NEW YORK—MSLGroup Americas has hired Rum Ekhtiar as senior vice president and director of development for its New York corporate and health practices. He will be tasked with driving strategy and innovation across the practices groups for existing and prospective clients.

Ekhtiar’s background spans practice areas, including building corporate reputation and thought leadership initiatives for Fortune 500 companies. He will divide his time between providing senior counsel for some of MSL Americas’ largest health and corporate clients and serving as the creative and strategic director for program development for both existing and new clients.

Prior to joining MSL, he was an executive vice president at Ruder Finn, responsible for strategy and creative development in the corporate communications group. He led the Citi business developing a world-wide employee engagement and thought leadership platform and served as the global account director of the Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics vaccines franchise.

Prior to coming aboard Ruder Finn, Rum was an account director at FischerHealth/Porter Novelli in Los Angeles.