The MRS Senior Council was established to help provide collective coherent senior client leadership to support the MRS in two main areas:

  • Creating a contemporary vision and position for the insight and research sector outside the marketing ‘silo’, and positioning it as a major corporate driver of change and growth
  • Providing encouragement to ensure the sector is fit for purpose as an employer, demonstrating best practice on inclusion, ethical standards and professionalism.

The Council is chaired by Georgie White, Holland & Barrett.

                

Georgie is Chief Customer Officer (CCO) at Holland & Barratt. Previously, Georgie was Group Insight Director at BT which she joined in 2018 to establish an Insight Centre of Excellence to ensure that customer data is at the heart of the company strategy and drives decision making.
Prior to BT, Georgie worked at brands such as Centrica, Capital One, Merrill Lynch and HBOS, in roles covering Insight, Data and Commercial within both B2C and B2B environments in the UK and globally.

Georgie loves engaging with people, understanding them and their agendas and challenges, building great relationships to create brilliant solutions that drive value to customers and the business. However, at the heart of it, she simply loves helping people become the best they can be (and want to be!).

Customer Insights Director at Barclays

Managing Director, Global Head of Insights, Data & Analytics, Standard Chartered

Head of Customer, Brand and Marketing at The Crown Estate

Group Insight Director, Tesco
Naomi is responsible for embedding colleague and customer Insight and Foresight into the decisions that shape the Tesco proposition. Naomi studied Computer Science and began her career at Accenture where she set up the global loyalty practice. Her key clients were Sainsbury’s, where she launched Nectar, FNAC, M&S, Dixons Carphone, EE, Camelot, BT, Vodafone. At Satmetrix she ran the EMEA Net Promoter consulting practice and then joined dunnhumby to lead Customer Strategy, Insight and Loyalty solutions globally. She was responsible for serving Kroger, Groupe Casino, Michael Kors and Gruppo PAM. Before joining Tesco, she led Insight at M&S Food, Clothing & Home, bringing research, analytics and data science together to drive deeper customer understanding.

Naomi never misses a chance to visit stores, talk to people, try new products and propositions and to observe. With a deep love of retailing and an appreciation for the art and joy of it, she believes that we can always do better if we really understand our customers.

She is a Board advisor for the Strategic Marketing MSc. at Imperial College London Business School.

Naomi is married, proudly Irish and a mother of three.
Robert is VP Consumer and Market Insight, Beauty and Personal Care Division, Unilever.

Robert was appointed VP CMI Beauty and Personal Care in March 2018. In this role he leads the end-to-end consumer understanding for the Division, from strategy and innovation through brand engagement to performance optimisation. The CMI team partners with global categories and local markets across the world, ensuring we all stay close to our consumers.

Robert joined Unilever in 1997 as a Consumer Scientist in Global Beverages. Over the past 20+ years he has held a variety of consumer understanding roles in global categories and local markets. He is deeply curious about the ever-changing lives of the people we serve, and passionate about using great consumer understanding to keep our brands relevant, engaging and purposeful.

Robert graduated with a degree and a doctorate from University College London, UK. He is married with two sons and based in London.
History at Unilever

2018 VP CMI Beauty and Personal Care
2014 VP CMI Foods
2010 VP CMI Europe and North America
2005 Director CMI Homecare Global
2003 Director CMI UK and Ireland
2000 Manager CMI Spreads Europe
1997 Consumer Scientist Beverages Global
Group Insight Director - BT, EE, Plusnet, BT TV & BT Sport

Joanne Pearson, Global Customer Insights Director - Jaguar Land Rover
Joanne Pearson joined Jaguar Land Rover in 2015 in the newly created role of Global Customer Insights Director, responsible for bringing the voice of the customer into the company. She is also the Business Lead for Diversity & Inclusion bringing her passion for understanding people to the employee engagement agenda. She joined JLR from a 10 year career at Vodafone where she was Global Head of Customer Insight and was part of the mobile revolution - seeing mobile phones go from low penetration call and occasional texting devices to full internet on your mobile and devices which consumers could no longer live without! Prior to Vodafone Joanne spent 10 years working for Barclaycard in a variety of consumer and business to business marketing roles. She holds a degree in Technology and Management Science and an MBA.

Head of Insight, O2
Claire joined O2 in 2018 after nearly a decade at Sky, and Royal Mail Group before that. Having started her career in marketing, Claire identified a passion for insight and has spent her career ensuring insight is at the heart of decision making, driving commercial success throughout these large businesses.
Chief Insights & Analytics Officer - Reckitt

Elaine re-joined Reckitt as Chief Insights & Analytics Officer in November 2019, to lead both the consumer insights and data analytics teams. Passionate about people and consumers, she is leading RB’s efforts to always Put Consumers First, via expansive consumer-centric thinking and ‘humanising data’ through the digitalisation of insights. She is a firm believer in the power of connecting all sources of data and insights about consumers and categories, with analytics playing a key role in building data-driven decisions in-market close to consumers. A key part of her role is to accelerate the digital and data transformation of the group, building insights & analytics as key enablers of digital marketing & eCommerce. This is Elaine’s second stint at RB, the first being in 2001 when she spent 6+ years in a variety of roles spanning the Global Category in UK, and Geographies. Prior to re-joining RB, Elaine was Chief Strategy & Insights Officer at Danone for 3 years, where she led a company-wide charge towards a more agile & digital approach to insights. Elaine also spent 9 years at Kraft/Mondelez, as Regional Consumer Insights & Strategy Director for Asia Pacific, and Global CIS Director for the Biscuits category. Prior to RB, Elaine started her career at market research agencies including Kantar and Ipsos. Elaine has a PhD in Marketing from Monash University in Australia, she is originally from Singapore, and has lived in Paris and London.
Previously, Zoe was Vice President of Consumer & Business Insights and Analytics at GSK, where she is focused on ensuring that the global function was set up to deliver competitive advantage in consumer and business understanding. Prior to that she spent over 20 years at Procter & Gamble in regional and global insight and analytic roles in R&D, Marketing and Sales. She is known to be a passionate champion of the industry and its members.

Global Head of Transformation & Capability, Consumer & Business, Haleon

Director of User Research and Insights, Deliveroo

VP Insights & Analytics – Europe, Sub Saharan Africa and Global Digitalization
Tim leads PepsiCo's Insights and Analytics Groups across Eastern Europe, Western Europe and Sub Saharan Africa and also the Digitalization of Insights Globally through building game-changing partnerships, technology and tools. Prior to PepsiCo Tim held marketing, commercial and insights leadership roles in Heineken, Colgate and Kraft-Heinz.
 

Get the latest MRS news

Our newsletters cover the latest MRS events, policy updates and research news.