2022 Board of Directors & Trustees Bios
ARF Board of Directors
Scott McDonald, Ph.D.CEO & President
ARF
Scott McDonald became the CEO and President of the Advertising Research Foundation in March 2017. Prior to joining the ARF, he held senior research positions at leading global media companies, including 18 years at Time Warner, and 14 years at Conde Nast, covering both the consumer and the advertising sides of the media business. Throughout his career, he has kept a foot in both the academic and business worlds, teaching for 5 years at NYU and for 18 years at Columbia Business School.
He serves as an adviser to the Social Science Matrix Program at UC Berkeley, and is on the Board of the Population Reference Bureau. An avid art lover, he also is on the board of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He holds an A.B. degree from UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
CHAIR
Nishat Mehta
Chief Product Officer & President
IRI Media Center of Excellence
As President of Global Products and Solutions, Nishat Mehta leads an integrated global team that has responsibility for all of IRI’s products and commercial responsibility for many of IRI’s solutions, including Media, Retail, E-commerce, Analytics, and Growth Consulting. Mehta was previously President of Media and Chief Product Officer for IRI.
Before joining IRI, Mehta led the customer communications team at 84.51º, where he helped leading grocery retailer The Kroger Co. and its CPG brand partners create relevant and personalized communications to strengthen customer loyalty. Prior to leading this team, he served as the Company’s head of brand media, leveraging the power of data and other retail assets to improve CPG brand advertising. Prior to that, Mehta was responsible for developing strategic partnerships at dunnhumby. Here he led the elevation of the Company’s digital media measurement and targeting business, transforming the way CPG brands bought, sold, and measured their media.
Mehta also spent 15 years at MicroStrategy, a leading provider of sophisticated enterprise software platforms for business intelligence, mobile intelligence, and social intelligence applications, helping companies of all types leverage data and insights to make better decisions. As Vice President of Social Intelligence, Mehta drove the Company’s initial foray into social analytics to help brands better understand consumer behavior on social networks, particularly Facebook. During his tenure, he also built MicroStrategy’s OEM partner program, securing more than 150 partnerships with major data software companies such as Oracle, Accenture, and Kronos, allowing the Company to expand into high-volume businesses.
Mehta graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics and a master’s degree in computer science. He resides with his wife and children in New York City.
Follow Nishat Mehta on Twitter at @nishatmehta.
IMMEDIATE PAST CHAIR
Mary Ann Packo
Senior Partner
Hypothesis Group
Mary Ann Packo is Senior Partner at Hypothesis Group, a premium insights, design and strategy agency that serves many of the fastest-growing, highest value brands in the world. Her focus is to lead the next wave of growth and innovation for the award-winning firm. Over the course of her career, Mary Ann worked for many of the largest insights agencies in the world and has led brand-building businesses, both corporate and entrepreneurial. She has a track record of success with start-ups, high-growth businesses, international expansion and global business management.
Before joining Hypothesis, Mary Ann held senior management positions at WPP, as CEO of Kantar Insights, CEO of Kantar Gold Rush, and CEO of Millward Brown North America. Prior to that, Mary Ann was a pioneer in the Internet and digital media measurement arena as president and chief operating officer of Media Metrix, from start-up through to IPO. She has also worked outside the U.S. as President of NPD Canada’s custom research business and Executive Director of Ipsos-NFO, a Paris-based European Joint Venture.
Mary Ann serves as Chair of the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) Board of Directors, Co-Chair of She-Can Revolution 2.0 and champion of a number of global women’s leadership initiatives. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and lives a bi-coastal life, splitting her time between New York City and San Francisco.
Treasurer
Tim Perzyk
Vice President Global Business Marketing & Research
Since joining Twitter as the company’s 1st researcher 11 years ago, Tim now oversees Twitter’s global ad effectiveness research and audience insights practices. He also leads Twitter’s internal consumer insights team, which optimizes the company’s own marketing efforts and quantifies perceptions of the Twitter brand. In 2020, he assumed responsibility for Twitter’s global business marketing, including oversight of commercial product launches and external thought leadership, with a focus on insights from digital anthropology on the platform. Tim reports to Twitter CMO Leslie Berland.
Prior to Twitter, Tim was a director of consumer insights and digital research at both MTV Networks and NBC Universal, where he led early work into the relationship between social media engagement and television viewing.
Tim received a B.S. in economics from Duke University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He has memorized Nielsen TV ratings and Billboard music charts since the 1980s and enjoys a pop quiz. He is @tperzyk on Twitter.
Vice Chair
Mark Truss
Chief Research Officer
Wunderman Thompson
Mark Truss is the Chief Research Officer for Wunderman Thompson, overseeing research, insights and brand intelligence. Using traditional and emerging research techniques, Mark and his team help companies uncover hidden truths about consumers, cultures and brands that drive impactful communications across a variety of media channels.
Mark is also an active contributor within the industry. He writes for and speaks at events hosted by the Advertising Research Foundation and the 4A’s and the IAB; as well as lends his expertise to industry bodies, such as the Market Research Council and the Ad Council’s Research Committee. In addition, Mark is an adjunct professor at Columbia University and NYU and serves as a board member for the ANA’s Educational Foundation and the Advertising Research Foundation.
In his spare time, Mark plays lead guitar in a band of market researchers, known as “The Outliers.”
Secretary
Abby Mehta
SVP Marketing Insights and Media Analytics
Bank of America
Abby Mehta is Senior Vice President, Marketing Insights & Media Analytics Executive at Bank of America. Her current responsibilities range across the Enterprise, Consumer Banking and Wealth Management lines of business. Abby brings 20+ years of experience in harnessing consumer insights through research and analytics to develop effective customer-centric strategies that enhance the brand as well as drive the business.
Prior to Bank of America, Abby established the Center of Excellence for Customer Insights & Marketing Research at Staples. Abby integrated the brick-and-mortar and online LOBs to offer a holistic view of the customers for more effective business planning and implementation. Before Staples, as Global Head of Customer Insights for Monster, Abby managed research in 18 countries to bring actionable recommendations to her business partners across the organization. Prior to this, Abby’s served as Head of Research for Gallup & Robinson marketing and advertising consultancy, where she supported clients from a variety of Fortune 100 companies across many verticals as well as Federal agencies.
Abby started her career as Assistant Professor of Advertising at the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University.
Brian Cooper
Vice President, Demand, Data & Digital
Juniper Networks
Brian Cooper is the Vice President of the Demand and Analytics team at Juniper Networks. In overseeing Demand Generation, Brian is responsible for campaign strategy, implementation, paid media, and marketing automation. In analytics, Brian looks after the overall data strategy, predictive analytics, market research, and web analytics for the marketing organization. During his time at Juniper he orchestrated the development of a central data lake composed of Juniper’s marketing data assets, brought performance measurement online, and built a patent pending b2b account insight tool that has been scaled across the organization. The new developed demand strategy has resulted in doubling marketing’s pipeline contribution to the business over the last two years. Prior to Juniper, Brian served on the senior leadership team at RealityMine where he built a US, west coast presence for the company. Before joining RealityMine, he was the SVP for the customer, employee, and reputation practice for the western region where he was responsible for designing and overseeing research programs, maintaining client relationships, and managing a team of account executives, research managers, and project managers. Brian has published a book called Custom Surveys Within Your Budget and has numerous articles published in research journals. Brian holds a Bachelor of science degree in Economics from Southern Oregon University and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania.
Tina Daniels
Managing Director Agency and Brand Analytics
Tina Daniels is a strategic digital marketing veteran who brings a financial and analytical lens to the challenge of connecting with customers, managing digital transformation and scaling companies. At Google, Tina leads marketing analytics teams responsible for measuring the impact of brand and performance advertising for Google and YouTube’s largest agencies and clients. She also leads Google’s Industry Relations Team, partnering with marketing trade associations to represent Google’s products and policies. Tina is the executive sponsor for the US Agency team’s diversity & inclusion and professional development and culture initiatives.
Prior to running Analytics and Measurement, Tina served for 5 years as Google’s Director of Agency sales, advising advertising agency executives on digital media strategies for top clients and managing multi-billion dollar strategic partnerships. Before joining the sales team, Tina ran Google’s Advertising Platform Marketing team overseeing industry marketing of Google’s ad tech, programmatic and mobile solutions.
In her previous roles as a social tech platform Chief Revenue Officer; Director of Microsoft’s global advertising sales group and Vice President, Global Client Development at Avenue A|Razorfish Tina led large teams providing digital marketing strategies for winning new business and scaling client engagements. Tina served on Avenue A’s management team during the 6 year transformation from a small unprofitable challenger to leading digital media agency ultimately acquired by Microsoft.
Tina serves on the Board of Trustees of Claremont McKenna College focusing on the finance and investment committees which oversee the school’s budget and $1.7 billion endowment as well as the compensation and executive committees. She is the President of CMC’s Henry Kravis Leadership Institute advisory board. Tina also serves on the board of the Women’s Prison Association and Home, NYC’s 175 year old social services agency. During her 6 year tenure as President of the WPA board, she led the agency from insolvency to financial sustainability and recapitalized the agency through the refinancing of real estate holdings and aggressive cash flow management. Tina has chaired their audit and Executive Director search committees.
Tina is a graduate of Harvard Business School and Claremont McKenna College. She earned a CPA while working at Arthur Andersen and worked as a corporate finance analyst in the investment banking division of Oppenheimer & Co where she worked on numerous equity offerings and mergers and acquisitions engagements.
Pete Doe
Chief Research Officer
Nielsen
Pete Doe is Chief Research Officer at Nielsen. He has decades of experience in market research, audience measurement, big data and statistical modeling techniques.
In his current role he leads Nielsen’s Data Science Organization, overseeing the development of audience measurement methodologies across video, digital and audio globally. This is his second stint at Nielsen: between 2004-2015 he was a primary architect of Nielsen’s data integration products and contributed to patented innovations in Set Top Box measurement, Digital and Outdoor Advertising Research.
Between 2015-2022, Pete was Chief Research Officer at clypd, an advanced TV platform start-up acquired by Xandr in 2019, which in turn was acquired by Microsoft in 2022.
Before moving to the United States, Pete was a board director at RSMB TV Research in the UK, where he worked primarily on the BARB TV audience measurement currency as well as data fusion projects. He started his career at NOP Market Research in London.
Pete is a graduate of King’s College, London University.
