Synovate Execs Join New Ipsos UK Senior Team

Ipsos has announced its new senior leadership line-up for the UK, following the Synovate acquisition. Former Synovate senior execs Dave Hannay, Hilary Worton, Paul Stamper, Deborah McCrudden and Yusuf Ramadan are all included in CEO Ben Page's team.

Page is headed for a quarter century at MORI / Ipsos-MORI next year and is widely recognised as one of Britain's best known and most influential pollsters and strategists. Simon Atkinson, who is confirmed as Assistant Chief Executive, has also spent more than two decades at the firm including a period in academic research, and spells as acting Human Resources Director and MD of Ipsos MORI's Loyalty Division.

Former Nielsen Bases EMEA MD Susan Malcolm has been appointed as MD for the Marketing specialism, as well as Acting Head of Innovation & Forecasting, one of its four sub-divisions. Malcolm's career also includes spells client-side at Kellogg's and Coca Cola. The other three specialist areas are Market Understanding and Measurement, to be led by 20-year TNS veteran and 2010 Synovate joiner Dave Hannay; Health, to be led by Hilary Worton who was Commercial Director for Aequus Research before joining Synovate only this year; and Qualitative led by Paul Stamper, whose 20-year research career includes stints for TNS in the UK and Belgium, also arriving at Synovate early in 2011.

Advertising division ASI will be led by Deborah McCrudden, who worked at Marketing Sciences and in RI's London and New York offices before joining TRBI / Synovate and then Ipsos MORI. Her credits include appearing on TV programmes 'This Morning' and 'Put it to the Test', profiling consumers based only on shopping receipts or contents of their dustbin.

Bobby Duffy will be MD for the key area of Public Affairs, which includes social research and corporate reputation. He joined MORI in 1994 from an economic policy think tank and has worked in social research ever since, including time on secondment in the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit.

MediaCT will be managed by Liz Landy, who joined the Ipsos group in 1994 after working in research at the BBC. In 2007 she was responsible for the UK launch of Ipsos MediaCT, which the group formed as a response to the convergence of media, technology and content research.

The Loyalty division will be led by Niall Rae,who has worked in the Loyalty area for 20 years, including spells at NOP and GfK before joining Ipsos MORI.

The Managing Director for the Operations Division will be Yusuf Ramadan, who joined Synovate in 2009 from GfK where he was Production Director, managing UK Operations, and earlier in his 20-year career worked in Operations at TNS.

Page sas he is 'delighted to be able to announce such a strong senior team for the new combined company in 2012' and adds: 'With around 40% of Synovate leaders so far represented on my senior team we have an even broader pool of talent across the business.'

The Group has already confirmed the appointments in the UK of David Holliss as CFO, Caroline Wingfield as HR Director and Sara Gundry as Communications Director.

Web site: www.ipsos.com .