Hospital & Healthcare Marketing Consultant
17 years building and scaling some of India's largest hospital brands.
I help hospitals, clinic chains and diagnostics networks build marketing that shows up in patient numbers.
Former Chief Marketing Officer, Gleneagles Hospitals India (IHH Healthcare).
Previously Apollo, Yashoda, Sakra, Columbia Asia and Manipal.
YouTube subscribers in nine months — India's first hospital Gold Play Button, second in the world.
Years of in-house hospital marketing leadership across six groups.
Member digital marketing team built and led — India's largest in-house hospital team.
CMO of the Year, Healthcare Management Awards (HyBizTV).
The work
Most hospitals don't have a marketing problem. They have a focus problem.
I'm Richard Roy Mendonce, a hospital and healthcare marketing consultant based in Hyderabad, India. I spent seventeen years leading marketing inside six of India's largest hospital groups — most recently as Chief Marketing Officer of Gleneagles Hospitals India (IHH Healthcare) — and now work with hospitals, clinic chains, diagnostics networks and health startups.
I cover hospital marketing strategy, patient acquisition systems, brand positioning, fractional CMO leadership, healthcare SEO and GEO, and doctor personal branding. Every engagement is scoped to the organisation; there are no fixed packages.
Budget spread thin across ten channels. Reporting that measures activity rather than admissions. A dashboard that looks healthy while outpatient numbers stay flat. If that sounds familiar, the problem is rarely effort — it is that nothing has been prioritised.
I spent seventeen years running marketing inside hospital groups, where the number that mattered was footfall. That is the perspective I bring: strategy that has already survived contact with a hospital P&L.
I work directly with CEOs, promoters and boards, and alongside the marketing team you already have. You work with me start to finish — no juniors, no hand-offs.
Built for hospitals, not adapted from retail.
Healthcare marketing has constraints nothing else has — clinical credibility, regulatory sensitivity, doctor engagement, referral economics. Playbooks borrowed from e-commerce break on all four.
Hospital Marketing Strategy
Service-line priorities, catchment mapping and a channel mix that answers to footfall rather than impressions.
Read more →Patient Acquisition Systems
Demand generation through to outpatient conversion, instrumented end to end so spend is traceable to patients.
Read more →Healthcare Brand Strategy
Positioning, messaging architecture and brand launches for hospital groups entering or repositioning in a market.
Read more →Fractional CMO
Senior marketing leadership — strategy, KPIs, budgets, team direction — without carrying a full-time CMO.
Read more →Healthcare SEO & GEO
Found on Google, and cited by AI engines when a patient asks where to go. Both, deliberately.
Read more →Doctor & CXO Branding
Clinician authority turned into a referral and reputation asset that compounds for the institution.
Read more →Hospital groups led and advised.
Selected work
Results that were publicly verified.
Outcomes that were awarded, certified or externally reported at the time.
1M YouTube subscribers in nine months
The first hospital brand in India to earn a YouTube Gold Play Button, and the second in the world. How the content engine behind it was built.
A brand launch that won on emotion
"Where Good People Make You Feel Better" — an afaqs! Marketers' Excellence Award, and Gold at the e4m Health & Wellness Marketing Awards 2025.
Building a 60+ person in-house team
India's largest in-house hospital digital marketing team — why it was built in-house, and what it changed about cost per patient.
Questions I get asked before the first call.
What does a hospital marketing consultant actually do?
A hospital marketing consultant diagnoses why marketing is not producing patients, then rebuilds the strategy behind it: which service lines to prioritise, which catchments to target, how the budget is split, and how outcomes are measured. The work spans brand positioning, patient acquisition, doctor and service-line marketing, and the internal structure needed to run it. Unlike an agency, a consultant is accountable to the business outcome rather than to campaign delivery.
How is this different from hiring a healthcare marketing agency?
An agency executes campaigns and is measured on delivery — impressions, leads, cost per lead. A consultant works a level above that, on what should be done and why. In practice I set the strategy, define the metrics, and give your agencies a brief worth executing. Most hospitals need both. Spend tends to underperform when an agency is briefed before the strategy exists, because nobody has defined what winning looks like.
What is a fractional CMO for a hospital?
A senior marketing leader working with you part-time — typically two to six days a month — carrying the responsibilities a full-time CMO would: strategy, KPIs, budget structure, team direction and agency oversight. It suits hospital groups that need CMO-level judgement but cannot justify a full-time CMO salary, and groups in transition between marketing heads.
Which healthcare organisations do you work with?
Multi-specialty hospitals and hospital groups, single-specialty hospitals, clinic chains, diagnostics chains and health startups. Engagements usually begin with the CEO, promoter or board rather than the marketing team, because the decisions that matter most sit at that level.
Do you offer fixed packages or published pricing?
No. Every engagement is scoped after an exploratory conversation, because a 200-bed single-specialty hospital and a multi-city group have almost nothing in common operationally. Scope, duration and commercials are agreed before any work begins.
Do you work with hospitals outside Hyderabad?
Yes. The practice is based in Hyderabad and works with hospitals across India, through a mix of on-site visits and remote working. Seventeen years across six hospital groups covered Hyderabad, Bengaluru and multi-city networks.
Busy marketing, flat numbers?
That is usually a focus problem, not an effort problem. Book a free 30-minute exploratory call — no deck, no pitch, just an honest read on what is holding growth back.