Reputation Institute Hires Valient Founder Upham

Research organisation The Reputation Institute has appointed Valient Market Research founder Scott Upham as Vice President of US Measurement Consulting, while Stephen Hahn-Griffiths joins as Vice President of US Strategy Consulting. Upham also retains his role at Valient.

Founded in 1997, RI offers reputation research-based consulting and advisory to companies around the world. Its management tool RepTrak is used for analysing the reputations of companies and institutions, and feeds into the Global RepTrak 100 study of corporate reputations, as well as the Country RepTrak and City RepTrak studies, which examine reputation across organizations within a given geography.

Upham (pictured) set up Valient in 2007 and remains its CEO and President. He worked previously as SVP, Automotive & Transportation Research at Harris Interactive in charge of a team of 30 execs; and Senior Director of Global Forecasting at J.D. Power. Earlier, he founded automotive industry MR consultancy Providata, and he was Director of Competitive Assessment at Autofacts (now PwC). He also held senior roles at Takata, TRW, Varity Kelsey-Hayes and the Ford Motor Company.

In his new role, Upham will lead RI's RepTrak measurement consulting services, which will include the delivery of custom reputation measurement research, developing on-going tracking and measurement platforms, and integrating global corporate reputation best practices using the firm's proprietary consulting frameworks.

Hahn-Griffiths was most recently a Partner at boutique insights and strategy consultancy Protobrand, before which he held several Chief Strategy Officer positions at firms including Leo Burnett, Mullen, Doner and Saatchi & Saatchi. At RI, he will manage the company's strategic consultancy and play a leadership role in its Reputation Leaders Network of more than 100 companies.

Jamie Bedard, CEO of the Reputation Institute, comments: 'Throughout their careers, Stephen and Scott have demonstrated a keen understanding of reputation measurement and management, branding, analytics, research techniques and overall strategy-alignment consulting processes. Their leadership will strengthen the Reputation Institute's position in the United States as we continue to work with the world's biggest companies to drive a financial return on reputation.'

Web site: www.reputationinstitute.com .