MRS Diversity, Inclusion & Equality Council

Babita is Head of Strategic Partnerships and a member of the Leadership Team at Zappi. Babita is responsible for looking after Zappi’s most important customers and partners, collaborating on product design, digitisation strategies and change management, with a goal to elevate the role of insights professionals within organisations. Babita has over 20 years industry experience, anchored mostly in tech, commercial and digital roles. She is an Advisory Board member for WIRe (Women In Research) and also leads the European arm of their Exec Group. Babita was elected to the MRS Main Board in April 2020.

Shibu is an Operations Director with extensive commercial experience, leading cross-functional market research teams. In a career spanning over 20 years he has worked with the sector’s leading agencies and held positions ranging from client-facing to technical roles. Whilst at Ipsos MORI, he served as a senior member of the UK Operations leadership team, owning the innovation strategy and driving cultural change to implement transformative business optimisation and integration projects. In addition, he was instrumental in delivering infrastructure and workflow development programs to support the transition to mode agnostic data collection, as well as championing improved survey experience for all participants. Helping clients is a huge passion for Shibu; he strives to play the role of an identifier of business issues, a designer and implementer of business optimisation or improvement, and a connector of teams to deliver complex technical projects to meet business or client requirements. Shibu has a BEng in Mechanical Engineering and is currently based in London.

John is the Events & Awards Manager at MRS, but over his 14 years at the Society his role has variously included field schemes, publications, information services, membership communications and more. As well as looking after the Excellence, Operations and MRS Awards, he is a point of contact for MRS regional networks and organises the IJMR lecture series. In 2019 John worked with Michael Brown to establish MRSpride, the first LGBTQ+ network for researchers and allies.

Michael is Partner of Insight & Cross-Culture at UM, but started his career as a marketing graduate at American Express. After receiving his vocation to work in market research, he worked at two of the industry’s most innovative businesses, Research Now and MESH Experience. In his current role, he helps UM’s clients understand their audiences and marketplaces by leading the agency’s consumer insight department. After five years at UM, Michael has recently taken on the additional responsibility of leading the agency’s Better World vision, which is their strategy for ensuring the agency makes a positive impact on the world they operate in. Michael has a particular passion for using traditional research methods to give a platform to marginalised voices in society and for understanding the role and responsibility of ads in creating and tackling stereotypes. He is founder and chair of MRSpride, the market research sector’s LGBTQ+ network.

Owner and Managing Director of GuineaPig Fieldwork, Theo brings a boat load of energy, passion and enthusiasm to the cause, as well as a deep toolbox of transferable skills from business development and project management to marketing and branding. Having previously been involved in racial activism projects long before his career in research, the Colour of Research (CORe) message is close to his heart and something he wears on his chest with pride. As Director of CORe, Theo is responsible for organisational development and oversight, branding and assisting with strategic long-term planning.

Caroline is a multi-award-winning CEO with a high-level of expertise in media, digital, first party data, brand and comms strategy, tech-driven automation, and change leadership. She is part of the Kantar Exco and, as Global CEO of the Kantar Profiles Division, is also responsible for running their multi-million-dollar first party data division that powers insight delivery and analytics for world-leading brands via compliant, programmatic access to over 100m+ respondents across the globe - including Kantar’s exclusive LifePoints panels. Caroline joined Kantar in 2016 and prior to this worked client-side in media for 15 years in influential roles at leading companies, including: Classic FM, The Mirror Group, Five, Disney, ITV, UKTV and Sky. This was followed by 7 years at Omnicom where she was EMEA CEO for Hall & Partners. One of Caroline’s biggest passions is helping businesses transform and grow in profitable and purposeful ways by creating more inclusive and diverse environments, where the only barriers to success are personal choice and professional competence. She holds herself accountable to being a role model for women in tech and the C-suite, and an active ally for underrepresented groups. This includes being the Global Exec Sponsor for Kantar’s Pride@Kantar community, supporting LGBTQI+ employees across the globe, an ambassador for Ethnicity Mentoring Programmes, providing sponsorship and mentoring for both Kantar employees and young individuals externally who don’t get the support or opportunities in business they deserve, and a Sponsor for Leaders Plus, a social enterprise supporting women leaders with babies and young children stay in the career progression pipeline. Caroline has a BA Hons in Business Management and a Diploma in Market Research.

