Adam Palenicek

Associate Director

Adam has over seven years experience in public sector and commercial research. He has built up a wealth of experience of managing large scale quantitative projects across a range of methods including face to face, telephone, postal and online.

He has designed and managed numerous qualitative research projects, recently focussing on stakeholder and reputation audits for a variety of clients in the public and commercial sectors. His experience extends to wider reputation and branding work feeding directly into communications and marketing strategies. Over the last two years he has developed a keen interest in behaviour change research, especially in the areas of public health, transport and environment.

Who knew?

Adam is a keen marathon runner and his ambition is to run the Marathon Des Sables across the Sahara Desert in Morocco.

Becky Ingram

Research Executive

Becky joined Opinion Leader following an internship at Accent Marketing and Research where she gained training in both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies and experience in all stages of the research process.

Now at Opinion Leader, Becky has started working on projects for The Legal Services Board, exploring the public’s awareness of whom can provide legal services and what protection provisions are in place, for the Tri-Borough PREVENT strategy and HM Revenue and Customs.

Becky graduated from Royal Holloway, University of London with a 2:1 in Human Geography, a research based degree which inspired her to go into the Market Research industry.

Who knew?

Becky is a sun worshipper and spends her holidays exploring the beaches of her favorite holiday destination; Florida!

Caroline Bates

Director

Caroline has extensive experience as a client-side marketer and insight professional, before joining the Group as a Board Director.

Caroline’s previous position was at Telefonica O2, where she was most recently Head of Brand and Marketing Strategy – where she focused on delivering an innovation agenda, as the brand moved into new areas. Caroline has a wealth of client-side experience, and so understands well the pressures within an organisation, and how agencies can help deliver outputs that are tailored to a clients needs.

Prior to joining O2 she took responsibility for the Marketing Service’s team within the Post Office and agency side Director positions at both Illuminas and Hall & Partners Group.

Who Knew?

Caroline loves going to concerts and spends most of her free time traveling around the country following her favourite bands.

Charlotte Holloway

Field Executive

Charlotte joined Opinion Leader in September 2012. Prior to this she worked at TNS for seven years where she progressed to her final position of Senior Field Controller.

Charlotte's responsibilities include working with the Field Manager to coordinate all fieldwork for qualitative and also deliberative events and managing international recruitment, covering all sectors from Social and Government to Financial.

Charlotte's previous experience also includes recruiting for consumer, technology and media projects.

Charlotte enjoys the challenge that often comes with recruitment and likes the aspect of working with many different people both across the UK and internationally.

Who Knew?

Charlotte is a keen theatre fan, in particular musical theatre. She has seen almost all of the shows in London, many more than once!

Chloe Woolger

Client Services Manager

Chloe works in the Client Services team at Opinion Leader and helps run all our new business activity. Chloe is the first point of contact for all our clients, she helps with ensuring quality in all our work and is passionate about delivering high standards.

Before joining Opinion Leader Chloe worked as a Customer Service Advisor for Jaguar and Land Rover. Whilst at Land Rover Chloe won an award for Customer Excellence. Chloe is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Who knew?

Chloe has a 16.2hh Irish Sports Horse and spends most of her weekends horsing around!!

Claire Spencer

Group Finance Director

Claire is a core part of the team at Facts International and, as the woman with her finger on the financial pulse of the business, is always in demand.

She has worked as an accountant for over 12 years and has had experience in both practice and industry.

Who knew?

Claire enjoys spending her free time with family and friends, and her interests include travelling, snowboarding and running.

Crispin Beale

Chief Executive

Crispin previously held the position of Group Director of Insight, Intelligence and Analysis for Royal Mail Group, as well as being responsible for marketing services including advertising for Post Office Ltd.

Crispin has extensive insight expertise having been a key player in the launch of Post Office Home Phone and Post Office Broadband, as well as being Head of Customer Satisfaction for BT, leading the research and intelligence teams. Prior to this, Crispin headed research and intelligence for Dixons Stores Group (now DSGi plc) including The Link and Freeserve, where he conducted many research projects and trackers in the areas of mobile, telephony and Internet.