Andy Fisher
Head of Merkury Advanced TV
Merkle
As the Head of Merkury Advanced TV, Andy’s primary responsibility is driving person based marketing and big data adoption in all areas of Television including Linear, Addressable, Connected, Programmatic and X-channel planning and Measurement. Andy has held several positions at Merkle including Chief Analytics Officer and he ran the Merkle data business. Prior to joining Merkle, Andy was the EVP, Global Data & Analytics Director at Starcom MediaVest Group where he led the SMG global analytics practice. In this role he built and managed a team of 150 analytics professionals across 17 countries servicing many of the world’s largest advertisers. Prior to that role, Andy was Vice President and National Lead, Analytics at Razorfish, where he led the digital analytics practice and managed a team of modeling, survey, media data and business intelligence experts. He and his team were responsible for some of the first innovations in multi-touchpoint attribution and joining online/offline data for many of the Fortune 100.
Andy has also held leadership positions at Personify and IRI. He is a frequent speaker and a co-author of “It Only Looks like Magic: The Power of Big Data and Customer Centric Digital Analytics”. Andy is an avid traveler having visited more than 100 countries. He also follows the chess world and is the former US high school chess champion. Andy holds a BA in mathematics from UC Berkeley and an MA in statistics from Stanford.
Chris Fosdick
Managing Partner
The Cambridge Group
Chris Fosdick is a Managing Partner with The Cambridge Group, a leading strategy consulting firm and a subsidiary of Nielsen. He has spent the last ten years with TCG helping clients primarily in the consumer products, retail and media spaces develop demand-driven growth strategies and respond to change.
Chris’ work explores how shifting consumer demand is reshaping competition, and how dynamic companies can adapt to meet new challenges. He has developed strategies for domestic and global clients around new product development, innovation strategy, business and brand portfolio optimization, pricing strategy, customer and market segmentation, and business model evolution.
Prior to joining The Cambridge Group, Chris worked in the media sector, developing, launching and marketing television and online content for cable brands including MSNBC, SyFy/USA Networks and Pax/ION.
Chris earned his MBA with honors from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University with concentrations in Analytical Consulting, Marketing Strategy, and Media Management. He also holds a BS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, where he graduated magna cum laude.
Bill Livek
Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice Chairman
Comscore
As Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice Chairman, Mr. Livek’s passion for the media, marketing and entertainment industries spurs him to be a driving force for innovation in consumer and audience measurement. Since joining Comscore in 2016, Mr. Livek has also served as the company’s Executive Vice Chairman & President.
Prior to joining Comscore, Mr. Livek served as Vice Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Rentrak, where he spearheaded the next generation of products to precisely measure movies and TV everywhere. Mr. Livek previously served as Co-President of Experian Research Services, Co-Chair/Co-Owner of Simmons Market Research Bureau, Co-Founder of Transactional Data Solutions (an LLC with MasterCard), Vice President of Sales/Marketing for Arbitron and was a principal shareholder in Birch Research, which was later integrated into Scarborough Research, where he served as President and CEO.
Mr. Livek draws upon his industry experience and audience measurement expertise as a frequent speaker at advertising industry events. When he’s not working towards the advancement of Comscore’s initiatives, Mr. Livek loves riding his road bicycle on the weekends. His idea of a great vacation is a scenic, weeklong bike trip.
Carl Mela
T. Austin Finch Foundation Professor of Marketing
Duke University
Carl F. Mela is the T. Austin Finch Foundation Professor of Marketing at Duke University and past Executive Director of the Marketing Science Institute. He holds an engineering degree from Brown University, and a Ph.D. in Marketing from Columbia University. Prior to his Ph.D., he held management positions at Hewlett Packard, Hughes Space and Communications, and Proxima Corporation. Prof. Mela applies economic and statistical models to generate insights regarding the long-term effects of marketing activity on brand equity and the effect of digital marketing technology on consumer and firm behavior. Articles along these lines appear in the Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing, Harvard Business Review, and the Journal of Consumer Research and have received or been a finalist for forty best paper awards including the INFORMS John D.C. Little and Long-Term Impact Awards and the American Marketing Association’s William O’Dell and Paul Green Awards. Prof. Mela serves or has served as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Marketing Research, and Quantitative Marketing and Economics and is or has been on the editorial boards of the Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing and Marketing Letters. Professional boards include the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, Unilever, Information Resources, Incorporated, the Marketing Science Institute, and the Advertising Research Foundation.
Kirti Singh
Chief Analytics and Insights Officer
P&G
Kirti Singh leads P&G’s global Consumer Market Knowledge (CMK) organization, Analytics and Insights and Global Media group in leveraging cutting-edge data, analytics, behavioral science and visualization to discover consumer, shopper and market insights—and transform them into actionable outputs that drive growth of P&G’s global product portfolio. Under Kirti’s leadership, CMK has become an invaluable partner in shaping the direction of our ten product categories to grow brands, guide strategies and portfolio choices, and design in-market executions.
Since joining P&G in 1993 as a CMK manager in India, Kirti has held numerous leadership positions across P&G businesses, including Beauty Care, Feminine Care, Health Care and Grooming. He has worked across many geographies including India, China, Singapore and the U.S.
Kirti serves as executive sponsor of the Young William Cooper Procter Society, an organization of newer employees whom, in the spirit of P&G’s second President and community philanthropist, volunteer in local communities, develop relationships with peers, and hone leadership skills.
Outside of P&G, Kirti lends his expertise to academia and the public sector to foster development in the areas of consumer insights and research.
Andy Smith
SVP Consumer Insights
Flowers Foods
Andy is the S.V.P. of Consumer Insights for Flowers Foods which markets iconic brands such as Dave’s Killer Bread, Wonder Bread, Nature’s Own and Tastykake. Prior to Flowers he has worked at Mars, Nabisco and Hershey. During his career, Andy has supported both base business and innovation. He also has international experience driving initiatives in developing markets, primarily China, Brazil, Mexico and India.
As a member of the ARF, he currently is chairing their Creative Council initiative to help better drive creative excellence through insights. During prior years he has participated in the ARF’s Neuro 1.0 “How Advertising Work” Forum and participated in the initiative on data quality (FOQ 1&2). Andy has also been an Ogilvy advertising judge.
Andy has also been a board member of the NMSBA (Neuromarketing Science & Business Association), a global association for neuromarketing professionals whose mission is to better understand consumer behavior and insights through neuroscience tools.
Radha Subramanyam, Ph.D.
President and Chief Research & Analytics Officer
CBS
Radha Subramanyam serves as Chief Research and Analytics Officer, CBS Corporation and President, CBS Vision. She joined the Company as Executive Vice President, Chief Research and Analytics Officer of the CBS Television Network in November 2017 and was promoted to her current role after 18 months. Subramanyam oversees all research and analytics operations for CBS, including audience measurement, analytics, market research, program testing and advertising research. She has extensive experience in research and data analytics in all areas of the industry, including broadcast, cable and digital, as well as radio and social media.
Most recently, Subramanyam served as President of Research, Insights and Data Analytics for iHeartMedia, where she developed and managed wide-ranging data and research efforts involving digital analytics, ratings and measurement, ad sales research, mobile measurement, programming analysis, music research, campaign measurement and marketing research.
Prior to joining iHeartMedia, Subramanyam held senior executive research roles at Yahoo!, MTV Networks and Nielsen, where she was one of that company’s early leaders of a new analytics and consulting practice. Before beginning her career in the media industry, she taught media and entertainment at Vassar College and New York University.
Subramanyam serves on the board of directors of the International Radio & Television Society and the Advertising Research Foundation. In addition, she serves as the chair of diversity on the board of directors of Women Advancing, an organization recognizing diversity as a priority for the future health of society and supporting development of resources to advance diversity in media, marketing and entertainment.
She was named as one of Corinium’s Top 100 Innovators in Data and Analytics in 2018, a list highlighting business leaders, technologists and influencers who have accelerated the proliferation and understanding of data and analytics over the last 12 months. Subramanyam was also one of the power women in Variety’s 2019 Women’s Impact Report.
Subramanyam is a graduate of Northwestern University, with a Ph.D. in radio, television and film.
ARF Board of Trustees
Kelly AbcarianExecutive Vice President, Measurement & Impact, Advertising & Partnerships
NBCUniversal
Kelly Abcarian is Executive Vice President, Measurement & Impact, Advertising & Partnerships at NBCUniversal. Abcarian spearheads the company’s rapidly accelerating cross-platform and full-funnel measurement capabilities, leading innovation from impressions to impact at a local, national and global level across NBCUniversal’s One Platform.
As consumer viewing habits continue to shift towards streaming and CTV, Abcarian leads a team tasked with pushing forward measurement solutions that reflect the all-screen future viewers have created, while providing advertisers with new opportunities to reach and target their key audiences. Additionally, she oversees the company’s attribution and ROI capabilities including Total Investment Impact (TII), which focuses on measuring and delivering what matters most to advertisers. Abcarian also plays an important role in the growth and development of NBCUniversal’s data strategy, including efforts such as NBCU ID and the Audience Insights Hub. A member of NBCUniversal’s Advertising & Partnerships leadership team, she is an essential voice in the marketplace, partnering with many of the leading trade organizations, measurement and technology companies on solutions and industry-wide initiatives.
Abcarian is an experienced executive with almost two decades of media and technology leadership in developing solutions for television, digital and CTV/OTT content and advertising platforms. Prior to joining NBCUniversal, she most recently served as GM of Nielsen’s Advanced Video Advertising Group, where she led the company’s addressable initiatives including the strategic acquisitions of several key players within the space. Prior to that, Abcarian led Nielsen’s global audience measurement product portfolio where she was responsible for the creation of Nielsen’s Total Audience Product suite, along with the development of Digital Ad Ratings for CTV.
Abcarian held leadership positions at various leading technology and professional services companies, including Oracle, Siebel Systems and Arthur Andersen, and is a highly awarded industry leader having been named a Cynopsis Top Woman in Digital, Woman to Watch and Wonder Woman in Streaming by Multichannel News, an OUTstanding Ally; and a Top 100 Diversity MBA Executive Leader. Throughout her career, Abcarian has devoted herself to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts as well as lifting up the LGBTQ+ community through allyship, from helping lead PRIDE activations to lobbying for new, more inclusive HR policies.