Jane is responsible for the leadership of MRS. Jane was previously at HM Revenue & Customs where she developed and led the individual customer function and the behavioural evidence and insight unit.
Before moving to HMRC in 2006, she held senior roles in both public and private sector organisations including Shell, Unilever, the Department of Constitutional Affairs and the BBC, where she was responsible for the iconic 'Perfect Day' campaign which, as well as winning advertisement of the year, raised £2.5m for Children in Need.

Shazia is the CEO of Neuro-Insight in the UK, managing the growth of the business and overseeing projects across a range of media and industries. She is a creative and curious insight and marketing professional with a passion for people and leading insight to action. Shazia has a track record of successfully building and leading insight capability and embedding this into organisations to drive action across multiple markets and functions. Prior to working at Neuro-Insight, she worked across the luxury fragrance and skin care brands at P&G after which she led the global insight function at ghd. Shazia has a passion for truly actionable insights and the story told through data and is a strong advocate for gender and racial equality. She is a mentor for CORe (Color of Research) and support group leader for charity Endometriosis UK, helping to drive the mission of educating the masses on menstrual health.

Kenny is the co-founder and Managing Director of ClearView Research Ltd (CVR), a leading-edge insight and strategy agency providing culturally-informed insight on diverse audiences. He has written influential and award-winning publications and has led on innovative partnerships with global brands such as Uber, Tinder and Deliveroo, on social impact campaigns aimed at young people and millennials. Kenny is also a trustee of several charities, such as BBC Children in Need, Strength Within In Me Foundation (S.W.I.M), Spark Inside and City Gateway, where he is currently the Chair of the Board of Trustees. He is also on the advisory boards of the Queen's Commonwealth Trust and youth charity Peer Power.

Vanella is Global CEO of Hall & Partners. She joined the business in 2004 following a successful career as an Account Planner in some of the world’s best advertising agencies, including Bartle Bogle Hegarty, J Walter Thompson and AMV BBDO. This planning background has helped Vanella in developing an innovative approach at Hall & Partners, creating a new framework for today’s always-on world. Under her lead the company has grown and expanded to new markets to form a high-level collaborative global network. Vanella has been a ‘UK Woman of the Year’ and is a Fellow and former Chair of MRS, where she has been significantly involved in leading diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Steven Lacey is a researcher with over 20 years’ experience. His particular specialism is researching the ‘mass mainstream’, the often-White British working class that are so often ignored in traditional research. He has a huge body of work in this area, looking at issues such as the reasons for the white working class voting for Brexit, far-right extremism and the recent Conservative general election victory. More broadly Steven has a wealth of experience in research among so-called ‘hard-to-reach audiences.’ Steven is disabled and from a working class background – during his career he has faced a number of barriers, the inspiration for him setting up The Outsiders, an agency that brings marginalised voices to the table. In 2016 he was recognised with a Ginny Valentine Badge of Courage Award for “the pursuit of minority voices.”

Jake is the Vice President of Customer Insight at Deliveroo. Prior to that he built and then led the International Insight & Analytics function at Twitter and has held senior insight roles at O2 UK and Kantar. Jake is also a former MRS Main Board member and remains a member of the MRS Delphi Group.

Danielle is an Insight Director at Relish. Beginning her career as an ESOMAR Young Researcher runner-up, WARC rising star and regular conference speaker, Danielle revels in insight and strategy. You’ve probably come across her being quite vocal in her opinion either at a wonderful MRS conference or on Twitter. Danielle loves her day-job equally to being the WIRe London lead, and having the opportunity to create change on the MRS DI&E Council. Her personal interests range from geopolitics (how the world came to be how it is), feminism (how the world can be a better place) and post-apocalyptic literature (how the world could be if we mess it all up).