Verve Adds Two to New South Africa Team

London-headquartered community panels and digital research specialist Verve has appointed Kerry Payne as Research Manager and Marko Fourie as Senior Research Executive at its recently opened Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Verve, which was launched in 2008, and also has offices in Manchester, UK, Chicago and Romania, combines community and digital research specialisms with expertise in technology and big data. The firm recently announced a partnership with customer intelligence specialist Alida to provide a full range of research and customer experience (CX) services to Alida's software platform clients across the world.

Payne and Fourie join the firm's new CoRE, based in Rosebank - the commercial and residential suburb to the north of central Johannesburg. Payne previously served as SRE at digital research agency MDI (Mobile Digital Insights), where she specialized in qual, quant mobile and online research; and Fourie worked for Consulta, leading the South Africa Customer Satisfaction Index. The pair will now work alongside Heather Tluczek and Meryl Dovey, who set up Verve Africa at the end of last year.

They'll be joined in the coming weeks by two further confirmed hires at SRE and Research Manager levels, as the agency plans to build to a team of around fifteen by year end. Tluczek, comments: 'Verve has a unique position in the African marketplace - we're able to provide the best global account-based careers to the continent's top talent, in turn allowing the team to provide the most innovative, best-in-class sector insight in Africa. We're hugely excited and energised for what lies ahead for us this year.'

Web site: www.addverve.com .