Tina Allan
Global Partner, Science and Connections
FCB
Tina Allan joined the FCB global team in April 2021 in a newly created role: FCB Global Partner, Data Science and Connections. She oversees globally end to end data solutions across CRM, Brand and Media globally for FCB. A 26-year veteran from Omnicom, Tina started her career at the Global CRM agency, RAPP and later joined the BBDO Creative leadership team in 2015 to build out the analytical and marketing science practice – a new division and expansive offering at BBDO and Omnicom.
As a connector, an accelerator and a collaborator, Tina focuses on marrying logic and magic to drive clients’ businesses forward. Tina bridges business and marketing science functions to bring strategic rigor and insights further upstream in the client relationship. She is responsible for managing client data business solutions across all our global clients and business at FCB.
She is an Executive Member of She Runs It; has served a Judge at Cannes Lions, Global Effie’s, DM Association Echo Awards, The One Show and YouTube Awards. She sits on the Rutgers University Big Data Advisory Board, and was named one of the 2017 New York Business Journal Women of Influence in Advertising along with Working Mother of the Year 2020 from She Runs It. In 2021 she was named to The Adweek 50 as one of the global behind the scenes stars of media, marketing and technology.
Neha Bhargava
Director, Advertising Research
Metha
Neha Bhargava is the Director of Advertising Research team at Meta. Before joining Meta, Neha was a strategy consultant focused on providing product and marketing decisions based on big data.
She started her career as an Electrical Engineer and a Mechanical Engineer designing avionics control hardware for rockets. Neha holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business.
Vassilis Bakopoulos
SVP – Head Industry Research
Mobile Marketing Association
Vas is the SVP – Head of Industry Research for the Mobile Marketing Association. In this role, he is responsible for defining the organization’s learning agenda and conduct research to tackle marketing´s most important unanswered questions. During his tenure at the MMA Vas has run high profile Industry research studies including the largest public series of cross media studies behind the label of SMoX, and a cross platform series of experiments on opportunity to see using neuroscience. Vas is also leading the organizations research efforts across all programs including Brand Safety, Fraud Marketing Attribution, Marketing Org, location and data targeting etc.
Before joining the MMA, Vas held senior Research and Strategy roles at Digitas/Publicis and Kantar in New York and Europe.
Vas is a frequent speaker and he is published at the Journal of Advertising Research and other publications. He sits at the Board of Trustees of the Advertising Research Foundation and the Content Board of I-com.
Claire Browne
VP – Director of Media Research
RPA
Claire joined RPA in 2007 as its first dedicated media research Associate and has worked on all the agency’s past and current media clients including American Honda Motors, La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries, Apartments.com, Intuit Small Business Group, MGM Pictures and others.
Prior to RPA, Claire worked as Regional Research Director at National Cable Communications and has held positions at Razorfish, CBS, Sony, Katz Media and CKS Partners.
Claire earned a bachelor’s of arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
Chris Bruderle
Vice President, Research & Insights
IAB
Chris Bruderle has over 20 years of experience in Data/Web Analytics and Media Market Research at premium Digital and Muti-Platform web publishers including The Daily Beast, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Conde Nast Publications and This Old House Ventures.
Most recently, Chris was VP, Analytics & Research at The Daily Beast where he spent nearly 7 years and was responsible for the tracking, analysis and reporting of The Daily Beast’s O&O site and off-platform data/analytics for Senior/Corporate Management, Editorial, Advertising Sales, Product/Engineering, Audience/Business Development, Social Media and PR. He established the company-wide Editorial Analytics and Advertising Sales data and research stacks which included, among others, Google Analytics, Parse.ly, Krux DMP, Optimizely, comScore, Kantar, Samba, Newswhip, Crowd Tangle, Buzzsumo, and CrazyEgg.
Prior to The Daily Beast, Chris spent 5 years as Associate and Acting Director at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia where he directed the correspondence and development of all research-based strategies supporting the Advertising Sales and Marketing staffs of each of the MSLO media brands and platforms across digital, mobile/tablet, TV, print and radio. Chris started his career at BBDO as an Assistant Media Planner where he most notably completed the “Media Training Program”.
Chris earned a Bachelor’s of Arts in English and Communications from Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut.
Renee Cassard
Chief Research Officer
Omnicom Media Group
Renee is a veteran advertising executive with 20+ years of expertise rooted in studying consumer behavior. Renee has a MA in Developmental Psychology from Colombia and a BS in Molecular Genetics, and today describes herself as a market researcher, strategist, and product lead. She leverage dynamic research approaches, datasets and technologies to continually create solutions for clients that are centered around her passion for understanding consumer sentiment and behavior.
In her role as Chief Research Officer at Omnicom Media Group, Renee launched OMG Signal in 2021, the company’s first single source consumer panel of 3.3mm with an identity match to Omni, Omnicom’s media planning and activation platform. OMG Signal is one of many multiple initiatives aimed at innovating foundational datasets used for media planning, which have experienced unprecedented fluctuations in their ability to predict future behavior in today’s increasingly dynamic world.
Prior to that, Renee was Chief Audience Officer at Hearts & Science, where she led marketing science, data science, and digital audience planning for two years. Her journey with Omnicom Media Group began in 2011, as part of the leadership team responsible for pitching, and winning agency’s largest account at the time, GSK on board in 2011. During her time there as PHD’s Healthcare Vertical Marketing Science lead, she tripled the size of the analytics team servicing GSK’s OTC and pharma business units, generating $2mm+ in incremental advanced analytics revenue, and won multiple awards (ARF David Ogilvy 2013, I-COM Finalist 2013, I-COM Finalist 2014) for her and her team’s work in target audience development, digital modeling and scenario planning, and platform neutral video planning. Prior to that Renee was a marketing communications consultant, applying data and insights to develop strategies for various marketing and advertising, PR, market research and fortune 500 client projects.
Kelly Castellon
Associate Director, Multicultural Analytics
GroupM
Kelly Castellon is an Associate Director, Multicultural Analytics at GroupM. In her role, Kelly works with agencies across the GroupM portfolio to tell compelling, multi-dimensional stories of who diverse consumers are, how best to reach them, and how clients can relevantly engage with them to grow their business.
Prior to this role, Kelly spent several years in Nielsen’s Marketing Effectiveness practice, guiding the largest consumer goods advertisers on how to measure and optimize the return on investment of marketing activities. In her various roles, she managed end-to-end design, implementation and consultation, using both broad-based marketing mix modeling and granular multi-touch attribution techniques.
Outside GroupM, Kelly serves on the Cultural Effectiveness Council of the Advertising Research Foundation. This group of industry professionals seeks insights that drive business growth among multicultural and generational groups by building on knowledge and exploring approaches that maximize return from advertising to a more culturally diverse population.
Kelly graduated from the University of Virginia (Go Hoos!) with a BA in Foreign Affairs and Spanish. A proud Cubana originally hailing from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Kelly has also called Chicago and now New York City home. She enjoys trying new recipes, traveling, and watching too much reality TV.
Josh Chasin
Chief Measurability Officer
VideoAmp
Josh Chasin is Chief Measurability Officer of VideoAmp. Most recently, he was Chief Research Officer of Comscore and prior to that, he owned and operated a media research consultancy, Warp Speed Marketing, whose clients included Arbitron, Scarborough, Comscore, Simmons, the Online Publishers Association, the Traffic Audit Bureau, and Project Apollo.
Josh is a 36-year market research and audience measurement veteran who has experience in all facets of design, development and implementation of syndicated and custom research. He has been involved in the management and oversight of audience measurement services for TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, out-of-home, and the Internet. He spent 17 years at Arbitron, where he worked in the Statistical Services department and the Advertiser/Agency group before rising to Vice President, Marketing for New Ventures in 1993. He is a past president/CEO of the Simmons Market Research Bureau and of Northstar Interactive, a pioneering online research company.
Josh has a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing from NYU, and an MBA Cum Laude in Marketing Management from Pace University. He belongs to a number of industry councils and organizations, and he has been a regular contributor to Mediapost’s Online Metrics Insider column. Josh was selected one of Advertising Age’s 2012 Media Mavens. His liner notes for the 2004 release, The Allman Brothers: Live at the Beacon Theater earned him a platinum record.
Keri Degroote
Senior Vice President of Research & Analytics
SXM Media
In this role, she leads Ad Effectiveness, Analytics, Consumer Insights and Measurement for Ad Sales. She brings 20+ years of highly specified Marketing Research experience in the media industry, with notable expertise in campaign effectiveness, media mix modeling, and attribution. Keri has successfully led research leadership departments and teams for Radio, TV and Digital media outlets. Before coming on board at SXM Media, which contains brands like Pandora, Sirius XM and Stitcher, Keri held senior leadership positions at iHeartMedia, Turner Broadcasting and FX & FMC Networks.
Seth Duncan
Chief Data Officer
Real Chemistry
Seth Duncan has led research and analytics teams for over 10 years in both academic and business settings. Since 2007, Seth has focused on using digital and social media data to provide marketing, communications, and strategy insights to a range of clients, including Warner Bros., General Mills, Procter & Gamble, IBM, HP, Medtronic, Genentech, Amgen, and Abbott Laboratories.
Seth’s analytics and research expertise span advanced statistics, social, digital, and Web analytics, as well as traditional media and primary research. He has extensive experience applying these analytics approaches to a broad set of use cases, including product development and design, branding, creative content and execution, messaging, social and Web optimization, and influencer and media relations. He was named one of Holmes Report’s “In2 Innovators of the Year” in 2015. Seth earned a BA in psychology from Reed College and an MS in Psychophysiology at San Francisco State University. He also attended Boston College’s PhD program in cognitive, affective, and behavioral neuroscience and the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology graduate program.
Colleen Fahey Rush
EVP & CRO
Paramount
Colleen Fahey Rush is Executive Vice President and Chief Research Officer at Paramount. Rush oversees the research, insights and analytics functions across Paramount’s leading portfolio of streaming, broadcast, entertainment, news and sports brands. She is also responsible for the corporate research function including data collection and analysis spanning the company’s business portfolio to support strategic priorities.
Rush leads research and insights across content, streaming, marketing, brand strategy, trend forecasting, digital and social to inform decision making, drive strategy and super serve audiences in today’s evolving media landscape. Under her guidance and leadership, she built the company’s corporate consumer insights practice dedicated to new technologies and emerging consumer behaviors to inform key stakeholders. She continues to play an instrumental role in the industry advocating for the improvement of linear, digital and multiplatform media measurement and analytics in order to manage and aggregate data across all of Paramount’s media and digital properties.
