Our executive team is…

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.
Debrah is responsible for all MRS operations and leads the Society’s standards, policy and public affairs activities. Debrah graduated from Southampton University in the early 90’s with an honours degree in Geography.
She first worked in accountancy and then moved to the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) in 1994. After working in auditing and compliance for ABC, she joined the management of MRS in 1999 to establish a new Standards and Policy department.
Debrah is the co-author (with Peter Jackson) of the book, Quality in Market Research: from Theory to Practice and is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
With over 15 years experience in B2B publishing and events, Nikki leads the planning and implementation of logistics, production and delivery of all products and services issues throughout the MRS.

As Content and Digital Director at MRS, Chris oversees the editorial, digital, advertising and data teams, including Impact magazine, all MRS websites, social media and CRM. Chris works closely with the MRS Delphi Group and other industry experts to produce special reports that distill the latest thinking on critical issues for the insight and data analytics sector. He has worked in a number of industries as a journalist and editor, and has managed digital communications for several international businesses.

As Membership and Marketing Director, Helen is responsible for the membership, company accreditation, training and qualifications functions as well as the marketing strategy and ops at MRS. Having worked for three professional bodies for the past 25 years, she specialises in membership marketing and commercial product delivery for membership organisations.

She worked for six years from 1986 for the Chartered Institute of Quality (CIQ) as editor and then head of communications, and in 1993 moved to head up the marketing team for 11 years at the institute of Leadership and Management (ILM).

With a degree in social science focusing on society and psychology, her original subject matter interests are proving very useful for working in the research sector. Helen recently completed the Marketing Week Mini-MBA in Marketing and was awarded an A.

Before joining MRS William spent seven years at the Institute for Family Business looking after their recruitment and retention strategies. There is nothing more that he likes to do than speak with his members and discuss what they really care about and how they can benefit most their membership. William has spent a career in sales and business development roles, both B2C and B2B, for businesses of all shapes and sizes, so he is excellently placed to understand the challenges they face.

William has an MBA from City University business school, in his spare time he very much enjoys cycling, swimming, running and where possible skiing, generally anything outside or fitness related.

Samantha has worked at MRS since 1991 in a variety of roles and Departments, including Conference & Events, Training and Qualifications.

She is now responsible for the delivery of all detailed operational and service development relating to both individual membership and MRS qualification programmes
 

On behalf of MRS Main Board, the MRS Management Board is charged with oversight and scrutiny of the performance and direction of MRS from a financial, business management and reporting perspective.

The Management Board is specifically responsible for:

  • Links between MRS Main Board (strategy/policy/priorities) and Staff (implementation/operations/delivery)
  • Business plans and budgets
  • MRS as an employer

Chair
John Haworth

Members
Debrah Harding
Phyllis Macfarlane
Dr. Nick Baker
Jane Frost

MRS Board is made up of MRS members elected by the membership from across the research sector. MRS Board is responsible for MRS achieving its overall vision, mission and objectives.

Chief Commercial Officer at Interactive Investor

Saj joined the team at interactive investor as Chief Commercial Officer in May 2022. Saj has more than 30 years’ experience in commercial, customer, marketing & digital transformation roles.

In this role his accountabilities include propositions, customer acquisition, retention, brand, planning and content and PR.

Outside of work Saj likes keeping fit, reading and finding obscure music and fashions from the 60's and 70's, and is an avid Spurs fan.
Sinead is SVP for Customer Transformation at Zappi, with extensive previous experience both agency and client-side, including as a Board Director and MD within Chime Insight & Engagement and as Head of Insight & Intelligence at Royal Mail.

Since moving to France with her family in 2015 she has worked remotely and was proud to be included on the Timewise Power Part Time list 2017. Following the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, she founded a consultancy, Vela, to support individuals and teams to achieve great things, remotely. She worked with organisations to help them understand and rebuild their working practices as well as offering training on key remote working skills.

Sinead leads the People & Talent programme for MRS, collaborating with people from a wide range of backgrounds to focus on supporting the sector on attracting new & returning talent, learning & development, wellbeing and agency culture & leadership.

James Endersby has made a significant contribution to the research sector through his support, advocacy, and his team’s development of the Opinium Workplace Mental Wellbeing audit, which has been adopted by MRS and in the US and Australia. He has also supported a number of other organisations, including as a Board member of the Alliance of International Market Research Institutes (AIMRI), and been a long-term advocate of a wide range of inclusion initiatives, Women in Research (WiRe), Colour of Research (CORe) and championing diversity and inclusion through his media platform Significant Insights.

