The promotion follows the transition of former managing director of healthcare, Amanda Sefton, to the role of partner and director of the Ketchum Global Healthcare Practice.
Dessert and King will work together to provide strategic direction to the division, with Dessert taking primary responsibility for operational decision making and King focusing on developing new offers for clients and working with the agency’s Omnicom partners around the world.
Dessert joined Ketchum in 2007 and has spent time in the New York and London offices leading pharmaceutical and consumer health teams. King has been with Ketchum for 12 months and has worked in pharmaceutical marketing and communications since 2000. Before his arrival at Ketchum, King was director of Porter Novelli’s London healthcare practice.