MERGE Continues Growth Trajectory with Strategic Additions to Leadership

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MERGE Continues Growth Trajectory with Strategic Additions to Leadership

2025-06-11 22:03 Last Updated At：22:11

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 11, 2025--

MERGE, a leading marketing and technology agency, announces two strategic hires to strengthen and further accelerate its mission of integrated growth and innovation. Heidi West steps into the role of Chief Revenue Officer, and John Bracey joins MERGE as Chief Data and Performance Officer. These accomplished executives bring decades of experience and expertise, fortifying the agency’s leadership team as it continues to expand at the intersection of health and wellness.

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Heidi West, MERGE’s new Chief Revenue Officer, offers over 30 years of exceptional sales leadership and a history of delivering impactful technology solutions across healthcare, including at CommonSpirit Health, Englewood Health, Mount Sinai Health System, Stanford Health Care, and other diverse industries. Most recently leading the healthcare team at Zoom, West has held sales and leadership roles at Cisco, Nutanix, and Booz Allen.

"I am incredibly excited to join MERGE at such a pivotal time," said West. "I look forward to leveraging my experience in healthcare and technology to help MERGE bridge the gap between health and consumer verticals. By focusing on improving patient engagement and experience, we can deliver trusted, relatable solutions guided by AI and data-driven strategies for our clients and their audiences.”

West’s background in healthcare and executive engagement, combined with her talent for building high-performing sales teams aligned with strategic goals, makes her an invaluable catalyst for strategic growth. Commenting on this significant leadership addition, Stephanie Trunzo, MERGE CEO, remarked, “While leading Oracle Health, I met Heidi in her role driving the health business at Zoom. Her extensive experience in the health industry, coupled with her strategic sales expertise and sincere approach will catalyze the outcome-oriented momentum of our client service and business development teams.” Beyond her professional achievements, West is a passionate advocate for women in technology and STE(A)M initiatives.

John Bracey, a visionary in data science and analytics, brings an impressive track record of transforming global brands into organizations driven by insight. Formerly EVP at Publicis Groupe, Bracey spearheaded data-driven transformation initiatives across a number of Publicis Groupe’s largest consumer and healthcare brands.

“My expertise lies where data science and strategy meet. I’m passionate about helping brands maximize the value of their data and media investments, whether by engineering insight or architecting performance,” said Bracey. “Across industries, I’ve seen that an audience-first approach consistently drives better insights and stronger outcomes. At MERGE, I look forward to continuing this work, turning complex data into automated, actionable solutions that deliver measurable business outcomes.”

“John’s ability to harness data to transform businesses will substantively enhance how we deliver personalized, meaningful solutions that unite people and brands. These data-smart offerings will be the electricity that runs through creative and tech implementations to identify, optimize, and predictively model impact. We’re incredibly excited about the amplified innovation he will bring to MERGE,” said Trunzo.

The West and Bracey appointments further accelerate MERGE's strategic leadership expansion, building on the other significant executive announcements this year beginning with Stephanie Trunzo's announcement as CEO, and including Erica Denner (Chief People Officer), Kyle Smith (CTO), Paul Buranosky (CMO), and Chris Esposito (CFO).

About MERGE

MERGE is a marketing and technology agency built for the intersection of health and wellness. We combine deep expertise in health and consumer behavior with strategy, creativity, experience technology, and digital marketing to design personalized experiences that drive meaningful results.

Powered by human insight, creativity, and AI, we weave storytelling through technology to turn complexity into clarity — strengthening relationships between people and brands.

With 750+ specialists across Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York, and Raleigh, MERGE partners with leading brands like Abbott, GE Healthcare, American Express, T-Mobile, Coach, and Meta to advance health, wellness, and happiness.

Learn more at mergeworld.com.

Hennepin County prosecutor calls on the public to share Renee Good shooting evidence with her office

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty on Friday called on members of the public to send any video or other evidence in the fatal shooting of Renee Good directly to her office, challenging the Trump administration's decision to leave the investigation solely to the FBI.

Moriarty said that although her office has collaborated effectively with the FBI in past cases, she is concerned by the Trump administration's decision to bar state and local agencies from playing any role in the investigation into Wednesday's killing of Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.