On receiving his Fellowship, James says: “MRS is the fabric of the UK research sector - advocating in the highest corridors of power, developing our current and future leaders, promoting the highest professional standards and bringing together everyone from clients, to agencies, to those considering a career in research. It is a huge surprise and a massive honour to be awarded a Fellowship. It has inspired me to do even more to support our great sector.”

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 Ali is Director and Founder of Mint Research.

Rebecca Cole is Managing Director of Cobalt Sky, an award-winning market research operations company specialising in online data collection and data processing. She joined Cobalt Sky as a graduate in 2006 and is a highly experienced web scripter and quantum programmer. As well as being on the board of the MRS, Rebecca has spent almost 10 years on the board of the Association for Survey Computing (ASC) which delivers conferences on the latest technologies being used in market research.

Josephine is a Fellow of the Market Research Society and has spent most of her career focused on understanding Gen Z.

As part of the senior team at Savanta she leads it’s Next Gen practice. She was the Managing Director of YouthSight research until it was acquired and before that she spent nearly a decade at GfK.

Josephine is an active member of MRSpride, presenting the podcast OUTsights, and is passionate about making market research an industry where everyone can succeed.
Josephine is a regular on the international conference circuit, sharing her take on generational theory supported by Savanta’s unique State of the Youth Nation tracking data.

Multi-award winning insights expert. Female founder. Specialist in Diversity, Inclusion and Equality. Dedicated to making organisations more inclusive and successful.

Geoff is an independent research consultant, having previously spent a number of years as a Research Director at Synovate and Ipsos MORI. A passionate exponent of qualitative research, he has also spent time clientside and in key account management. He is Chair of the Market Research Standards Board.

LaShanda is a qualitative research specialist with client and agency side experience. She currently works at Opinium within their specialist qualitative team. As a researcher she has a keen interest in amplifying the voices of those who may not always be involved in research and incorporating the use of innovative methodologies.

She is active in the wider market and social research space as a member of the MRS &more leadership team, sitting on the working group for the MRS People & Talent programme within the new and returning talent workstream and on the committee for Social Researchers of Colour (SROC). She is active on conferences and panels within the industry, often advocating for young researchers. Recently she was recognised as a finalist for MRS young researcher of the year and a Significant Insights 30 under 30 honouree.

Jonathan is the Managing Partner of Kantar’s Sustainable Transformation Practice, leading the team, solution development, thought leadership and business management for all of Kantar’s client work in the social and environmental space across the world. Prior to this role, he led agencies in the UK, France and East- & West-Coast US in the fields of consumer insight, innovation, design, communications and brand development.

Jonathan is also on the Executive Council for the Future of Marketing Initiative at the Said Business School, University of Oxford, and a contributor on Said's Digital Marketing Disruptive Strategy Programme, as well as the Advisory Group for the Disrupting Marketing for Sustainability course at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. He is on the Leadership team of the Insight Climate Collective and is a long-standing member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Brand Management.

Nick leads the Audiences team at the BBC, which comprises planners, researchers and analysts in TV, Radio and Digital; central audience measurement specialists, marketing sciences and brand insight teams; and the Audience Services team handling direct interactions between the BBC and its audience. He is Deputy Chair of the Market Research Standards Board.

Zoe is Global Head, VP Consumer & Business Insights & Analytics at Mars Pet Care.
Previously, Zoe was Vice President of Consumer & Business Insights and Analytics at GSK, where she is focused on ensuring that the global function was set up to deliver competitive advantage in consumer and business understanding. Prior to that she spent over 20 years at Procter & Gamble in regional and global insight and analytic roles in R&D, Marketing and Sales. She is known to be a passionate champion of the industry and its members.

Jake is the Chief Marketing & Insight Officer for Access Intelligence. He is a Marketeer and Insight professional who specialises in building teams to drive growth in Tech. Prior to joining AI, Jake built and led Marketing, Research & Insight teams at O2 U.K., Twitter and Deliveroo as well as spending time agency side at Kantar, TNS and Quadrangle. He in on the main board of the Market Research Society and chair of the MRS Analytics council.
 

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