Client Conference 2024

Mariline Alsuar-Dean, Director of Insights, Reckitt - Durex
Mariline loves experimenting with new methodologies and finding creative ways to get closer to the truth about people’s sex life.  
She is passionate about helping the 2 in 3 people globally who are not fully sexually satisfied as she believes sexual satisfaction is a critical component of overall wellbeing and happiness.
She is on a mission to create a more diverse and inclusive society where everyone can be their true sexual selves.

Bethan Blakeley, CX and Research Manager, SimpliSafe UK
Bethan has worked in research and analytics for over a decade, constantly striving to bridge the gap between the two. She spent most of this time agency side, but has recently taken her first client side role at SimpliSafe UK, an emerging brand in the UK home security space. Here she'll be setting up the research function from the ground up. 
She is a keen member of the MRS Advanced Insights & Analytics team, and also wrote the MRS Impact analytics column. Now that she’s on the other side, she’s keen to do what she can to improve working relationships between agencies and clients, and to truly foster a collaborative way of working between them.

Austin Dorsett, Head of Insight, In house Research, Tesco
Austin Dorsett is the Head of In-House Research at Tesco and has been on a mission in recent years to build a world class research function for the Tesco Group. The growing in-house capability now includes both qualitative and quantitative methodologies with the focus on building a centre of excellence for research. His team is changing the way research is used within the business, leveraging the combination of survey data with behavioural data and bringing stakeholders ever closer to the voice of the customer. Prior to his Tesco career, Austin started out agency side, working as a qualitative researcher across a broad range of sectors from mobile to FMCG, automotive, retail and utilities. At this year's Client Conference, Austin will share his insights on the advantages of in-sourcing research whilst also getting the best out of agency partners.

Libby Eastwood, Insight Lead, UKHSA
Libby is an insight lead at the UK Health Security Agency, leading on mixed-method research programmes across a range of topics, from how to reduce antimicrobial resistance to improving health equity. She has previously held senior research roles at IFF Research and Macmillan Cancer Support, and is now enjoying the challenge of working in insight within the Civil Service. Her experience across both agency and clientside roles has given her a real passion for exploring ways to create more empathy and closer working between the two and make research a rewarding and sustainable career.

Richard Ellwood, CMO, Head of Customer Partnerships & Marketing, Crown Estate
Richard is the CMO and Head of Customer Partnerships at The Crown Estate (£16bn capital) responsible for all commercial leasing for 10m sq ft portfolio, establishing a new brand strategy and architecture, representing the corporate purpose and values to UK consumers and business partners. He is accountable to drive footfall to multiple retail and leisure destinations such as Regent St, increase commercial success for retail, office and energy stakeholders and increase The Crown Estate brand awareness and engagement. Prior to TCE, Richard led Marketing Strategy for Disney EMEA, running commercial high ROI campaigns across multiple markets. Richard’s background is insights and is a Fellow of the Market Research Society and a Trustee of Blenheim Palace Heritage Foundation.

Stephan Gans, Chief Consumer Insights and Analytics Officer, Pepsico
Born in The Netherlands, Stephan gained a master’s degree in Econometrics and then joined Unilever as a marketing trainee. After 15 years working in their personal care and foods categories, he left to help build global marketing consultancy EffectiveBrands whichwas eventually sold to the consulting division of Kantar. Three years at Interbrand in New York City as Chief Strategy Officer followed before joining PepsiCo in New York  as Chief Consumer Insights Officer, where he’s been for the past six years. Married with four children, he and his wife are getting used to being empty nesters now that their youngest child has left home to study abroad. His favorite hobby is rowing, which involves getting up at horrible times like 5:00 AM.

James Glass, LEGO
James started his career at a digital marketing agency where he worked across several clients in media buying and planning, which also included a period of secondment to one of those clients. He then moved into the world of marketing effectiveness and has been at the LEGO Group for the past two years during which they've sought to continually develop their MMM programme.