Who knew?

Crispin owns a farm on the north downs and spends most of his weekends herding sheep and cows.

Danica Verrall

Senior Research Executive

Danica has over two years experience in research, after graduating with a BA in Theology from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in Politics from the University of Southampton. She also won a social research internship with the NGO BRAC, conducting groups and depths across rural Bangladesh and feeding into social policy work in Dhaka.

Before joining Opinion Leader, she worked qualitatively and quantitatively across the financial, education, media and commercial sectors, and is now looking forward to indulging her passion for social research. She is particularly interested in applied behavioural economics, and enjoys research exploring policy, branding and communications especially.

Who knew?

Dani can usually be found rowing on the Thames, chasing her favourite bands across London and the south coast or pretending to be cool enough to hang around the Hoxton art scene.

Harriet Owens

Research Executive

Harriet joined Opinion Leader through the Chime graduate programme. Previously she spent 10 months at our sister company Facts International. While at Facts, Harriet managed many quantitative research projects including two long term telephone tracker projects for a large insurance company as well as gaining experience with mystery shopping and face to face CAPI research methodology. At Opinion Leader she has had the opportunity to expand her knowledge of qualitative research methodology.

Harriet graduated with a 2:1 degree from the University of Warwick in 2011 having completed a BA (hons.) in History and Politics.

Katie Shearn

Research Director

With ten years’ research experience, across all research methodologies, Katie is happiest when applying a mixed methodology to a difficult and sensitive topic. 

Katie has helped a wide variety of clients from public, third and private sectors understand the attitudes and behaviour of their customers.  She has delivered actionable recommendations to senior board members and central government steering committees. As well as traditional research methods, Katie brings experience of other research and marketing techniques to provide a truly bespoke solution, including social trends, deliberative and collaborative research, social marketing and market analysis. 

Who knew?

Katie represented England in Volleyball as a junior and is just a couple of high kicks away from her black belt in Hapkido.

Laura Saupin

Office Manager

Laura joined Opinion Leader as Office Manager in November 2010.

Having spent over nine years working within the motor trade as both a Marketing Executive and Personal Assistant, she enjoys working within a different industry, the diversity of her role and supporting the team at Opinion Leader.

Who knew?

Laura’s passions are chocolate, shoes and her pug dog, Oscar.

Lynne Tinsley

Research Manager

Lynne has five years of experience in the market research industry and has been exposed to a wide range of research methods. She is a skilled qualitative researcher, having facilitated many focus groups and depth interviews with both senior stakeholders and the general public, often including sensitive topics. She has also previously managed a number of quantitative surveys using online, CATI and face-to-face methods. Lynne recently completed a secondment within a small charity and benefits from bringing personal experience of working on the client side to her work at Opinion Leader.

Lynne has a keen interest in social and policy research, and has particular knowledge of the education and sport sectors. She is currently working towards an MSc in Social Research Methods.

Who knew?

Lynne is passionate about travelling, experiencing new places and cultures. In the last few years Lynne has visited Colombia, Vietnam, India, Spain, Croatia, Poland and New York.

Mark Hirst

Engagement Director

Mark is our engagement specialist. From large cross functional projects, delivering nationwide changes in behaviour or getting octogenarians using touch screen kiosks, Mark will be involved.

Mark worked for a number of years with the Post Office in customer insight and new business development environments. His key responsibility was to ensure the business put customer insight at the centre of business decisions and activity. At Opinion Leader, Mark has moderated numerous deliberative events all over the country and further afield including 50 eminent academics and industry experts to look at key strategic opportunities at the Doha 2010 Carbon forum.

Who knew?

Mark is member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and an active Football Association referee – ask him to show you his red card!

Martyna Elliot-Cooke

Senior Research Executive

Martyna joined the team in 2010. She has worked on projects for public and private sector clients as well as not-for-profit clients. She contributes to all stages of the projects investigating issues ranging from maternity care to communications policy by facilitating focus groups and conducting depth interviews, report writing and project managing small long-term and short-term quantitative studies. Martyna has also worked with a large group client on a customer satisfaction tracker survey.