Rush most recently served as Executive Vice President and Chief Research Officer of ViacomCBS. Her previous roles also include Executive Vice President of Strategic Insights & Research and Senior Vice President, Research & Insights for VH1, CMT and Logo.
Rush is on the Board of Trustees at the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), on the Advisory Board of Civic Science, and sits on the Advisory Board for Cornell University’s Department of Communication. She holds a U.S. Patent in Systems and Methods for Delivering Online Advertisements.
She earned a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University and has an M.B.A. from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Amy Fenton
Head of Ad Solutions
MarketCast
Amy brings more than two decades of advertising and consumer research experience to MarketCast. In her current role, Amy is responsible for MarketCast’s Ad Solutions organization which includes more than 200 advertising researchers and a portfolio of world-class ad research products, including those from MarketCast’s recent acquisitions.
Prior to joining the company, Amy was the Chief Client Officer for Kantar North America, where she led the client service teams responsible for managing the company’s top brand and advertiser relationships. Before Kantar, Fenton served in research, client service, and marketing leadership roles at Ipsos, and before that, she spent more than two decades at Nielsen on the “Buy” side of its business (now NielsenIQ). A strong supporter of women leaders in research, Fenton began her career at Procter and Gamble.
Lindsay Franke
EVP, Head of Creative Excellence
Ipsos
Advertising and marcoms strategist, with extensive experience partnering with Fortune 500 companies to develop and refine communications.
Lindsay currently heads up the Creative Excellence advertising practice for Ipsos in the US, spanning all aspects of advertising insights and creative development. She is passionate about creativity and propelling the future of advertising, particularly ensuring creative is reflective of society and the way people consume messaging and media. Lindsay has dedicated her time at Ipsos to drive meaningful change in how ad research is utilized to enable creativity and maximize effectiveness – her focus is on a human insights platform leveraging data driven action. In the US, Lindsay has spearheaded the launch of the latest, most innovative creative development solutions. She has done this by accelerating cross-platform optimization via Creative Spark and evolved meaningful upstream capabilities with Ipsos Creative Labs, both for local and global campaign work. This work has driven stronger ROI and maximized in market effectiveness for Ipsos clients.
Her personal motivation is to contribute to shaping the advertising and media industry to pave the way for future female leaders and ensure change that mirrors societies values and needs, particularly underrepresented groups. Lindsay is motivated to continue the agenda to power actionable insights with multi-stream data, enabled by technology.
Colleen Funkey
VP, Consumer Insights
Estee Lauder Companies
Colleen Funkey began her career studying psychology at Rhodes University in South Africa. With a passion for people and understanding what drives them and why, she is curious, asks lots of questions and likes to learn something new every day.
From marketing Colgate toothpaste in South Africa, to launching her own beauty care range ‘Imbali’, then unlocking insights to guide the marketing of Anheuser-Busch’s iconic beer brands and now in her role at the Estée Lauder Companies, Colleen seeks to understand the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’ in order to design brand strategies and business solutions that connect in a relevant, credible and ownable way.
Great brands are built when we make meaningful connections with people, that’s why the consumer is always at the center of everything we do #consumerobsessed.
Huw Griffiths
Global Chief Product Officer
UM
As Global Chief Product Officer, Huw brings over 20 years of experience in research and advanced analytics to UM, where he is responsible for research, analytics and tools capabilities. His passion for simplifying massive amounts of data into clear, precise action has been evident throughout his career.
Dr. Joetta Gobell
SVP, Data Strategy and Insights
Dotdash Meredith
Dr. Joetta Gobell is the Head of Data Strategy & Solutions for Dotdash Meredith. Dr. Gobell spent her time in academia as a cognitive scientist, studying the psychological and computational underpinnings of human information processing, with a specific focus on visual attention. Her scientific quest has included questions like, “How does paying attention to something change our experience of it?” to “How do viewers resolve ambiguous visual scenes to understand what they are seeing?” to “What are the dynamics of the distribution of visual attention across multiple locations in space?” Outside of academia, Joetta has spent nearly two decades exploring human motivations and needs while working in product development, market research, and media (digital and TV).
At Dotdash Meredith, Dr. Gobell manages a team of researchers who share her passion for understanding the richness of human behavior through the questions people ask and the content they turn to for answers.
Srishti Gupta
Director, Amazon Advertising
Amazon
Srishti Gupta joined Amazon.com in May 2017 as Director, Media Measurement to build measurement products that help marketers improve return from their advertising.
Prior to Amazon, Srishti was President at IRI, having started and led IRI’s Global Media and Digital businesses. Before joining IRI in 2010, Srishti was Managing Partner and Executive Vice President at MediaCom, a division of WPP, as head of display advertising planning and analytics. Earlier in her career, Srishti held various positions at AOL, Capital One and Citigroup.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Delhi University and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.
George W. Ivie
Executive Director
Media Rating Council, Inc.
George is the Executive Director and CEO of the Media Rating Council, Inc. (MRC), an industry organization created in 1963 to assure high ethical and operational standards in audience measurement services. Mr. Ivie’s background includes over 20 years experience in media research auditing and consulting. Prior to being appointed the Executive Director of the MRC in January 2000, George was a partner at Ernst & Young and their lead representative and advisor to the MRC, conducting all MRC audits and interacting with MRC management and member organizations. George has a thorough knowledge of research best practices, operations, controls and information systems in Television, Radio, Print, Multi-media and Internet measurement services. George is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Information Systems Auditor.
Renuka Iyer
Director, Market Research
Microsoft
Renuka is a Director of Market Research in Microsoft. In her current role, as the leader of campaign measurement, she and her team leverage data, analytics, and market understanding to inform Microsoft’s prominent advertising campaigns. In her long tenure, Renuka has worked on some of the most complex business problems and has built sophisticated research programs to inform various product strategies and corporate initiatives.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Renuka was a research manager at Unilever, India and managed their foundational research programs for multiple product categories.
Ashwini Karandikar
EVP, Media, Technology and Data
4A’s
As EVP, Media, Tech & Data, at the 4A’s, the leading trade organization for marketing communications agencies, Ashwini Karandikar provides leadership, guidance, advocacy and consultative support to member agencies on all media and data related issues including measurement, analytics, brand safety, programmatic, digital and distributed ledger technology. In addition to supporting members, Ashwini works alongside industry partners across trade associations, media companies, platforms and technology providers.
With over 25 years of experience in advertising, business development and operational excellence, Karandikar is an entrepreneurial executive who has built diverse and talented teams in over 50 markets and most recently worked as a senior advisor for McKinsey’s High Tech, Media & Telecom Practice. Prior to that, she spent 10 years at dentsu, initially at iProspect and then led Amnet (dentsu’s programmatic group) in the US. In 2013, she took on the role of Global President expanding the capabilities and offerings. She started her career in the US in Dallas, Texas, at Tribal DDB and later Temerlin McLain followed by a client-side role at Match.com. Prior to joining dentsu, Ashwini was at Range Online Media where she led client services for the expanding digital offerings.
Helen Katz
SVP, Global Research Lead Data Sciences Practice
Publicis Media
In her current role, Helen Katz leads the global research unit within Publicis Media’s data sciences practice. She is a trusted industry expert on research, with a particular focus on data quality and reliable measurement. Her interest in innovation inspired her to play an instrumental role in developing best practices in the measurement of addressable TV and advanced video campaigns in the U.S. A 19-year Publicis Groupe veteran, Katz has served in various strategic research capacities for Publicis Media, Starcom, Zenith and GM Planworks – the holding company’s former division devoted to the General Motors business. In 2009, she was integral to the Publicis Groupe team that launched The Pool – a unique research consortium that aimed to identify the next new ad formats across various channels such as online video, mobile/tablets and more.
Prior to joining Publicis Groupe, she was Vice President, Media Research Manager at DDB Needham. She began her career as an advertising professor at Michigan State University, and is currently an adjunct professor at DePaul University. She has published numerous articles in industry and academic journals, as well as three textbooks on advertising and media, the most recent of which is The Media Handbook (7th edition, 2019). She is the ex-officio Chair of the Executive Committee of the Media Rating Council, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Advertising Research Foundation. Katz is also the recipient of the Advertising Research Foundation’s “Great Minds” award for research innovation, Jay Chiat’s Strategic Excellence Silver Award for innovation, and Stars of Attribution leadership award.
Katz has a master’s degree in advertising and a Ph.D. in communications from the University of Illinois, and was an undergraduate English major at the University of London.
Melissa Kim
Senior Director, Brand and Market Research
Best Buy
Melissa is an experienced and highly strategic leader, specializing in retail strategy development, market research and marketing. She is passionate about understanding consumer motivations and behaviors and using that knowledge to help companies make more informed, customer obsessed, decisions.
Currently, as the Sr. Director of brand and marketing effectiveness research at Best Buy she leads efforts to understand consumer perceptions of the Brand, value propositions, and messaging. Specific areas of focus for her team include brand positioning and segmentation work, brand tracking, creative diagnostics and ad optimization, campaign measurement, and extensive ad-hoc qualitative and quantitative research.
Prior to her time with Best Buy, Melissa spent a number of years leading strategy development on the Enterprise Strategy team at Target before joining their Insights team – conducting research with a broader brand/enterprise lens. While there, she also spent time on Target’s Brand Marketing team. Though still close to research, in this role she leveraged insights to create short and long term marketing plans for Target’s corporate social responsibility efforts along with measurement approaches to monitor success.
In addition to her role at Best Buy, Melissa is an advisory board member for the Institute for Research in Marketing at the University of Minnesota, where she earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and Human Resources. She enjoys spending time in classrooms at the U sharing her corporate experience with students whenever possible and feels blessed to call Minnesota home with her husband, two kids (Max and Mia), and new puppy.
Gregg Lindner
President of Americas, GfK Chairman
MRI-Simmons Joint Venture
Gregg Lindner is President of the Americas for GfK where he oversees all of GfK’s businesses in the region and is Chairman of the Board of the recently formed MRI-Simmons joint venture, which is majority owned by GfK. He is also a member of GfK’s Global Senior Leadership Team. A media research industry veteran, Gregg has extensive expertise in leading large syndicated media research organizations while focusing on innovation and quality metrics.
Gregg joined GfK in 2015 after over 25 years with Arbitron/Scarborough Research. At Scarborough Research he managed the day-to-day operations of the business, including sales, product development, research and operations. He then served as Executive Vice President, Service Innovation, and Chief Research Officer at Arbitron with responsibilities ranging from ensuring accreditation of PPM markets to sales of custom research aspects of the business.
