for.

Do you have a personal motto?
Honesty is the best policy. If something bad happened or you disagree with someone, including clients, you just have to tell them. Your true personality comes out that way; you're not hiding. It just makes the tough issues easier to deal with.

If you were a form of transportation, what would you be?
A train. Trains are reliable, they're efficient, they get you where you need to be, they're fast and they're convenient. I spend a lot of time on the train.

If you were a rock star who would you be?
I would never be a rock star. I just don't know if I have it in me. But I would want to be someone like Bono. He's obviously talented. He's really vocal politically -- and you're not just hearing someone famous talk because he's famous, he's actually doing things.

What is one thing you'd like to do before you die?
Write a novel. To find the time and willpower to commit myself to something different, like writing a novel.

What are the three things you can't live without?
My family, two friends in particular and the beach.