Her research experience encompasses quantitative and qualitative research methods in brand reputation, healthcare, communications and customer satisfaction as well as wide-ranging capabilities in theoretical and desk research.

Who knew?

Martyna played volleyball throughout high school and is the shortest setter in the history of the sport... presumably.

Michael Thompson

Research Director

Michael has a passion for researching difficult social issues. His work has ranged from a study examining the drivers of problem gambling to an investigation of the influence of advertising on infant feeding behaviour. The part of his job he most enjoys is gaining entry to other people’s lives, however briefly.

In his ten years as a qualitative researcher he has toured crime hotspots with teenagers in Leeds and had tea with transvestites in Wales.

Who knew?

The highlight of Michael’s musical career was playing trumpet in Mozart’s Requiem in front of the Nereid Monument in the British Museum.

Natalie Read

Fieldwork Manager

Natalie joined Opinion Leader in 1993 as an Administrative Assistant and progressed her way to her current role as Fieldwork Manager. Natalie’s responsibilities include co-ordination of all qualitative and deliberative fieldwork and supervising and building our nationwide network of recruiters.

She has very extensive experience of managing recruitment of opinion-leading audiences and people who are traditionally hard to reach.

Who knew?

Natalie is a keen kick boxer and can regularly be found punching and kicking during one-to-one training sessions at the gym!

Neil Russell

Research Director

Neil is a Research Director who loves seeing the patterns in the numbers and linking them to his clients’ business needs.

He has had the pleasure of working on or leading some of the UK’s great public sector surveys and feels equally at home in getting to the heart of what makes a brand strong and how to communicate with audiences.  Although a lifelong quanty he also loves the direct interaction and understanding you get through qual.

Who knew?

Neil is rapidly running out of his 9 lives having been in a car that rolled over at 85 mph on a motorway, fallen off a mountain, been blown up, got stuck in quicksand, been run over by a bus, electrocuted himself and been shot at. Ironically his only injury was breaking his little finger in a wheelbarrow race.

Neil Samson

Associate Director

Neil is an Associate Director and has been at Opinion Leader for over 5 years. Neil specialises in qualitative and deliberative research with vulnerable members of society. Neil is passionate about ensuring that the opinions and experiences of people who face challenges are heard by policy makers and service providers.

Neil managed a large scale research project for the Department of Health with adults with autism, which helped to develop the Government's Adult Autism Strategy. This project was shortlisted for the public policy and social research awards. Neil is a regular conference speaker and has presented papers at ESOMAR and the MRS annual conference.

Who knew?

Neil has co-facilitated a table discussion at a deliberative event with Gordon Brown.

Nick Lamb

Chairman

Nick has spent over 30 years in the communications industry working for four types of marketing communication agencies. He joined Saatchi and Saatchi as a trainee Account Executive in 1979. He then moved to the Sales Promotion agency MCB as a Director, before joining Crown Business Communications as Managing Director. He oversaw the rapid expansion of Crown before becoming Chairman following its sale to Ferrovial.

In 2007 he joined forces with Chime plc leading to the acquisition of the market research company Facts International as both minority shareholder and Chairman. In 2010 he was appointed Chairman of CIE.

Who knew?

Nick is a keen practicing falconer, who also flies piston engine helicopters.

Nicola Blythe

Senior Research Executive

Nicola is on a placements within the CIE Graduate Scheme. Having been involved in the project set-up, data analysis and reporting for some of the company’s largest clients, she has gained a detailed overview of the processes involved in conducting quantitative projects.

Nicola is keen to develop her knowledge and experience of the qualitative research industry, particularly in education and healthcare. She has had a long-standing zeal for research and a real curiosity about people and their environment.

Nicola graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2010 with an Honours degree in History.

Who knew?

Nicola is still getting acquainted with the capital after moving down from ‘The North’, and is determined that she will become familiar with everything London has to offer… cake shop by cake shop.

Patrick Meakin

Research Director

Patrick has nearly 30 years experience in the research industry and has held senior positions at a number of well established agencies. He has extensive experience of managing large-scale quantitative projects in the UK and internationally in the areas of customer satisfaction and engagement using the full range of methodologies.

