Former BAV and Harris Poll Leader to Head AI Quant Firm

AI-native quant research platform Outward Intelligence (OI) has appointed former Harris Poll CEO Will Johnson as its new Chief Executive.

OI was co-founded by two former Harris Poll execs, CPO Amir Kanpurwala and Head of Custom Research Abhish Raghavan, along with Brian Tatum, formerly the deployments lead at data company Palantir. The firm provides rapid turnaround tracking research - it claims to be able to design, program, collect, and analyze research 'within hours, not weeks' - as well as AI-based anti-fraud tools. Its system provides access to more than 100 million respondents across more than 75 countries worldwide, and makes use of AI agents said to possess 'complete understanding of survey methodology, respondent context' and other aspects of the research process.

Johnson (pictured) brings more than a decade of polling industry leadership experience to OI, and before Harris worked as President of WPP-owned BAV Consulting, and Chief Strategist of BrandAsset Valuator, the insight division of marcoms firm Y&R. He holds an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management.

Kanpurwala says the appointment is 'a critical next step in [OI's] evolution as a company.' He comments: 'Will has emerged as one of the world's foremost leaders in public opinion polling, and his wide-ranging experience in corporate leadership positions OI more strongly than ever before. Since launching OI in 2022, we have eagerly anticipated this milestone as a company, and our future could not be brighter.'

The firm is online at www.outwardintelligence.com .