Patel Returns to Kantar SA in Marketing Science Role

In Cape Town, 22-year Kantar veteran Adhil Patel has returned to the business as Senior Director, Marketing Science.

Patel has been serving as Africa Director of Research at MDI (Mobile Digital Insights), where he has worked for the last two years. He worked as an RE at Research Surveys for three years before first joining Kantar as a Key Account Manager in January 2022, and later served as Head of Thought Leadership, Global Brand Director and Client Service Director. He is currently Chairman of the Cape chapter of South African research association SAMRA.

The firm says the re-hire is the first strategic addition to a team bring built by former Sky Bet and ITV exec Dan Colton, who joined in April as Global Managing Director, Brand. The team is designed to connect human behaviour, predictive brand science and AI, drawing on a number of recent Kantar launches, including Brand Digital AI signals, which evaluates the impact of AI recommendations on 'Meaningful, Different and Salient' (MDS); Kantar Live, which brings quant scale to group discussions; and Kantar Converser, which offers AI-moderated, one-to-one conversations.

In his new role Patel will oversee Kantar's brand equity IP, including its MDS framework, and the shaping of its evolution for the AI era.

'Since I joined in April, my focus has been on building a team with the depth and ambition this moment demands,' says Colton. 'Adhil is the clearest example of that: few people understand our IP as well as he does, or have thought harder about what it means for the AI era. As people and machines increasingly shape how brands are discovered and chosen, that's exactly the combination of rigour and fresh thinking our clients need.' Patel himself states: 'I'm coming back to a business I know and love, and to a team Dan is building with real ambition.'

Global home page: www.kantar.com .