Gregg earned two degrees from the University of Maryland – a Master’s degree in Quantitative Analysis and Urban Studies and a Bachelor’s degree in Government and Politics. He is a locally elected school board official with a second term that ends 11/19.
Megan Margraff
Vice President, Data Strategy
Oracle Advertising
Megan Margraff is VP Data Strategy for Oracle Advertising, which is a trusted independent provider of digital activation and measurement solutions serving advertisers, agencies, publishers and platforms across the AdTech industry. Megan serves as a key member of Oracle Advertising’s product leadership team and owns the strategic roadmap in the areas of data supply and partnerships, data usage and intelligence, and data governance and compliance. Megan’s team is accountable for Oracle Advertising’s strategy on inbound data supply, prioritizing data partnerships and incenting contribution to owned data assets, testing and evaluating datasets for varied applications across our activation and measurement portfolio, and maximizing the commercial value of our data assets. Megan’s product team also drives the company’s efforts to surface intelligence on the health of our data assets and usage in Oracle’s product portfolio, and ensures that data usage is consistent with both regulatory compliance requirements and contractual usage terms. Megan further leads an Applied Data Science team that optimizes the way data assets are used, prototypes new ways of extracting value and creating meaningful features that inform product development roadmaps, and engages directly with key clients on how to best leverage our products.
Megan is an experienced senior leader of highly skilled analytic and data science teams, with a passion for all things data-related and a drive to produce business results for clients and internal stakeholders. Prior to joining ODC via acquisition, Megan had a strong track record of driving successful outcomes with start-up companies (Spire, acquired by Datalogix/Oracle, and Cannondale Associates, acquired by Kantar Retail). Megan holds a BA and MBA from ICHEC Brussels Management School, with a focus on International Business Administration.
Ivan Martinez
Vice President, Strategic Insights
UnitedHealth Group
Ivan is Vice President of Strategic Insights at UnitedHealth Group. Prior to joining UHG, he headed up the strategic planning function at McCann Minneapolis and worked for 9 years at General Mills In Consumer Insights. Ivan lived and worked as an expat in Mexico City while running consumer insights for Latin America and the Caribbean for General Mills. Prior to that he worked in Bausch & Lomb’s Global Strategy Group and in Big Pharma at Novartis.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY Ivan graduated from St. Joseph’s College with a degree in Sociology, attended Fordham University’s Graduate School of Social Services and spent 4 years working in New York City with families and children as a clinical psychotherapist. He then returned to school to earn an MBA from the Simon School at The University of Rochester.
For fun he loves to watch and participate in sports, particularly Squash and to travel, cook & eat. He lives in The Twin Cities with his wife Kymm, 2 cats Biggie and Coco, 2 dogs Milo and Shimo and 17-year-old daughter Caroline. His son William is a freshman at St. Lawrence University and his 2 other daughters Hana and Isabella are living and working in Brooklyn NY.
Steven Millman
Global Head of Research & Data Science
Dynata
Steven Millman is an award-winning researcher currently leading all research and data science initiatives globally for Dynata and is responsible for automation, innovation, and thought leadership. Prior to this role, he ran research, data science and operations for Dynata’s Advertising Solutions division, which provides activation and campaign measurement over the entire lifecycle of a campaign. Before Dynata, Steven was Chief Scientist at Simmons Research (MRI-Simmons) leading measurement sciences and developing new products. As Senior Vice President for Research at comScore, he led the ad effectiveness line of business, along with all custom survey work, combining self-report with behavioral data. Throughout his career, Steven has maintained a focus on innovation, quantitative and statistical analysis, survey research, research design and other applied research techniques. He is also an inveterate coffee snob.
Tomomi Mimura
Global and North America Media Insights Lead
Unilever
Tomomi Mimura, a senior consumer insights expert with almost 20 years of research experience, currently leads US and Personal Care North America Media Insights & Measurement at Unilever. She is responsible for deepening Unilever’s understanding of media and delivering actionable insights that help Unilever brands effectively and efficiently utilize media investment to grow their brands. She currently represents Unilever in the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) Cross Media Measurement initiative and chairs the ANA’s Influencer Marketing Advisory Board Guidelines Committee. She has also served on the Facebook Measurement Council. Now in her 12th year at Unilever, she has held many Unilever Consumer & Market Insights positions ranging locally to globally on top brands as Hellmann’s, TRESemmé, Dove, Vaseline and Axe. Prior to Unilever, Tomomi spent time at Nielsen BASES and Millward Brown, managing such clients as Unilever, Pepsi and Reckitt Benckiser. Tomomi earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science at Yale University.
Barb Murrer
VP, Global Marketplace Insights
Levi Strauss & Co.
Barb is Vice President, Global Marketplace Insights, for Levi Strauss & Co., one of the world’s largest brand-name apparel companies and a global leader in jeanswear, founded over 160 years ago. Barb leads the company’s insights efforts and, along with her team, works across the business to help inform strategy and tactics in areas such as Marketing, Merchandising, Design, Retail and Ecommerce. In the sixteen years prior to LS&Co., Barb worked for The Clorox Company in Insights leading Shopper, Advanced Analytics and in her last role, Cleaning and International. She has a breadth of experience across Insights specialties as well as across a variety of product categories. Her first role in Insights was with Nielsen, onsite with what was then Kraft General Foods. Prior to this she worked in Corporate Banking in New York City. Barb holds a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Colgate University and an MBA in Marketing and Organizational Development from the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business.
Kyle Papanikolas
Senior Director Global Insights
McDonald’s
Kyle Papanikolas leads the newly founded Foresight & Exploration function at McDonald’s. His remit includes maintaining a pulse on customer sentiment, strengthening the insights function, and developing a foresight capability that pushes the thinking of the company beyond the 3-year horizon.
Kyle’s 14+ years of experience – including both client and agency side – centers at the connection of human understanding and company strategy. Areas of expertise include customer segmentation, consumer tracking, advertising development, reputation management and brand strategy.
Carrie Patterson Reed
Executive Director, Research Studio
VMLY&R
Carrie has never really thought of herself as a traditional researcher per se. Rather, she sees her job as thinking about how other people think, and bringing that to light in new and interesting ways. She finds it endlessly fascinating to hear stories from consumers about who they want to be, what they say (and don’t), and how they frame ideas that they sometimes didn’t even know they had.
Curiosity and empathy are at the heart of her work – always pushing to learn more, get out of our bubbles, and connect the dots – all in an effort to unearth our blindspots and find data-driven stories that unlock new creative opportunities.
Carrie heads up the award winning Research Studio at VMLY&R — the group’s mission is to power curiosity across the organization to spark new thinking. Prior to this, Carrie worked at Olson Zaltman, Digitas, and as a consultant in the Arts. She has worked across small start-ups and large Fortune 500 companies, and across a spectrum of verticals and brands. It keeps her on her toes to always be learning something different and applying it in new ways.
She has a graduate degree from Columbia University in Arts Management—with an emphasis on Advertising and Communications, and an undergraduate degree from Christian Brothers University in Psychology and Art.
In her spare time, she is an experimental gardener and artist, where the creative process is definitely prized over the sometimes dismal outcomes.
Marjorie Reedy
Director of Digital & Innovation
Merck
Marjorie Reedy is a seasoned market research professional with a passion for identifying innovative market research solutions that bring the voice of the patient and customer to life.
Currently as Director of Digital & Innovation at Merck, Marjorie specializes in developing “Best Practices” for a range of cutting-edge research methodologies, including: neuro-science, social media and virtual reality. In her current role, she has also piloted new technologies, that enable marketing teams to maximize investment across multichannel platforms. The Advertising Research Foundation has honored her with both a Silver David Ogilvy Award and A Great Minds Award for her work in these areas. Marjorie has shared her “real world” innovative experiences at the following industry conferences: PMRC, PMRG (the Annual and The Institute), IIEX TMRE and the ARF.
In addition to the pharmaceutical industry, Marjorie has expertise in the over the counter and consumer packaged goods sectors. As Senior Director of Research at Nabisco Foods, she focused on iconic brands such as Grey Poupon, A.1. Steak Sauce and Planters Nuts. At Jordan McGrath Case & Taylor Advertising, her teams won industry awards for the following campaigns: Quaker Oats’, “It’s the Right Thing To Do”, P&G’s Bounty “Sorriest Spills” and “Zestfully Clean” and GSK’s “Oxycute Them”. Prior to joining Merck, Marjorie also enjoyed the world of independent consulting.
Marjorie is an active member of The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), serving on the Board of Trustees and as a Director of the Health & Wellness Forum. She is also a member of Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) and has run fundraisers and educational forums for Dress For Success through this organization. She also has been a long-standing member of Intellus.
Jorge Ruiz
Head of Measurement
TikTok
Jorge Ruiz is currently the Head of Measurement at TikTok where he leads a global organization that will drive advertiser value and insights. This responsibility includes building an organization from the ground up, establishing a high-performing culture, and leading measurement as well as research innovation for the TikTok advertising business.
Prior to TikTok, Jorge was the Head of Agency Measurement at Facebook where Jorge led global initiatives for holding companies and consultancies across highly complex (and often) custom measurement and research initiatives.
And going back further, Jorge led the media analytics team at Neo@Ogilvy where his numerous research contributions helped set the bar on media analytics for the agency. Jorge was awarded the 2013 ARF Great Minds Awards, Innovation Award – Certificate Winner, David Ogilvy ARF research awards 2011 & 2012 (individual & team), and served as board advisor to Google on their development of Google Consumer Surveys.
Roberto Ruiz
Executive Vice President, Research, Insights & Analytics
Univision Communications Inc.
Roberto Ruiz is executive vice president of Research, Insights and Analytics at Univision Communications Inc., the leading media company serving Hispanic America. Ruiz leads a team of marketers driving all aspects of marketing, from research to consumer insights to building the business case for brands, leveraging syndicated and custom research tools with the goal of helping advertisers and partners capitalize on the growing U.S. Hispanic population.
Ruiz is a Hispanic marketing expert with more than 20 years of experience in various senior management positions. Throughout his career, he has worked in several industries including financial services, interactive, advertising, consulting, startups and packaged goods.
