Gil Bashe

Managing Partner, Global Health
Finn Partners
@Gil_Bashe

Gil Bashe’s healthcare career spans the patient, physician, provider, payer and policy sectors.  At the center of Gil’s life and work is the belief that communication is part of the care.  As managing partner of FINN Partners Global Health, he champions the talent and ideas of the nation’s “Healthcare Agency of the Year” (Holmes Report).  Gil is included among the MM&M “Top 50 Influential People in Health,” a PharmaVOICE “Top 100 Inspiring Health Leaders,” and a “Top 10 Innovation Catalyst.”

Prior to joining Finn Partners, Gil was Executive Vice President at Makovsky for more than 12 years.  During his tenure, he took on some of the health sector’s most vexing reimbursement and access challenges. As a result, he was named by PRNews as one of the nation’s “Top Crisis Communicators” and inducted him into its Hall of Fame.

Gil is among the few communications executives with private-equity background.  In 1999, he was tapped by GTCR Golder Rauner, one of the nation’s largest venture funds, as CEO of Health!Quest Communications.  Together, they built one of the group’s largest health acquisition pipelines.

Gil was formerly Group Company CEO of CommonHealth, the global WPP Group health-marketing network.  At its sister-company Hill & Knowlton, he was the first global Practice Director for its Health and Pharmaceutical Practice.  Prior to this, Gil led the specialist healthcare firm, Medicus PR, recognized in 1994 by the influential industry publication Inside PR as “Hottest Healthcare Agency.” That same year, he was named “Health and Medical All-Star.”

Before entering the agency world, Gil was a lobbyist for the New Jersey Health Products Council, a consortium of some of the nation’s largest consumer health products and biopharmaceutical companies.  His interest in government affairs originates with his work with the Australian Government, Department of Foreign Affairs, as a Counselor Officer, focusing on immigration and community affairs.

Winner of numerous awards for creativity, including PRSA Silver Anvils, he was listed among “The Top Brains in the New World of Work” by Fast Company magazine.  He was cited in Creating Covenants: Healing Health Care in the New Millennium for his experience as a paratrooper and combat medic and awarded an “outstanding combat medic” honor in 1982.

Gil is passionate about public health in everything he does.  He serves on the NHLBI GENTAC Working Group examining how genetics impacts cardiovascular disease. He is immediate past chair of the American Heart Association (AHA) Founder’s Affiliate.  He served as chair of its New York City region and twice chair of the national AHA Marketing Communications Subcommittee.  Gil is also a board member of the Galien Foundation and board advisor to the Marfan Foundation.

Always ready to share knowledge, Gil is a columnist for PM360 magazine, speaker on patient advocacy and health communications and co-editor of the book Branding Health Services: Defining Yourself in the Marketplace.