Ruth Hinton, Group Head of Customer Experience & Insight, Vue International
Ruth Hinton has a 20-year career in client-side consumer insight at major retail and hospitality brands, and a background in psychology.  She is currently Group Head of Customer Experience at Vue International; and Chair of AURA, the UK's biggest community exclusively for client-side researchers – providing networking and events, to support members, inspire insight and drive impact.  Ruth is working with a team of volunteers – AURA members and agency supporters – to share, embed and inspire Working Well Together, an initiative for better client-agency relationships. 

Margaret Jobling, CMO, NatWest

Sarah Jousiffe, Director of Consumer Research, Sky
Having started her career agency side working for Illuminas and Leapfrog Research & Planning, Sarah's 15 year career has led her to position of Director of Research, running a full service, multi-disciplinary team sitting within Sky's Consumer Strategy Department. Sarah's experiencing of in-housing research over the last 10 years has brought many learnings on the journey to becoming trusted partner for qual, quant and complex analytical projects.

Georgia Lewin, Senior Customer Insight Manager, AA
Georgia is an insight professional with extensive experience in both qualitative and quantitative research. In her current role as Senior Customer Insight Manager at The AA, she ensures insight drives customer-centric decisions across the business. Having started her career agency-side, she has an understanding of the challenges faced on both sides of the insight world, and uses that to build great relationships with stakeholders and agencies alike.

Becky Miles, Commercial Insights Manager, Holland & Barrett
Becky is a Commercial Insights Manager at Holland & Barrett, having stepped into her first client side role after over a decade working in a variety of agencies. In her role she leads projects around wellness missions, range optimisation, innovation launches and commercial strategies. With wide-ranging experience in international brand, communications and customer research, she strives to deliver powerful insight to businesses to bring them closer to their consumers, inform future strategy and ultimately deliver commercial growth.
Alongside this, Becky has also taken strides to foster a more inclusive company culture, leading one of the internal colleague networks. She is passionate about not only delivering inclusivity within the organisations she works in, but also in bringing this approach to research design and analysis.

Nikki Quast, Senior Market Research Manager, Research + Insights, Microsoft
Nikki Quast is an experienced market researcher who has spent over a decade working in new product development for notable brands like Kraft Heinz and American Family Insurance. Currently leading research for Windows PMM at Microsoft, Nikki focuses her time developing the future of Copilot+PCs, Copilot, and Windows OS Home & Pro. Results-driven and adept at distilling business objectives into actionable insights, Nikki excels in building partner relationships through both consumer and commercial research. She enjoys collaborating on strategy and building up the market research practice.

Claire Rainey, Head of Insight, Virgin Media O2
Claire Rainey is the Head of Insight at Virgin Media O2. Over the last 20 years, Claire has held roles in Sky and Royal Mail Group, prior to Virgin Media O2. Claire has extensive client-side experience in leading consumer and business teams within large corporates, navigating organisational complexity. Claire champions the customer in commercial decisions and, in her current role, has established a single customer language embedded in corporate culture that focuses on customer needs. In a large corporate, providing a unifying voice is key to mobilising customer led activity in a broad and consistent manner. Claire is always looking to trial new methodologies and evolve the team’s capabilities both in terms of techniques and ways of working.

Becky Ray, CEO and High Performing Cultures Consultant, Culture Kick
Becky Ray is the passion and driving force behind Culture Kick, which partners with  Leaders to empower them to create High Performance Cultures through an operational-focused approach. The unique framework, the Culture Kick Culture Cake, is designed to make this transformation impactful and empowering more people to Be Better.
Because Better People 
Become Better Leaders 
Building Better Cultures. 
With a diverse and fascinating background, Becky has become an expert in empowering Leaders to create High Performing Workplace Cultures. She began her career as an Engineer, experiencing firsthand the fast-paced dynamics of operations. After a decade on the tools, she transitioned into Health and Safety Leadership in High-Risk industries such as Rail, Construction, Manufacturing, and Military Aviation. Her hands-on experience in these fields has given her a deep understanding of the important role Leaders have in achieving High Performance and an environment where people thrive. 
A passionate advocate for personal and professional growth and the role it plays in positivity impacting people, leaders and businesses.  Becky has a unique talent to transform knowledge into actionable and engaging ideas you can easily operate to   by to become a Better Person, Better Leader and to Build Better Cultures. 