Prior to joining Univision in 2008, Ruiz served as the founder and president of Consumer Contacts, a boutique consulting firm specializing in Hispanic marketing. Previously, he was a founding partner at The Vidal Partnership, a Hispanic advertising agency in New York. He was one of four partners that took the business from a mid-size agency to a powerhouse recognized twice by Ad Age as agency of the year. At Vidal, Ruiz worked on accounts such as DirecTV, Century21 Real Estate, MasterCard, Diageo and Cingular Wireless. Prior to that role, Ruiz worked at Prodigy Internet and led the team that launched the first fully bilingual Internet Service Provider targeting Hispanics in the US. Ruiz also previously worked at MCI Communications Inc., where he held management positions in direct response, telemarketing and international marketing targeting Hispanic consumers in the US and Latin America and MoneyGram, where he led the Mexico and Latin America money transfer business.
He began his career in marketing and advertising in Venezuela, where he received his classic marketing training working in consumer packaged goods at Pillsbury, Gillette and Mavesa. He also led the strategic planning group at one of the top ad agencies in the country, ARS/DDB, where he worked on the international marketing side of the business.
Ruiz moved to the U.S. from Venezuela in 1993 to pursue his MBA and started a career at MCI Communications Inc. where he held management positions in direct response, telemarketing and international marketing; targeting Hispanic consumers in the US and Latin America. After MCI, he held the senior marketing position at MoneyGram, where he led the Mexico and Latin America money transfer business.
Ruiz’ career in marketing and advertising started in Venezuela, where he received his classic marketing training working in consumer packaged goods at Pillsbury, Gillette, and Mavesa. A bug for the creative took him to lead the strategic planning group at one of the top ad agencies in the country ARS/DDB where he also fell in love with the international marketing side of the business.
Ruiz is actively engaged in speaking at trade conferences, including the Association of American Advertising Agencies, The Direct Marketing Association, the Consumer Healthcare Product Association, Nielsen’s Consumer 360, among others. He also collaborated with author Chiqui Cartagena in writing “Hispanic Boom: A guide for Hispanic Marketers.”
Ruiz holds an MBA in International Business and a MA in International Economics from The George Washington University and a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Universidad Central de Venezuela.
Michael Schoen
SVP and GM, Marketing Solution
Neustar
Michael Schoen is the SVP, General Manager of Marketing Solutions at Neustar. He oversees the end-to-end system of identity that gives marketers a complete, real-time portrait of their customers and prospects, enabling a personalized dialogue across all marketing channels. Michael’s leadership has been instrumental in building the industry’s most authoritative and real-time marketing platform, built on trusted identity and leveraging the most sophisticated analytics models to help the largest brands with complex decision-making. Prior to joining Neustar in 2014, Michael was the EVP, Product at Cadreon, IPG’s cross-channel audience measurement, management and buying platform. Michael was responsible for driving the product strategy, development, and technology partnerships that enabled Cadreon’s offerings across all addressable media. Before that, Michael was General Manager, Advertising Platforms and VP, Product & Technology at LookSmart, where he was responsible for building out a paid search platform and publisher syndication business.
Michael holds an AB in Computer Science from Harvard College and an MBA from UCLA.
David Shiffman
Executive Vice President, National Research & Analytics
iHeartMedia
As Executive Vice President, National Research & Analytics at iHeartMedia, David is responsible for leading all aspects of National measurement and analytics for America’s #1 Audio Company. David works across iHeartMedia’s diverse assets including Radio, streaming audio, podcasting, and live events to deliver customized research, measurement and optimization solutions to support iHeart’s National clients and their partner agencies.
David’s expertise in understanding consumer behavior, and his knowledge of the diverse and rapidly changing media marketplace, advanced analytics and advertising effectiveness is instrumental in serving the needs of his clients and shaping new solutions for audio research.
David spent over 15 years on the media agency side, working at Publicis Media agencies in both Canada and the U.S., most recently as EVP Research & Analytics at MediaVest. Prior to joining iHeartMedia, David led Agency Sales at comScore.
David holds a M.A. in Communication Management from the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California, and lives in NJ with his daughter, son and two dogs.
Nancy Smith
President & CEO
Analytic Partners
Nancy Smith is the President and CEO of Analytic Partners, the world’s premier independent, global marketing analytics consultancy. Headquartered in New York City, Nancy leads a global team dedicated to turning data into expertise to drive competitive advantage and bottom-line results for large brands around the world.
Before founding Analytic Partners, in 2000, Nancy worked at ASI (now, Ipsos ASI) and Clairol (now, P&G) where she managed marketing insights projects, teams, and vendors.
Nancy has an MBA degree from the University at Buffalo School of Management where she focused on econometrics, marketing, and international business.
Audrey Steele
EVP, Ad Sales Research, Insights and Strategy
FOX
Audrey Steele serves as Executive Vice President of Ad Sales Research Insights and Strategy, Fox Corporation. In this role, Steele has strategic oversight and plays a pivotal role in helping drive the division’s research strategy to maximize revenue growth by developing data and insights for the FOX Entertainment sales and portfolio teams.
A well-regarded media and research veteran, Steele joined Fox as an SVP of Sales Research and Marketing in 2000. Prior to joining the company, Steele served as Senior Vice President of Strategic Media Resources at Zenith Media. Earlier in her career, she was a Vice President of Research at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising and a Marketing Manager for Audits of Great Britain.
Since 2020, she has co-chaired the Fox Ad Sales Diversity and Inclusion Council. In this voluntary role, Steele has served as a leading voice in forwarding the D&I Council’s mission to further the culture of inclusivity within the sales division by focusing on recruitment, education, development, and retention.
During her distinguished career, Steele has been recognized with a variety of professional awards. She has been honored as an Ad Age Media Maven, by Cynopsis as a Top Woman in Media, and included by Cablefax on their annual Diversity List, which recognizes and celebrates the most influential multi-ethnic executives in the media industry. A native of Queens, NY, Steele graduated from Fordham University with a bachelor’s degree in political science.
Cole Strain
Senior Director, Audience Products
Samba TV
Cole Strain is the Senior Director of Audience Products at Samba TV, where he builds products for agencies and brands to leverage Samba’s omniscreen targeting and comprehensive TV analytics. Cole is an ads measurement nerd and is currently binging 90’s sitcoms.
Prior to Samba TV, Cole was the Head of Measurement Solutions at Pinterest where his team oversaw all measurement partnerships, conducted research that advanced internal and external measurement solutions, and helped prototype all new solutions and methods. Previously, he held data science and analytics roles at Datalogix, Oracle Data Cloud and Sovrn Holdings.
Shyam Venugopal
Vice President, Global Media & Consumer Data Strategy
PepsiCo
Shyam has been with PepsiCo since 2012 and has operated in roles both at the sector and global level. He is currently VP – Global Media and Consumer Data Strategy at PepsiCo. In this newly created global role within PepsiCo, his mandate is to create and deliver data-driven marketing strategies, capabilities and processes that improve the ROI on our advertising investments and build long-term brand equity. He is tasked with defining PepsiCo’s vision for consumer data strategy and to partner on how we leverage that data to inform end-to-end marketing strategies and activation. His responsibility also includes transforming PepsiCo’s relationships with external media agency partners, publishers and marketing technology providers, actively scouting new data partnerships, platforms and technologies.
His prior roles include leading the Marketing Analytics team at FLNA, VP and lead for Global Insights Capability Development and Deployment and most recently as VP, Consumer Insights, Analytics and Category Mgmt function at FLNA. Over the last6 years, he has led several key organizational initiatives – He was responsible for building out the underlying capabilities to support the Demand Sciences efforts and drive best in class practices with vendors that served as model for the global Insights roll-out. Additionally, he was accountable for implementing a Data and ROI Driven Marketing approach, where wee led a multi-year analytic project resulting in 50% ROI improvement over a 4-year period and drove acceleration of digital efforts by 6X resulting him being named Frito Lay Marketer of The Year in 2014. A strong believer, in accelerating the use of data driven marketing, he created first ever in-house programmatic media division within PepsiCo as well as start of our Personalization journey. In his last role as Vice President, Insights, Analytics & Category Management, he led the transformation of insights at Frito-Lay North America to an end-to-end enterprise function, spanning white space and opportunity identification to commercial execution.
Prior to joining PepsiCo, he spent over 10 years in Technology and Advanced Analytics and worked in a variety of industries addressing a broad range of problems, from assembly line sequencing for the automotive sector to new product forecasting for the gaming industry.
Originally from Kerala, India, he has called US home for the last 20 years. He has a B.S. from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai and a M.S. from Purdue University both in Engineering. His wife Abitha and their 2 schnauzers live in Dallas, TX. Foodies and travel enthusiasts, they are eagerly checking off places to go to on their bucket list.
Nancy Whitlow
Head of Brand and Advertising Insights
Whirlpool
Nicole Whitlow is the head of Brand/Advertising Insights for Whirlpool Corporation US, covering the Whirlpool, Maytag, KitchenAid, Amana, JennAir and Gladiator brands. She also leads Brand and Product Insights for their KitchenAid small appliance global business.
Prior to that she led Consumer Insights for Barilla America and was responsible for the company’s market research team for the United States, Canada, Mexico and Brazil. She has also held client and vendor side research roles at companies such as McCain Foods, Millward Brown/Kantar and Catalina Marketing. Nicole is passionate about translating data and trends into meaningful growth opportunities for brands.
She earned her Bachelor’s degree from Illinois State University with a concentration in Marketing and Mathematics and her MBA from DePaul University with a concentration in New Product Development/Management.
Edwin Wong
SVP, Insights & Innovation
Vox Media
Edwin Wong is Senior Vice President, Insights & Innovation at Vox Media, the leading independent modern media company known for building the best media brands and the technology that enables them. He leads research to identify key trends in consumer behavior and help advertisers capitalize on these trends to effectively connect with their core audiences.
He has been studying digital consumer behavior for nearly 20 years and has held previous roles at BuzzFeed, Pinterest and Yahoo.
Andrea Zapata
EVP, Ad Sales Research, Measurement and Insights
Warner Bros. Discovery
Andrea Zapata serves as EVP, Head of Ad Sales Research, Measurement and Insights at Warner Bros. Discovery. In this role, Zapata oversees research for Warner Bros. Discovery’s portfolio of linear and digital brands, marketplace intelligence, category and client insights as well as outcome focused research for advertisers.
Zapata brings a wealth of experience in media where she has brought an innovative approach to her work, demonstrating the value and impact that research, data and insights can have on a business. Previous to her role at Warner Bros. Discovery, Zapata served as Head of Research, Data and Insights for WarnerMedia.
