Agency Kickstarts Next Phase of Strategic Growth with Four New Hires

South Norwalk, CT – April 2, 2025 – Scrum50 (S50) is a digital agency that has built its reputation on creating innovative and bold marketing solutions for clients. Those solutions come from a unique, highly adaptive approach that places client needs and budget first – while delivering maximum results. 

And today, as the agency experiences unprecedented growth, S50 is announcing the addition of four industry leaders to its expanding health team. Known individually for their impact in big-name health and pharma marketing, Howard Courtemanche, Michael Fox, James Buonantuono, and Laura Bzdek are bringing their deep expertise to an already strong and nimble, client-first team. 

Dedicated to the idea that “better work happens with fewer barriers,” the S50 Health team collaborate with clients to create award-winning marketing strategies and content for a wide range of consumer and health brands including AbbVie, Bayer, Myriad Genetics, Amgen, Acadia Pharmaceuticals and more. They are primed to build on recent accolades including an Ad Age Modern Healthcare Marketing Impact Award, and recognition from the OMMA Awards and MM+M Awards.

S50’s team brings a powerful “FLEX” strategy to each client – expanding, contracting and adapting to fit their specific needs and budget. The result: the right people at the right time – with the best and boldest ideas. And after years of perfecting its approach and creating powerful advertising strategies for healthcare brands, S50 Health is ready to expand.

“Over the years, we have perfected and proven our approach with consumer clients, and we find that experience to be a huge strategic benefit as we partner with more health clients,” said Michael LeBeau, Founder and Managing Partner of S50. “Our collective experience gives us more depth and more insight than a typical pharma-only agency. And as we lean into healthcare, we are bringing in great, new, talent to help us innovate and deliver even better results.”

Four highly experienced industry veterans will be joining the S50 Health team:

Howard Courtemanche, Executive Advisor

With decades of experience in the advertising world and within health marketing, Howard has served as a founder and leader for health divisions of WPP agencies as CEO of J. Walter Thompson Health and President of VMLY&R Health. Client accounts Howard has led include Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Astra Zeneca, Bristol Myers, Merck, Bayer, Genentech, Amgen and PhRMA. His experience covers every health agency discipline from consumer to HCP to medical education/affairs, over the counter, health systems, and virtually every therapeutic category in healthcare.

Michael Fox, Senior Vice President, Head of Health Marketing

Michael runs S50’s health portfolio including pharma, health tech, health systems and over-the-counter products and services. He is a purpose-driven media and marketing executive with extensive DTC and HCP experience in the healthcare industry across a diverse range of therapeutic areas including Oncology, MS, Cardiovascular, Primary Care, Specialty Care, Vaccines, Gene Therapy, Infant Nutrition and Patient-Centric Technology Solutions. He has led cross-functional agency teams delivering client solutions that include digital, social, mobile, TV, print, direct mail/email, experiential, radio and sales.

James Buonantuono, Senior Vice President, Head of Creative

With 20 years of advertising experience, James has led award-winning campaigns within the health, pharma, consumer products and tech industries. He has served in key roles at multiple agencies including Area 23, /Prompt, Weber Shandwick, Saatchi&Saatchi and McCann. James helped build the creative department at /Prompt – growing it from a staff of three to 35 in four years. 

Laura Bzdek, Senior Vice President, Growth 

Laura is a seasoned client relationship and business development leader with deep health experience including wellness, pharmaceutical, omnichannel, digital, social media, experiential, environmental and integrated marketing solutions that drive increased ROI and distinction. She specializes in creating accessible solutions for brands and their consumers. 

“I’m thrilled to join an agency that’s redefining what success looks like in this business,” said Howard Courtemanche, S50 Health’s new executive advisor. “There’s no red tape at S50 — just smart, flexible people working to deliver great work. They truly listen, adapt, and bring together the right talent to make an impact. This is the way it should be.”

About S50

S50 is an award-winning, customer-obsessed marketing agency. Our mission is to marry world-class strategic creative with an innovative approach to deliver deeper brand-to-consumer connections. We focus on three competency areas for clients: agency services, eBusiness and digital transformation. The agency is based in South Norwalk, CT with a hybrid team based across the US and Canada.