The Forge Adds Two to Consumer & Customer Strategy Team

London-based strategic insight consultancy The Forge has appointed former Asahi exec Paul Thomas and Joe Catling, who previously worked at Relish Research, as Directors, to support its customer strategy and quantitative offers.

Founded in 2013, The Forge brings together consumer insight and commercial expertise to develop customer-driven business strategy programmes. Specialities include exploring opportunities for growth, making sense of global trends, creating models for behaviour change, and building category and market understanding.

Thomas joins from global beer, spirits, soft drinks and food business Asahi, where he served as Global Head of Insight; prior to which, he worked for Diageo as Head of European Innovation for Gin, Rum and Emerging Spaces; and he spent four years at Ferrero, latterly as Head of Insight. He began his career at Nielsen, before joining Ipsos MORI. Catling joins after more than six years at Relish Research, where he most recently served as Head of Analytics. Before this, he worked for FreshMinds, where he managed and conducted quantitative analysis with specialities such as factor and cluster analysis, segmentation, TURF analysis, and choice-based conjoint analysis.

Commenting on the appointments, company Director Kirsty Yeomans said: 'We're absolutely thrilled to be welcoming Paul and Joe to the team. Both strengthen our growing Consumer and Customer Strategy practice. Paul's client-side experience leading insight and innovation teams, and Joe's background in data, analytics and modelling will set us up even better as we help our clients navigate the ongoing changes in the consumer landscape.'

Web site: www.thisistheforge.com .