Douwe Bergsma, Chief Brand Growth Officer at Piedmont, came to healthcare after 19 years at Procter & Gamble and a stint as CMO of Georgia-Pacific. In this conversation from HCIC 2025, he explains what that CPG background taught him about building a brand that patients know, like, choose, and stay loyal to — and how he’s applied that framework inside a health system.

About a year and a half ago, Piedmont brought patient experience, brand building, brand performance, and insights and analytics under one organizational roof. Bergsma walks through why that matters, what the six core metrics are, and how holding one team accountable across all of them changes what gets funded and what gets cut.

He also makes the case for evidence-based marketing in a field where colleagues routinely ask for specific tactics — a billboard at a particular highway exit — without connecting the ask to an objective. His response: redirect the conversation from tactic to goal, then let the data decide.

The conversation closes on AI. Bergsma isn’t predicting where it lands, but he’s watching two things: how health systems will show up when patients search for care through tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity, and how AI might help patients find the right doctor, at the right place, at the right time.