She also said that despite the Trump administration’s insistence that the officer who shot Good has complete legal immunity, that isn’t the case.

“We do have jurisdiction to make this decision with what happened in this case,” she said at a news conference. “It does not matter that it was a federal law enforcement agent.”

Moriarty said her office would post a link for the public to submit footage of the shooting, even though she acknowledged that she wasn't sure what legal outcome submissions might produce.

The prosecutor's announcement came on a third day of Minneapolis protests over Good's killing and a day after federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in Portland, Oregon.

Good's wife, Becca Good, released a statement to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday saying, “kindness radiated out of her.”

"On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns," Becca Good said.

“I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him,” she wrote. “That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.”

The reaction to the Good's shooting was immediate in the city where police killed George Floyd in 2020, with hundreds of protesters converging on the shooting scene and the school district canceling classes for the rest of the week as a precaution.

On Thursday night, hundreds marched in freezing rain down one of Minneapolis’ major thoroughfares, chanting “ICE out now!” and holding signs saying, “Killer ice off our streets." And on Friday, protesters were out again demonstrating outside of a federal facility that is serving as a hub for the immigration crackdown that began Tuesday in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Authorities erected barricades outside the facility Friday.

City workers, meanwhile, removed makeshift barricades made of old Christmas trees and other debris that had been blocking the streets near the scene of Good's shooting. Officials said they would leave up a shrine to the 37-year-old mother of three.

The Portland shootings happened outside a hospital Thursday afternoon. Federal immigration officers shot and wounded a man and woman, identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Venezuela nationals Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, who were inside a vehicle, and their conditions weren't immediately known. The FBI and the Oregon Department of Justice were investigating.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council called on ICE to end all operations in the city until a full investigation is completed. Hundreds protested Thursday night at a local ICE building. Early Friday, Portland police reported that officers had arrested several protesters after asking the to get out of a street to allow traffic to flow.

Just as it did following Good's shooting, DHS defended the actions of the officers in Portland, saying it occurred after a Venezuelan man with alleged gang ties and who was involved in a recent shooting tried to “weaponize” his vehicle to hit the officers. It wasn't immediately clear if the shootings were captured on video, as Good's was.

The Minneapolis shooting happened on the second day of the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities, which Homeland Security said is the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever. More than 2,000 officers are taking part and Noem said they have made more than 1,500 arrests.

The government is also shifting immigration officers to Minneapolis from sweeps in Louisiana, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. This represents a pivot, as the Louisiana crackdown that began in December had been expected to last into February.

Good's death — at least the fifth tied to immigration sweeps since Trump took office — has resonated far beyond Minneapolis, as protests happening in other places, including Texas, California, Detroit and Missouri.

In Washington, D.C., on Thursday, a woman held a sign that said, “Stop Trump’s Gestapo,” as hundreds of people marched to the White House. Protesters in Pflugerville, Texas, north of Austin, banged on the walls of an ICE facility. And a man in Los Angeles burned an American flag in front of federal detention center.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, President Donald Trump and others in his administration have repeatedly characterized the Minneapolis shooting as an act of self-defense and cast Good as a villain, suggesting she used her vehicle as a weapon to attack the officer who shot her.

But state and local officials and protesters rejected that characterization, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey saying videos show the self-defense argument is “garbage.”

Several bystanders captured footage of Good's killing, which happened in a neighborhood south of downtown.

The recordings show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.

It is not clear from the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer, and there is no indication of whether the woman had interactions with agents earlier. After the shooting, the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb before crashing to a stop.

The federal agent who fatally shot Good is an Iraq War veteran who has served for nearly two decades in the Border Patrol and ICE, according to records obtained by AP.

Noem has not publicly named him, but a Homeland Security spokesperson said her description of his injuries last summer refers to an incident in Bloomington, Minnesota, in which court documents identify him as Jonathan Ross.

Ross got his arm stuck in the window of a vehicle whose driver was fleeing arrest on an immigration violation. Ross was dragged and fired his Taser. A jury found the driver guilty of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.

Attempts to reach Ross, 43, at phone numbers and email addresses associated with him were not successful.

Associated Press reporters Steve Karnowski and Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis; Ed White in Detroit; Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas; Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma; Michael Biesecker in Washington; Jim Mustian and Safiyah Riddle in New York; Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.