Prior to WarnerMedia, she was Vice President of West Coast Sales at Vevo, responsible for building on the momentum of their US sales teams’ in-market strategy and maximizing the value of premium music videos. In addition, Zapata has held research leadership positions at Effectv, and Hulu. At Hulu, she built the research practice from the ground up, making critical changes in the company’s go-to-market sales narrative.
MSI Board of Trustees
Sunil GuptaEdward W. Carter Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School
Sunil Gupta is the Edward W. Carter Professor of Business Administration and co-chair of the executive program on Driving Digital Strategy at Harvard Business School. He served as the head of the Marketing Unit from 2008-2013 and was the Chair of the General Management Program from 2013-2019.
Sunil’s current research is in the area of digital technology and its impact on consumer behavior and firm strategy. The primarily goal of his research is to understand how digital technology is disrupting existing industries and how incumbents should transform their businesses in this new environment. His book on this topic, Driving Digital Strategy, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in August 2018.
Sunil’s previous research focused on customer management, pricing, and return on marketing investment. His book, Managing Customers as Investments, captures some of the findings from his research on customer management, and it was selected as the 2006 winner of the annual Berry-AMA book prize for the best book in marketing.
Sunil has published three books and over 110 articles, book chapters, cases and notes on these topics. His research has been well recognized and his articles have won several national and international awards.
Sunil is an advisor to several startup firms and serves on the board of US Foods. He has conducted seminars and consulted with many companies including Abbott, ADIA, Adidas, Adobe, American Express, Amway, AT&T, AutoTrader, Avon, Bacardi, BJ Wholesale Club, Duracell, IBM, GfK Academy, Heineken, Henkel, Johnson and Johnson, Kaiser Permanente, L.G. Electronics, MasterCard, McKinsey & Company, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, NPD Group, Pfizer, PwC, SK Telecom, Sanofi, TD Bank, Telefonica, Turkcell, Unilever and Vodafone.
As a business expert, Sunil has frequently appeared on several national and international radio and television programs, such as CBS, CNN, NPR and BBC, and has been quoted in Forbes, The Fast Company, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
Sunil holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.
Martyn J Crook
VP Business Insights, Data and Analytics, United HealthCare Services
UnitedHealth Group
Martyn has over 25 years of analytics, research and strategy experience, serves on the advisory boards for University of Wisconsin, Marketing Science Institute, and Ehrenberg Bass Institute. He is also on the board of a couple of startups Delineate Strategy and Team8.
Martyn leads Business Insights and Analytics for United Healthcare. A large part of his work is focused on getting research, analytics and insights embedded into the business to make better in the moment decisions, recently he has also been working on analytics for the government response to COVID-19 for medical providers and uninsured Americans. Prior to this he ran Global Research, Performance Reporting, Data Strategy and Analytics for The Coca-Cola Company and built the Data, Analytic, and Consumer Research capabilities team at Kimberly-Clark. In these roles he established innovative solutions to grow the business based on the latest thinking in analytics, data science, behavioral science and adapting tech developed from other industries, always ensuring that the work was effective and embedded into the business process. Martyn joined K-C from Microsoft where we lead a team developing next in class Business Solutions using data and analytics, building on experience he gained at General Mills establishing the UK and European research and analytics and in the US from leading Global Data Strategy, Big Data Analytics and Innovation. Over the years he has earned a reputation for delivering innovative, useful, and proprietary techniques and developing teams who are able to take this work and make a difference to the businesses they support.
Martyn is passionate about analytics and teaches classes at various Universities around the world as well as speaking at conferences and events. Martyn holds a Ph.D from Imperial College London. He just moved back to Minneapolis from Atlanta. He rebuilds and races vintage Minis, enjoys wine, hiking, doing cool science experiments, wandering around botanical gardens looking for inspiration for his own, and volunteering to help end inequality using AI and Analytics.
Jean-Pierre Dubé
James M. Kilts Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing
University of Chicago, Booth School of Business
Jean-Pierre Dubé is the James M. Kilts Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Professor Dubé is also director of the Kilts Center for Marketing at the Booth School, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a faculty fellow at the Marketing Science Institute. From 2008-2010, he was a research consultant for the Yahoo! Microeconomics Research group. He has been working as a research consultant with Amazon since 2018.
His research interests lie at the intersection of industrial organization and quantitative marketing. He has conducted empirical studies on the formation of consumer preferences for branded goods, price discrimination, advertising, food deserts and nutrition policy, and the role of misinformation in consumer demand. This empirical focus is also reflected in his MBA course on pricing strategies, which is designed to teach students how to apply marketing models and analytics to develop pricing strategies in practice. Several of his recent research projects are in collaboration with companies in the US and in China.
Dubé’s work has been published in the The American Economic Review, Econometrica, The Journal of Marketing Research, The Journal of Political Economy, Management Science, Marketing Science, Quantitative Marketing and Economics, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and The Rand Journal of Economics. He is an area/associate editor for The Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Marketing Science, and Quantitative Marketing and Economics. He was the recipient of the Chicago Booth class of 2016 Phoenix Award for service to the extracurricular and community activities of the graduating class, the 2008 Paul E. Green Award for Best paper in the Journal of Marketing Research and of the 2005 Faculty Teaching Excellence Award for Evening MBA and Weekend MBA Programs at the Chicago Booth. He was also the recipient of several MSI Research Grants, a Kauffman grant, and a Yahoo! Faculty Research Grant.
Dubé earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto in quantitative methods in economics in 1995, a master’s degree in economics in 1996, and a PhD in 2000 from Northwestern University. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 2000.
Sandy Jap
Sarah Beth Brown Professor of Marketing
Emory University, Goizueta Business School
Sandy Jap holds the Sarah Beth Brown Endowed Professorship of Marketing Chair. She joined the faculty in 2001 and prior to that was on the faculty at the Sloan School at MIT and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She has published widely on the development of strategic partnering and organizational relationships, go-to-market strategies, and e-procurement. She is the author of Partnering with the Frenemy, a book on the dark side of business relationships and A Field Guide to Channel Strategy, a how-to book on going to market strategy. She is an international speaker, expert witness, and consultant to a wide range of industries and firms. Sandy has won numerous lifetime achievement awards and fellow designations for her impact on the field. Her work has received significant attention from the academic community and the marketplace, including The Wall Street Journal, CFO Magazine, and Harvard Business Review.
She is an editorial board member at leading marketing journals, and a visible leader in the marketing discipline. She teaches channel strategy and retailing management for MBA and executive programs, as well as the marketing strategy seminar in the PhD program. She is a co-founder of the Emory Marketing Analytics Center (MAC). She received her PhD from the University of Florida (Go Gators!) and enjoys spending time with her kids. Tennis, red wine, and Cape Cod summers come in a very close second.
Barbara E. Kahn
Patty and Jay Baker Professor of Marketing
The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania
Barbara E. Kahn is Patty and Jay H. Baker Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. She served as Director of the Jay H. Baker Retailing Center and as Executive Director of Marketing Science Institute (MSI). Barbara also served as the Dean and Schein Professor of Marketing at the School of Business Administration, University of Miami and as the Vice Dean of the Wharton undergraduate program.
Barbara has been elected president of both Association for Consumer Research (ACR) and Journal of Consumer Research Policy Board and selected as an MSI trustee. She was associate editor at Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, and Marketing Science and has served on the editorial boards of all major marketing journals. She was elected as a Fellow for both ACR and Society for Consumer Psychology (SCP). Barbara received her PhD, MBA, and MPhil from Columbia University, and her BA from University of Rochester.
John G. Lynch, Jr.
Distinguished Professor, Leeds School of Business
University of Colorado-Boulder
John G. Lynch, Jr. is University of Colorado Distinguished Professor at the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado-Boulder. Lynch received his BA in economics, his MA in psychology, and his Ph.D. in psychology, all from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was a member of the faculty at University of Florida from 1979-1996, where he was Graduate Research Professor. From 1996-2009 he was the Roy J. Bostock Professor of Marketing at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
Lynch is a Fellow of the American Marketing Association, the Association for Consumer Research, the American Psychological Association/Society for Consumer Psychology and one of five Fellows of all three organizations worldwide. In 2015 publications tracked by the Web of Science, Lynch was one of the 25 most cited marketing scholars in the world. He has been a recipient of the Paul D. Converse Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Science of Marketing and the Society for Consumer Psychology’s Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award. Six of his papers have been honored as outstanding article of the year: he has been recognized once each by the Journal of Marketing Research and by the Journal of Marketing, and four times by the Journal of Consumer Research for papers written in 1988, 1991, 2010, and 2015. Two of his papers this last decade are the most cited papers in any marketing journal in the year of their publication: his 2010 Journal of Consumer Research paper on mediation analysis, his 2013 Journal of Marketing Research paper on simple effects in moderated regression, and his 2014 Management Science paper about financial literacy and downstream financial behaviors. He has served as president of the Policy Board of the Journal of Consumer Research, president of the Association for Consumer Research, associate editor for the Journal of Consumer Research, and associate editor and co-editor for the Journal of Consumer Psychology. He was the founding Director of the Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making and founding co-chair of the Boulder Summer Conference on Consumer Financial Decision Making. He is a member of the Academic Research Council of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Shannon Nutter
Principal, Head of Proposition and Customer Experience – Vanguard Superannuation
The Vanguard Group
Shannon Nutter is the Head of Proposition and Experience for Vanguard’s superannuation business in Australia. In prior roles, Shannon led Participant Strategy and Development for Vanguard’s US Retirement business and also served as head of Institutional Marketing and as head of Market Research and Voice of Client for all US and international businesses. She joined Vanguard in 2007 and has more than 15 years’ experience in both consumer and B2B markets, focused on strategic planning, new product development, market analysis and innovation.
Additionally, Shannon originated and led the development of My Classroom Economy® (myclassroomeconomy.org), a free program built by Vanguard volunteers for grades K-12 that teaches children key life skills through experiential learning. Now in its tenth year, the program is used by more than one million students in the United States and beyond. Shannon earned a BA from Macalester College and an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
Elena Pinakatt
Vice President, Global Marketing Analytics
The Coca-Cola Company
Elena Pinakatt is currently the Vice President, Global Marketing Analytics, at The Coca-Cola Company, where she is responsible for global end-to-end marketing analytics for Corporate functions and all 9 Operating Units around the world.
