Ms. McDonough serves as executive vice president and chief marketing and communications officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the world’s leading comprehensive cancer center. There, she oversees brand and advertising, strategic communications, integrated marketing, editorial and content, digital strategy and patient education. Over the past two years, she has led a holistic advertising strategy centered on patient-first storytelling to encourage early cancer screening and detection, including a refresh of the system’s flagship “It Takes MSK” campaign, with new TV commercials in English and Spanish, a Hispanic cancer screening public service announcement named one of Ad Age’s “Top 5 Creative Campaigns You Need to Know about Right Now,” and the Gen: C social media campaign in partnership with Self magazine. Ms. McDonough also guided MSK through New York City’s complex public approval process for The Kenneth C. Griffin Pavilion, a critical $2.3 billion campus expansion, earning unanimous approval from the New York City Council. Her strategic redesign of MSK’s breast cancer guide drove an 87% increase in appointment requests, and her “Breast Cancer Awareness Month” campaign contributed to a 14% year-over-year increase in new visit requests to breast cancer services. MSK was ranked the No. 1 hospital for oncology care in the world by Newsweek for 2026 and the No. 2 cancer hospital in the nation by U.S. News & World Report in 2025. Prior to MSK, Ms. McDonough served as senior vice president and chief communications officer at Boston-based Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
