Bayer Names New Marketing Chief for Consumer Health Division

In the latest update to its consumer health division’s marketing strategy, Bayer has appointed a new global marketing leader for the business. 

Samantha Avivi will now serve as global chief marketing officer for Bayer Consumer Health. She originally joined the company in 2024 as chief marketing officer of the North American consumer health business. 

Before arriving at Bayer, Avivi held marketing leadership roles at consumer goods giants including Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark and Advance Auto Parts. She started her career in the mid-1990s with stints at agencies like Young & Rubicam—now part of WPP’s VML—and BBDO, where she headed up branding efforts for M&Ms and Dove chocolate. 

“What excites me most, is the opportunity to help build trusted brands that improve people’s lives while working with talented teams around the world,” Avivi wrote in a LinkedIn post this week, adding that she’s “so honored” to lead marketing work for Bayer’s portfolio of consumer brands, which include Claritin, Alka Seltzer, One A Day and more. 

Bayer’s Monday announcement included news of a handful of additional appointments within the consumer health division. David Tomasi, formerly president of the U.S. business, is now global chief commercial officer, while Trevor Thrun will take over Tomasi’s previous role after serving as general manager of Bayer’s U.S. upper respiratory segment. Finally, Analia de la Fuente has been named data chief of the consumer division, after serving as global chief insights and analytics officer for the German pharma. 

solli’s Final Thoughts 

Expanding Avivi’s role from a North American to global focus seems to be the latest move by Bayer to consolidate marketing efforts for its consumer health division, which brought in around 5.8 billion euros in 2025, representing about 12% of the Big Pharma’s total annual sales.  

Last fall, the company named Interpublic Group its global agency partner for all creative, production and media work in the consumer health business; previously, it outsourced its various outreach efforts to a wider variety of agencies. At the time, Bayer said the integrated agency strategy would allow it to capitalize on new generative artificial intelligence technologies that could help strengthen relationships with consumers. 

Avivi’s promotion also lends support to the argument that health and pharma marketers can learn quite a bit from the consumer goods industry’s playbook, as her past experience leading brand work for items like auto parts, bath tissue and candy appears to be translating smoothly to a pharma environment.