Generation A-Z 2025

Kian Bakhtiari, Founder, The People and author of Marketing for Social Change

Kian is the Founder of The People, a Gen-Z consultancy powered by a global community of young changemakers. He is listed as one of the Top 50 Future Leaders by the Financial Times and is the author of the newly published book Marketing for Social Change. Kian is also an Advisor to UN Climate Change, a TEDx Speaker and a Trustee at Earthwatch Europe. He regularly writes about Gen-Z marketing and social impact for Forbes CMO Network. Kian is deeply passionate about using the power of creativity for good.

James Bartlett, Director of Insight, Sony Music Entertainment

Hanna Chalmers, Founder, The Culture Studio

With an academic background in Public Policy that has shaped her practice, Hanna has spent her career in the field of socio-cultural research championing the importance of cultural understanding for brands and organisations. Hanna has worked in leading youth roles at the BBC and then Universal Music UK where she established the research and insight division as an integral offer working with global artists from Taylor Swift to Rihanna and on wider business strategy, co authoring a book on the power of music for brands. After a period living in Portland Oregon, in 2015 she moved to Ipsos MORI as a senior director in the media and advertising division. In 2020 Hanna set up Culture Studio, a consultancy bringing together cultural and social research to better understand the world we live in. Hanna has authored countless reports and white papers, working with a wide range of organisations and brands around the world from Google to the BPI, from Mozilla to Gamble Aware. In 2023 Hanna became a Trustee at the charity Youth Music. Hanna speaks and writes regularly on cultural research.

Konrad Collao, Founder, Craft

Konrad specialises in working with clients in media, entertainment and technology - providing them with cultural and behavioural insights to navigate digital transformation, develop content and marketing strategies, and inform wider business strategy. Much of his work focuses on the changes being wrought by young people coming of age in a very different media landscape to that which shaped older generations. For Channel 4, Konrad is the architect of the award-winning Beyond Z series, as well as MRS award-winning work exploring young people's relationships with factual content (and much more besides). Konrad has designed and delivered foundational youth-focused studies to imagine and develop The Hundred cricket competition for the England and Wales Cricket Board, and explored young people's relationships with news for the Reuters Institute. He has also shone a light on Britain's youth for the BBC, ITV, Premiership Rugby, and the Advertising Association. He has worked across continents for the likes of Netflix, the BBC World Service, Red Bull Media House, and Warner Bros Discovery, and is a regular speaker on all matters youth and media at international conferences.

Sam Clough, Global Head of Insight and Research, SuperAwesome

Sam is the Global Head of Strategic Research and Insights at SuperAwesome, an award-winning technology company that powers the youth digital ecosystem, helping brands to meet their audience where they are.

She is an expert on youth audiences, having spent 30 years researching kids, teens, and families. At SuperAwesome, she leads the insights team, empowering the business to dig deeper and build a nuanced understanding of evolving trends.

Sam is a passionate advocate for her audience, giving a voice to an often overlooked group. Her groundbreaking research, which spans children from preschool age through adulthood, has been pivotal in establishing SuperAwesome as the leading expert and thought leader in the youth digital space.

Katya Des-Etages, Senior Research Executive, Channel 4

Jaya Deshpande, Principle Data Analyst on Social Media Insight and Measurement

Joshua Dorr, Associate Director, Giraffe Insights

As an Associate Director at Giraffe Insights, an international research agency specialising in youth, kids and family insight, Josh leads on large scale projects across the business. With almost a decade of experience within market research, Josh has designed and conducted a range of creative research methodologies that have helped shed light for brands across multiple industries. Josh is an industry recognised specialist who has a passion for bringing audiences to life and creating compelling stories that can be used to instigate change.

Laura Gafforio, Research Manager & Edit Producer, The Good Side

Jessica Gillingham, Senior Research Manager, DJS Research

Jess Gillingham is a Senior Research Manager and is on the Children and Young People research team at DJS Research.  Since completing her MSc in Consumer Psychology, Jess has 8 years’ experience agency-side and loves to explore why people think and behave in the ways they do. Jess joined DJS Research in 2022 and project manages complex qualitative and quantitative projects, mainly with young audiences. Jess works closely with clients to ensure the smooth running of projects from the initial kick off call through to data delivery, with presenting those all important results and recommendations to clients being one of the favourite parts of her role. The unpredictability of children and young people is why Jess loves to work with this audience, and it's a joy to be a part of making sure their voices are heard.

Sandy Grant, Senior Research Officer, The Electoral Commission

Sandy Grant is Senior Research Officer at The Electoral Commission.  With 15 years’ research experience, Sandy has previously worked agency-side at Ipsos Mori and client-side in the charity sector (British Red Cross and Macmillan Cancer Support). He is now part of the research team at The Electoral Commission, which is an independent public body overseeing elections and regulating political finance in the UK.  The Electoral Commission works to promote public confidence in the democratic process.

Annie Green, Senior Consultant, We Live Context

Annie is committed to understanding human behavior and the cultural forces shaping our world having spent 4 years working to craft research that drives meaningful consumer experiences. With a strong foundation in both qualitative and quantitative methodologies spanning B2C and B2B sectors, she has worked with globally recognized brands, including Apple, Google, Meta, Visa, PlayStation, and Twitter, as well as leading consumer favorites like General Mills, Hasbro, and Pizza Hut. Her experience extends to managing a Gen Z long-term community for a leading UK media brand conducting weekly research into cultural insights and getting to the heart of what makes Gen Z tick within an ever-changing and unstable world. Throughout it all, Annie has been driven by a keen desire to get to the heart of what makes us tick, as consumers and ultimately as humans.