Prior to this role she worked in different marketing roles across various geographies, such as Europe, US, and Asia. Elena has led and launched big brand businesses, such as Coca-Cola Zero, Diet Coke/Coca-Cola light. Before she took on her current role, she was responsible for leading The Coca-Cola Company’s juice portfolio, the largest juice business in the world.
Elena is a German native but considers herself a global citizen. She holds a BA (Honours) degree in Business Communication from the University of the Arts, London, and an MBA in Marketing from Lubin Business School, Pace University, New York City.
Elena is passionate about women’s advancements, human rights, and traveling the world. She currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband Prinz, and their two children, Estella and Leopold.
Sarah Walters
Vice President, US Cardiovascular & Metabolic Diseases
AstraZeneca US
Sarah Walters is Vice President, US Cardiovascular & Metabolic Diseases (US CVMD). In this role, Sarah leads the overall US CVMD team and is responsible for the strategic direction, selling strategy and performance of the cardiovascular and diabetes business units.
During her 25-year career with AstraZeneca, Sarah has held a variety of leadership roles in both marketing and sales across several therapeutic areas including GI, CNS, Respiratory and CV, and on products in different stages of life cycle. In her most recent position, Sarah served as Country President, Austria where she led the Oncology, Respiratory and Immunology and Cardiovascular Renal Metabolic (CVRM) portfolios. Prior to this, Sarah was the Executive Director, Diabetes Franchise for the US CVMD business unit, where she was responsible for leading the US development and delivery of the strategic and operational commercialization plans across the diabetes portfolio. She also served as a senior sales leader of large teams in the US sales organization, as the Executive Business Director (EBD) for the CV Specialty Sales Team as well as Commercial Business Director (CBD) for the Mid-Atlantic and Ohio Valley CV Specialty sales teams.
Sarah holds a B.S. from The Pennsylvania State University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Charitable Foundation Board of Directors
Moneesha BanerjeeExecutive Vice President
Ipsos North America
Bio to come.
Andrea Bertels
Vice President, Global Responsibility & Sustainability, Nielsen Executive Director, Grantmaking
Nielsen Foundation Nielsen
Andrea Bertels is Vice President, Global Responsibility & Sustainability at Nielsen, where she has been since July 2014. Andrea oversees the Nielsen Cares global volunteering program, which empowers our people to mobilize our data and expertise for good through skills-based volunteering and pro bono work. She and her team also lead Nielsen’s Environmental, Social, and Governance reporting efforts. In addition to her Nielsen role, Andrea also serves as Executive Director of Grantmaking for the Nielsen Foundation, a private foundation originally funded by Nielsen. Prior to Nielsen, Andrea held roles at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and Accenture.
Kristin Branch
Director of the A.C. Nielsen Center for Marketing Analytics and Insights, University of Wisconsin – Madison
Wisconsin School of Business
Kristin is the Director of the A.C. Nielsen Center for Marketing Analytics & Insights at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In service of that role she teaches graduate marketing students as well as career coaches all students as to finding careers in the marketing analytics and consumer insight fields. Kristin stays closely connected to the marketing industry through attending and speaking at conferences like The Market Research Event, ARF events and the Insights Association. She leads UW’s own insights conference, their ‘Summit’ biennially.
Prior to joining UW-Madison and the A.C. Nielsen Center, Kristin spent several years in corporate marketing roles. Kristin earned her MBA in Marketing and Entrepreneurship from UW’s School of Business and her undergraduate degree in Marketing from the University of Denver. Kristin is the proud parent, along with her husband, of twin 6 year old girls.
Deborah Campbell
Vice President of Consumer and Marketplace Insights
Verizon Communications
Deborah leads a team of over 50 Consumer Insights specialists, UX researchers and syndicated intelligence experts. Her team represents the voice of the customer and passionately advocates for the best customer experiences. They deliver holistic and actionable insights that help Verizon develop differentiated products and services, create motivating marketing communications and extend Verizon’s brand equity.
While still focusing on growing the core wireless and wireline businesses, CMI is helping transform Verizon into a top tier technology company that is driven by a deep understanding and empathy for consumer needs across a wide range of topics including data privacy, the successful launch of the 5G network, next-gen gaming, sustainable business practices and the ‘Internet of Things’.
Prior to her current role, Deborah enjoyed leading the CMI team at Gerber Baby Food, the infant nutrition division of Nestle USA. She has over 30 years’ experience in Consumer Insights, providing strategic guidance to companies such as American Express, Kraft and Bayer. She has been a speaker at The Market Research Event, Shopper Insights in Action, Market Research in a Mobile World and has been recognized in ‘Who’s Who’ in Shopper Insights.
Campbell holds a BA in History & Political Science from Wellesley College and an MS in Political Science from MIT.
Gloria Cox
Senior Partner
The Cambridge Group
Gloria recently rejoined The Cambridge Group as a Senior Partner. The Cambridge Group is a boutique strategy consulting, research and analytics firm that has helped global Fortune 1000 products and services companies find profitable growth for over 45 years. We get hired when clients want to translate customer research into strategic, operational and financial strategies for their organization.
Previously she was an Executive Vice President at Nielsen, serving as the US Commercial Leader for their 18 largest global-national clients, including Nestle, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Coca-Cola, Colgate, and Kimberly-Clark. Gloria joined Nielsen in 2009 through the acquisition of The Cambridge Group, where she was the Managing Director.
During her 20 years at Cambridge, she specialized in consumer products and services clients,working with them to develop market driven growth strategies through consumer targeting, brand strategy and positioning, and new product development. She has extensive experience in working with clients in a wide variety of categories and countries to identify current, latent and emerging profitable demand.
Prior to joining The Cambridge Group, Gloria was an Engagement Manager and core member of the Consumer Goods Practice at McKinsey & Company where she addressed strategic and organizational challenges for several consumer goods and services clients. Gloria began her career in market research in the Paper Division of Procter & Gamble. During that time, she was responsible for designing, executing and analyzing custom market research for several key Procter & Gamble brands including Pampers, Luvs, Charmin, Bounty and Puffs.
Gloria graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Indiana University with a dual degree in telecommunications and business. She received her Master of Management from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a Master of Divinity from McCormick Theological Seminary. She was ordained as a minister in the United Church of Christ in 2015.
Louis Jones
Media & Marketing Consultant
Louis brings a long history of insight and problem solving to the media & marketing landscape. As a consultant, he works with clients across the marketing spectrum to help narrow issues and design solutions to glean keener insights and drive results.
Jones was the EVP of 4A’s Media & Data Practice – designed to amplify its members’ collective voice within the advertising ecosystem. He oversaw 4A’s media committees/ task forces, and served as liaison with industry associations to lead efforts that address industry-wide issues like brand safety & cross-media measurement.
Prior to joining the 4A’s Team, Louis had consulted for the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) for a year and one half, helping them create mobile education modules to help advertisers to continue to invest in the mobile channels.
Charged with creating the integrated media agency of the future, Louis joined Maxus/GroupM in the fall of 2009 to lead Maxus to a new data focused agency model that put digital at the center of communications planning. In his five years at Maxus, Louis grew Maxus into a top 10 Media Agency with 6 offices and over 400 staffers. This growth earned Maxus Adweek’s Agency of the Year honor in 2012.
Previously, Jones was responsible for Havas Digital’s global services, including product development across the various digital agency networks – including digital, direct response, mobile, systems integration, and creativity. Much of time in this role was spent working from Paris and Madrid in order to be closer to the Network’s European and APAC operations. Prior to this, Louis led three years of double-digit growth for Media Contacts’ US operations as EVP, Managing Director USA. Louis had been a part of the Havas Media family since May 2001.
Before joining MPG in 2001, Louis was Executive Director of Organic Online in San Francisco where he led all online marketing activities for Organic’s West Coast clients through the height of the dotcom boom. Louis also served as Managing Director of Diamond Media (dedicated Clorox media unit). His first ten years in advertising were spent at J. Walter Thompson in New York, where he rose to Deputy Media Director before heading to the West Coast.
Jed Meyer
NA, Media Domain Leader
Kantar
As the lead for the NA Media Domain Product team, Jed works across Kantar to transform our approach to achieving Media domain sales and profitability objectives. Jed partners with the global Media Domain, Marketplace, Analytics and Marketing teams to ensure that client needs are being met as related to offer innovation, offer delivery and product marketing.
Prior to joining Kantar, Jed led Ebiquity’s North American business. Ebiquity is a leading independent marketing and media consultancy with expertise around three core practice areas: Media, Analytics & Tech. Jed built a strong team with a focus on delivering client value and expanded the company’s presence in the critical North American market. Before Ebiquity, Meyer was at Google, where he created a Brand Measurement practice that brought together first and third party data to define & enable better measurement of Google media to drive smarter investment decisions for clients.
Previously, Meyer was Executive Vice President of Corporate Research for Univision Communications, Inc. (UCI), the leading media company serving Hispanic America. Meyer also served as Global Director of Research and Analytics at Annalect, part of Omnicom Media Group where he was focused on developing models and processes to support and sustain the integration of online and offline data across all Annalect platforms and global markets.
Prior to that, Meyer spent nearly 20 years at Nielsen, spearheading Nielsen’s entry into both online ratings and set-top box data and working with Media, Agency and Advertiser clients.
Meyer is active in many industry organizations, serving on the Board for the Advertising Research Foundation (Past Chair) and has been a board member of the Media Ratings Council, Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement and the Council for Research Excellence. In the community, Meyer is a regular volunteer with New York Cares & The Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen and is a member of the Board of Managers for the Prospect Park YMCA (Past Chair).
Linda Vytlacil, Ph.D.
Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation Endowed Chair of Data Analytics and Professor of Marketing & Data Analytics, Soderquist College of Business
John Brown University
Linda Vytlacil is the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation Endowed Chair of Data Analytics and Professor of Marketing & Data Analytics at the Soderquist College of Business, John Brown University. Before her academic career, Dr. Vytlacil served as Vice President, Retail Data Science at Walmart Labs where she led teams engineering intelligent systems to automate decisions across consumer, operations, and supply chain functions. Her organization was instrumental in modernizing the way Walmart creates and uses knowledge about the individual customer and how it innovates to serve changing consumer needs.
Dr. Vytlacil holds a Masters in Financial Economics and a PhD in Organization and Management. She serves on the Board of Directors for INTEGRIS Health, the largest health system in Oklahoma, as well as the on the Board of Directors for the Marketing Science Institute, a nonprofit research organization bridging the gap between academic marketing theory and business practice. She actively mentors Women in STEM globally.