Marilyn CastaldiMarilyn Castaldi

Marilyn Lee Castaldi, a healthcare PR pro who held leadership positions at Burson-Marsteller, FleishmanHillard and Hill & Knowlton Strategies, passed away on January 5 after a battle with ovarian cancer. She was 71.

Early in her career, Castaldi served as PR director for the University of Pennsylvania. She began her agency life in 1982 at Hill & Knowlton, and worked in the WPP unit’s Los Angeles and New York outposts over a two-year period before joining Burson-Marsteller in 1984, where she served as executive vice president and ran that agency’s healthcare practice. She later moved to Fleishman-Hillard, where she headed the Omnicom agency’s healthcare unit and spearheaded its growth to become a global healthcare powerhouse.

Corporate stints at Johnson & Johnson and Avon Products followed, and in 2002, Castaldi rejoined H&K, where she was named general manager of its New York office. She left that agency in 2003, where she moved to fill the chief communications officer slot at Columbia University’s Medical Center. In 2011 she became healthcare EVP of Ogilvy’s Feinstein Kean Healthcare unit, and later became interim vice president of communications and public affairs at New York University Medical Center and interim vice president of public affairs and marketing at New York Presbyterian in Queens.

In a statement, Burson-Marsteller founder and chairman emeritus Harold Burson referred to Castaldi as “one of the pioneers in the movement to expand the knowledge of pharmaceutical treatments and health care practices to a broader audience of doctors, healthcare professionals, and consumers.”

Born in 1945 in Philadelphia, Castaldi graduated from Syracuse University and later achieved an MBA in marketing from the New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. She is survived by her brother Bob and his wife Anna Paglione, as well as nieces, nephews and cousins, and her partner, Philip Hostetter. Castaldi’s husband of 33 years, Howard Singer, died in 2013.

Visitation will be held at 7 p.m. on January 12 at Graham Funeral Home in Rye, New York. A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. on January 13 at the Church of the Resurrection in Rye.

In lieu of flowers, contributions to The Eye-Bank for Sight Restoration — to which Castaldi served as board member and president — can be made at www.eyedonation.org.