Mike is Global Director of GfK’s Online Development Centre of Excellence. He is a Fellow of the Market Research Society & a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Mike has been in research since 1973 and held many industry positions. He is currently on the Council of ESOMAR where he is the portfolio holder for Professional Standards and a member of the MRS Disciplinary Authority.

Recently he was awarded the ESOMAR Excellence Award. He has also won both the ESOMAR Congress Award & the Market Research Society’s “Research Effectiveness Award”.

He is a graduate of the London School of Economics, and also has a Masters degree, in Political Behaviour, from the University of Essex.

Bryan co-founded RS Consulting in 1984 and has 45 years’ top agency experience in all aspects of industrial, commercial and institutional research. He has an international reputation for a creative and innovative approach to research projects and has designed, managed and directed many of the largest and most technically challenging projects that RS Consulting has been commissioned to undertake. Bryan has played, and continues to play a central role in RS Consulting’s continuous search to find innovative new research techniques and methodologies to address the increasing range of problems clients are using research to solve. He is personally responsible for much of the work behind RS Consulting’s adoption of on-line research, which is allowing quicker and most cost-efficient collection of data on many assignments.

Basil joined Invoke Solutions, a Bain Capital Ventures company, in April 2010. Throughout his career he has worked primarily with technology led services companies often in the capacity as the turnaround and/or growth CEO. These companies include Convergys (IPO in 2001), WillowCSN (strategic sale in 2006) and TLC Envirotech (clean technology company). Invoke Solutions, also celebrating its 10-year anniversary, is the industry leader in large scale, real time and on-line qualitative market research. Basil also is part of the Boston based non-profit group called Initiative for a New Economy.

Dr Laurent Florès is the Founder and Chairman of CRMMETRIX, a company that specializes in measuring digital marketing effectiveness for Fortune 500 companies worldwide from its New York, Cincinnati, Paris, Mumbai and Singapore offices. Dr Florès is also an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas. Regularly quoted in the international press, his work is published in academic journals such as Marketing Science, Journal of Advertising Research, etc. and received industry recognition. He seats on the Esomar and Adetem (elected Vice-President of the French marketing association) boards of directors and was of on the first elected board of directors for Womma, The Word of Mouth Marketing Association in the USA.

Art has over 24 years of experience in wide array of marketing research disciplines including panel, custom, syndicated and advertising copy testing and tracking. His industry experience is extensive having worked for clients in such fields as pharmaceuticals, fast food, telecommunications, retail, financial services, automotive, business-to-business, among others.

Art’s current management responsibilities are focused on MSW’s mobile initiative and online research, charged with client service support, setting corporate strategy, product development and supporting these efforts through R & D and marketing.

Art established MSW’s online research initiative in 1998 and prior to his current role he served a variety of positions at MSW and also held positions at NFO and NPD. Art earned a BA from Syracuse University and a MBA in Marketing from Hofstra University. He is a member of the American Marketing Association and the Advertising Research Foundation.

I have always been curious on how meaning is made. Media and representation have been my field of study and gradually I have developed as an expert on reach and effect studies. For today’s advertisers ROI and optimizing brand performance are key, and I have been contributing to that for many years. As a partner with the independent strategic media agency Mediaxplain, I have invented the role of Effect Director, servicing our clients to save money and spend it best.

Jean Faulkner has been Condé Nast’s Marketing and Research Director since 1997, overseeing the marketing effort for the UK company’s 13 magazines, 8 websites and contract publishing unit. She and her team helped launch Condé Nast Traveller, Glamour, Easy Living and Wired in Britain and she was involved in the research for the launch of Vogue in Russia, China and India. This November Condé Nast UK will launch iPad apps for Vogue and Wired. Over the course of an average year her department works on more than 160 research projects; Condé Nast became a Toluna client in 2010. A graduate of Manchester University, Jean joined Condé Nast in the mid 1980’s as a trainee in the classified department, eventually becoming an associate publisher. In 1996 she went to Publicis as the director of media strategy for the L’Oreal luxury division. She was appointed to the Condé Nast board in 2001. Jean lives in west London with her husband and two sons aged 10 and 4.

Richard Sheldrake has worked in the market research industry for more than two decades. He began his career as a telephone interviewer for BMSL (now known as Harris Interactive Europe) and was quickly promoted up the ranks. During his five years with the company he was trained in all aspects of the business-to-business research process, including client liaison, questionnaire design, project management, data analysis, report writing and presentation of findings. Richard and his wife Jemma Evans founded Perspective Research Services in 1996 to offer specialist B2B and consumer field services. He is now a board director of BDRC-Continental and the award winning full service agency Spring Research. Richard is actively involved in the industry, a full member of the MRS, a serving member of the MRS Council, Honorary Treasurer of AIMRI and a former Deputy Chairman of the BMRA.

Thommaso has worked in the market research sector since 1992, first as a partner in a company that specialized in market research, then in 1999, established the ALES Market Research institute. During this time, he gained valuable experience in both the qualitative and quantitative research sectors, studying and finding advanced technological methods with which to administer in-depth emotional and segmentation analysis.

Thommasso principally work with pharmaceutical companies and the mass market. In the past, he also gained valuable professional experience as a company manager for Procter & Gamble, and as a consultant in a consultancy firm by the name of KPMG Peat Marwick. Thommasso has organized various courses on behalf of an Italian market research association: ASSIRM (Association of Market Research Institutes in Italy) and I was member of program committee of several Esomar events.

A philosopher focused on marketing, for more than 20 years Luca Vercelloni has been helping major Italian and international companies to analyze brands and consumers worldwide, covering more than 30 different countries. Luca’s activity has primarily dealt with research and consultancy concerning brand communication, development, innovation and globalization. After being a partner and manager of other research institutes, in 2008 he founded Brandvoyant as an independent society and the first specializing in brand phenomenology (www.brandvoyant.com)

Beyond the profession, Luca developed a specific interest about the consuming culture, that he made the subject matter of publishing and teaching. Essential bibliography: La modernità alimentare (The Food Modernity, 1998), La Tavola Imbandita. Storia estetica della cucina (The Sumptuously Laid Table. An Aesthetical History of Cuisine, 2001), Viaggio intorno al gusto (A journey around the taste, 2005) .

Patrick VAN BLOEME
Directeur associé, Harris Interactive France