40 | Q2 2022 Apr22120 Best Science & Technology Specialist Director 2022: Seema Sharma Onyva is a full-service marketing agency supporting the scientific sector by bringing a range of marketing services to clients in the form of technical content production, digital marketing, branding, design, and campaign strategy. The agency helps its customers to grow and achieve business goals through its specialist marketing expertise. In light of Managing Director, Seema Sharma’s outstanding awards success, we take a look at the company and her career. In its seventh year, Onyva was founded by its Managing Director, Dr Seema Sharma with an honest, clear approach, and a focus on open communication to introduce new concepts that clients may not have considered. The agency’s diverse clientele derive from the fields of life sciences, biotechnology, Pharma, medical sectors (including diagnostics), and scientific publishing. Onyva’s management team, including Seema, hold a combination of PhD level scientific knowledge, along with decades of combined commercial marketing experience in the life sciences sector, biotech, scientific publishing, and software. The team therefore grasps the technical concepts quickly and moves onto what really matters to clients – achieving business goals. The team also has a solid data-driven approach and always builds measurable KPI outcomes into any project. The agency’s brand and design lead, Mike Young, holds over 25 years’ experience in the life sciences and healthcare sector, so is able to produce an enhanced level of design content to elevate scientific brands and content. This combined experience and personalised approach towards each client sets Onyva apart from other creative agency within the sector. Mike Young, Senior Design Lead states “I have worked with Onyva The Agency for over 2 years now. Seema is one of the best managers I’ve had the pleasure to have worked along side. She has an unflappable nature and great knowledge in the field — it makes her the best person to lead any project. She also incentivises and supports the team very well. For example, when we have been working particularly hard on a project, you’ll get the excellent support you need for the project, and they’ll be a gift to say thank you” Seema Sharma graduated with a PhD from University College London in molecular neuroscience, and her research background is therefore in neuroscience, biochemistry, and proteomics. She enjoyed the communication of her research with others, interacting with peers immensely, and also writing her thesis. However, she found bench-based research too isolating and repetitive. So, she decided to leave academia to work as a technical specialist at Oxford, for Biotechne. After a brief stint as a journalist, Seema gained commercial marketing experience including running marketing and events programmes for the research journal, Science, as European Programme Director. She then moved on to help run global scientific campaigns and new product lines at Abcam Plc., before moving to a strategic marketing role in software. During 17 years of commercial marketing, Seema gained insights into diverse marketing channels, approaches, and the advent and integration of marketing automation in the sector to achieve business growth. It was at this point time that she as ready to take the next step and establish her own marketing agency. Vital skills to Seema’s current role as Managing Director at Onyva include excellent communication, both externally to help capture clients’ needs, and internally, so the team can deliver on goals. Visual creativity and thinking outside the box is also essential to helping customers get ahead of their competitors. Seema says, “You have to be able to embrace change and switch rapidly between scientific fields – you need to adapt constantly. Crucially, you have to be a people person at heart so you can focus on finding the right solutions for the right client, whilst leading campaigns. “For example, we’ve just completed a brand, design, and web project transformation for a national melanoma charity (Melanoma Focus), which was heavily focused on helping patients and clinical professionals. She continues, “We worked with the charity, clinicians, and patients to help transform their site with a dedicated and visually appealing patient guide, to help those at all stages of their cancer journey, including producing new technical content for both a patient and professional audience. Our next projects involve social media and webinars for scientific publishing, and a lead automation app.” So, what advice would Seema give to those who are seeking to emulate her success within the industry? She shares, “Don’t ever give up learning – whether that is from your colleagues, online learning, reading, attending courses, or speaking to a mentor. It doesn’t matter how advanced you are in your career; you always have a lot to learn. It’s particularly important in the field of digital marketing, and the scientific sector – everything evolves at a fast rate.” And now Seema and her team are focused on the future where they are looking at developing novel marketing platforms, which is an exciting prospect, as well as strengthening their PR capabilities. Company: Onyva The Agency Email: info@onyva-agency.com Website: www.onyva-agency.com Tel: +44 (0)1223 790557 Onyva The Agency
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