Nick Rich, Client-Side Insights Leader
Nick Rich has led Insights & Analytics functions at some of the world’s biggest global brands across Manufacturing, Technology, Service and Consumer Goods sectors. He’s persistently challenged the status-quo in the Data Analytics & Research industry to ensure that Insights and Market Research directly drive business growth and not just interesting anecdotes. Nick is heavily involved in driving Insights industry policy and thought leadership through the MRS, IMA, AURA and through NED support for a number of agencies and brands. Nick is Chair of the MRS Annual Client Conference and a senior member of both the MRS Senior Client Council & Kantar’s Client Advisory Board.

James Sallows, Head of Global Marketing Effectiveness, LEGO
James is the Global Head of Marketing Effectiveness at The LEGO Group where he is spearheading a game-changing approach to directly drive business growth through the application of insights. He has extensive experience in the insights space, having worked in fieldwork, full-service insights, media agency insights and for the past 6 years within brands. His career has had a particular focus on people development and advancing the role of insights as a business growth catalyst. In recent years he has launched a transformational MMM programme, an Insights Academy, a new Innovation approach centred on insights, a MiniMBA in insights in partnership with UCL (with over 2,000 non-insights colleagues enrolled) and a hot-housing career development programme for insights high-performers.

Nicole Smyth, Customer Insight, Holland & Barrett
Nicole Smyth is an experienced Insight leader, having worked client-side within a number of UK and Global retailers, including ASDA, George Clothing and Debenhams, and most recently leading Strategic Insights at Holland & Barrett. With a passion for ensuring research is inclusive and representative, Nicole is involved with a number of EDI initiatives, including recently working alongside Clare Woodward (BT) to update the MRS client-side EDI Best Practice guides. Alongside this, Nicole is also leading EDI initiatives within Holland & Barrett to create insight team and agency guidelines focussed on improving representation in all areas of research and analysis.

Georgie White, Chief Customer Officer, Holland & Barrett
Georgie White is Chief Customer Officer at Holland & Barrett.  Her focus is on empowering teams to be brilliant business partners by driving action to deliver commercial results. Georgie is an experienced insight leader having established impressive teams at brands such as BT/EE, British Gas, Hive, Capital One & Merrill Lynch. She has held roles In the UK and globally covering Insight, Data and Commercial within both B2C and B2B environments.

David Woodley, Head of Qualitative Research and Marketing Insight, Barclays
David, is the Head of Qualitative Research at Barclays.  He brings 20 years of experience across the financial services, automotive, and entertainment sectors.  With senior insight roles both agency and client-side, he is adept at curating new insights to devise compelling strategies for communications, products, audiences, and customer experience.  His work with brands such as Standard Life, RAC, Co-op, and Universal Pictures has been instrumental in shaping their strategic direction. At this year’s conference, David will share his journey of building an in-house client-side team of qualitative researchers from scratch, highlighting the challenges and successes along the way. 

Clare Woodward, Enterprise Insight Manager, BT
Clare Woodward is an experienced clientside research currently working for BT across B2B and B2C research projects. With a focus on ensuring research and the research industry are inclusive across both practices and culture, Clare is the original author of the MRS Clientside EDI Best Practice guides first published in May 2022 (and believed to the first of their kind!). Working alongside Nicole Smyth (Holland and Barrett) the guides have recently be reviewed and updated and will be relaunched following the MRS Clientside Conference. Clare is also a part of the MRS People and Talent workgroup and chairs the New and Returning Talent subgroup.