Lauren Hunter, Research Lead, Gamble Aware

Lauren Hunter’s work centres on understanding the lived experience of gambling harm among vulnerable and marginalised communities, including children and young people. As Research Lead at GambleAware, she commissions research programmes that investigate how the gambling landscape and advertising shape behaviours and contribute to inequitable outcomes across Great Britain. Previously, Lauren’s work has explored how broader societal factors, such as economic inequality and policy, influence and exacerbate harm linked to food, alcohol, and social media. She is committed to advancing evidence-based solutions that safeguard vulnerable groups and address the societal impact of gambling harm.

Guy Holcraft, Head of Audience Measurement, OFCOM

Dan Jacobs, Research Manager, Opinium

Nicki Karet, Managing Director. Sherbert Research

Nicki is Sherbert’s founder and MD (as well as a former primary school teacher). She set up Sherbert way back in 2003 and has worked with kids and teens for 25+ years. She loves nothing more than chatting with children and young people about anything from media to sport, mental health and school to how they feel about ad campaigns or new products. She has researched them all! She is a mum of two teenagers and in her spare time loves watching football, especially Arsenal.

Karlien Kriegler, Co-Founder and Research Director, Hello Ara

Karlien is the Co-Founder and Research director of Hello Ara. She holds a Master’s Degree in Consumer Science from the University of Stellenbosch and brings 20 years of experience to the market research industry, where she focuses on blending traditional methods with emerging technologies like AI and the Metaverse. Karlien views her role as an explorer, using innovative technology to uncover deeper insights while staying grounded in the fundamental goal of understanding people and their behaviours into the future.

Kirsten Kuhnert, Head of Customer Insights, Vodafone UK

Kirsten has been working client side as strategic insights lead with over 25 years experience in the telecoms industry. Being passionate about empowering customers to embrace technology, help people progress in life, she spent many years travelling across geographies, to get under the skin of audiences with emotional or cultural barriers or simply sensitive comprehension issues. Translating insight into tangible and actionable business concepts meant working with diverse domain experts globally from C-level to operational teams. From working across different divisions in Nokia, customer strategy development and CX in Microsoft, advising the GSMA on the mHealth development programme, bringing supporter insights to Cancer Research UK with a commercial insights head on, to leading the Customer Insights team for Vodafone UK. Always dedicated to challenge and spark the business imagination as a trusted customer voice impacting commercial decisions.

Liam Laville, Global Head of Insight, Just Eat

Steve Looney, Research Director & Partner, Opinium

Helen Menzies, Research Director, DJS Research

Helen Menzies is a Research Director and heads up the Children and Young People research team at DJS Research.  With over 17 years’ agency-side experience, Helen joined DJS Research in 2019 and oversees both qualitative and quantitative projects with young audiences, ensuring everything is age-appropriate, safe and adheres to the MRS Code of Conduct.  She also helps to keep DJS Research’s in-house panel of over 5,500 children and young people engaged through regular research.  Helen works across a range of sectors but specialises in media, not-for-profit and education. She loves spending time with children and young people, hearing their take on the world and turning this into insight for her clients.

Will Oshiro De Groot, Senior Insights Manager, D&I, LEGO Group

Elliot Pigram, Global MD, STRAT7 Crowd DNA

Rhiannon Price, Partner, We Live Context

Rhiannon has been a qualitative specialist for twenty years. Working across the globe - in person and digital – she has a passion for understanding cultural nuance and weaving insight into strategy that is both global and local. For the last ten years, she has been committed to developing best practise in how to socialise insight within client organisations and has sought to expand how we all think about insight delivery - from documentaries, game shows or Sunday supplement style magazines for Jaguar Land Rover, to gallery installations and persona social media accounts for Chanel. But above all, she is dedicated to throwing out the dusty market research rules of years gone by to ensure the methodologies we use are truly fit for purpose and capitalising on cultural shifts happening in the consumer world.

Roxanne Smith, Client Director, Bulbshare

Charlene Van Zyl, Director, Customer and Loyalty, Woolworths South Africa

Charlene holds two honours degrees in marketing and information management and an M.Com in strategic management focusing on achieving a sustainable competitive advantage through customer value and CRM. She has worked across multiple industries including consulting, banking, insurance, wealth management and FMCG. Her focus has always been around achieving a step change through improving all aspects of the relationship with the customer including the development of 360-degree BI solutions, in-depth customer profiling and analytics, customer segmentation and associated value propositions, re-engineering of channel and service interactions (call centre, retail and digital), end-to-end customer life-cycle management (CRM and specialist direct marketing), customer experience program design and implementation.

Barry Walsh, Digital Strategy Partner, Havas

David Wright, Co-Founder, Hello Ara

David Wright is currently the Director and Co-Founder of Hello Ara. David studied for a Bachelor of Science in New Zealand and started his career in technology in London. Subsequently, he held roles in technology innovation with New Zealand Telecom and American Express in Singapore and eventually ventured into market research through leading technology innovation for market research at Kantar. David focuses on finding and enabling new and emerging technologies for marketing research. Currently, he is focused on evolving Hello Ara’s Conversational Research capability and enabling it for immersive environments.