As well as proactively managing large-scale projects and strengthening the strategic partnerships with clients, his previous roles included responsibilities in corporate strategy, new business development, and new product development. He has a particular interest in championing the use of new technologies for the collection of research data – not just the data our clients want to ask about, but the data their customers want to give them.

Who knew?

Patrick is so bad at singing that he was thrown out of a band by his own brother!

Rosy Goodrick

Research Manager

Rosy has worked in market research for the last 5 years and has both client and agency side experience. In her previous role at Royal Mail, Rosy was the driving force behind designing and managing an Online Panel Community for both consumers and customers. She was co-author for a paper about this project, which received the MRS B2B research award 2010. Rosy also presented at the BIG 2011 conference about the future of Social Media in the B2B world.

Rosy is experienced in both qualitative and quantitative research and has led a variety of projects on a from a qualitative project about engaging women in tennis to a large online tracker about transport planning for the London 2012 Olympics.

Who knew?

Rosy is fascinated by people’s opinions and views, and even runs her own book club ‘Wine and Spine’ which has an ever growing monthly attendance.

Sarah Houghton

Director

Sarah is an experienced business leader, she has joined as a Board Director for CIE, initially heading up Opinion Leader to cover Sinead’s maternity leave.

She was previously at Nunwood where she successfully set up their London operation in 2007. She then became European MD with responsibility for the Insight and Analytics teams, providing insight consultancy to clients such as Nationwide and RBS.

Sarah spent most of her career prior to this at Millward Brown, ultimately becoming leader of their London office. It was here that she developed her particular interest in brands, working on global brand and campaign development for clients including L’Oreal, Unilever and Nestle. Sarah enjoys building truly collaborative partnerships with clients and colleagues to produce work that inspires action and change.

Who Knew?

Sarah loves holidays travelling by motorbike, her favourite trips were Costa Rica, California, Italy and Portugal. She is an avid (and long suffering!) Newcastle United supporter.

Sarah Mulcahy

Research Executive

Sarah joined Opinion Leader from Trinity College Dublin where she received a 2:1 in History and Political Science.

Now at Opinion Leader, Sarah is developing her skills by conducting research for a number of projects in the public sector; for example, work commissioned by the Office of Tax Simplification and HM Revenue and Customs on increasing pensioners' understanding of the pension tax process.

Sarah has a passion for facilitating engagement with current social and political affairs. This year, she was one of 30 students selected for the Washington Ireland Program where she interned in a congressman's office on Capitol Hill and moderated discussions with high profile speakers on topics such as the role of labour unions in shaping wage equality and the role of SuperPACS in the forthcoming U.S. presidential election.

Who knew?

Sarah is an avid festivalgoer and her favourite place is the hub of a music festival, colours flying, wellingtons on and muck everywhere.

Sinéad Jefferies

Director

Sinéad heads up the Opinion Leader team, and loves getting involved with the great variety of projects we run.

Having started her career at BMRB, she has spent significant time on the client-side with roles at American Express, London Underground and Post Office – most recently heading up the Business Intelligence team at Royal Mail. Sinéad uses this experience to ensure that all of our projects are focused on delivering insight that will really make a difference, whether it’s commercial returns for businesses, policy improvements within government and public sector, or to the everyday lives of people in the UK.

Who knew?

When she was much younger, Sinéad spent much of her spare time Irish dancing, taking part in ‘feiseanna’ across Ireland and at the All Ireland competition.

Toby Cotton

Research Manager

Toby joined the team from Ipsos MORI after spending 6 years specialising in public sector research.

During this time Toby has gained extensive experience of managing projects using a range of qualitative and quantitative methodologies from postal self-completion and random probability face-to-face interviewing to in-depth interviewing and deliberative techniques.

Aside from methodology, Toby has a particular interest in the crime and justice sector and has worked closely with clients such as Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary for whom Toby has explored public preferences around the publishing of police performance information.

Who knew?

Toby was once in a circus and is currently re-acquiring long neglected unicycling skills.