The LAB offers research and insights consultancy and support to agencies or direct to clients in the UK, US and Australia. Recent projects include:- moderation and reporting on online triads about online safety for Google (US); - analysis and reporting of ethnographic videos on breakfast occasions for General Mills (US);- analysis and reporting of vox pops on travel for Expedia (US); - UX testing a website for the Association for Computing Machinery (US); - interviews with 8-18 year old Formula One fans (US/UK);- a 100-person online forum on smart speakers for Ofcom (UK); - a multi-method study on public attitudes to dentistry for the General Dental Council (UK);- focus groups with 18-24 years olds exploring attitudes to data for the Office for National Statistics (UK);- analysis and reporting of a brand tracking survey for Xero (global).

Community Research is a full-service boutique agency with extensive experience of using qualitative and quantitative research to inform policy and strategy for a range of private, public and third sector organisations. Since joining the company, I have led on numerous projects for our regulator clients including the Food Standards Agency, the General Medical Council, the Legal Services Board and the Consumer Council for Water, engaging with consumers, professionals, businesses and other stakeholders to ensure that their voices are heard in decision making.

Thinks (previously BritainThinks) offers strategic advice rooted in new insight into the people that matter most to organisations, whether they are stakeholders, consumers, citizens or colleagues. Thinks uses research, engagement and co-creative approaches to help clients think through challenges, build winning communications, and plan for the future, working across three main areas:- Engagement and deliberation- Brand, message & campaign development- Reputation & issue researchAs Research Director I led across all areas of the business, from managing client work, to developing new business to managing day-to-day company operations.

As an independent market and social research consultant, I provided support and advice in the following areas:• Full project management• Ad hoc research / planning advice• Research proposal preparation• Designing scope of research approach• Developing research materials from discussion guides to questionnaires• Moderating in-depth interviews / focus groups (including online groups) / workshops• Managing quantitative fieldwork• Analysis of results• Reporting and presentationsClients included Sainsbury's, Philips, eHarmony, Aviva, Toyota, Google, Which?, The Office of Fair Trading, Ofgem, Hastoe Housing Association, Swindon Borough Council, Disney, the Equality and Diversity Forum, the GLA and the Travel Foundation.

I headed up a team of six insight professionals looking after all the consumer research for our Retail division. This consisted of a number of ongoing studies, including brand tracking, customer satisfaction surveys and NPS studies, as well as ad hoc qualitative, quantitative and secondary research projects. It was my responsibility to champion the voice of the customer within the organisation, and to identify and develop proposition opportunities. I also developed our capabilities as an insight hub, collating and disseminating relevant insights (both internal and external research as well as market and competitor analysis, and social and consumer trends) across the organisation and driving action resulting from these. As part of the senior leadership team I built strong stakeholder relationships across all levels of this matrix organisation.

During this six month contract, I led on complex and controversial social policy research projects on topics ranging from fracking to food borne illnesses to self assessment tax, as well as communications development and testing for Royal Mail, HM Treasury and the Department of Health.

23red was commissioned to undertake an Independent Review of the DrinkawareTrust and my role was to lead this project in terms of client management, team coordination, documentation review, conducting and analysing primary research, and co-authoring the final report.

A short term contract working on one of the largest consumer cybercrime studies, the annual Norton Cybercrime report ( http://www.norton.com/2012cybercrimereport) for Norton by Symantec, and on BDO's Global Ambition Survey (http://www.bdointernational.com/AmbitionSurvey2012/Documents/BDO%20Ambition%20Survey%202012%20Global%20Opportunities%20Full%20report.pdf), a thought leadership piece on CFOs' views on international expansion.

My role was to specify, procure and manage a programme of quantitative and qualitative research for the Change4Life campaign, the national movement to tackle obesity. I managed an annual budget of £1.75m and my responsibilities consisted of:• Identifying research needs and creating a research plan to support the Change4Life marketing strategy – this included the Change4Life brand, its sister brand Start4Life, seven sub brands and eight healthy behaviour brands• Managing the procurement of research agencies, from specifying objectives, through developing the brief and managing the pitch, to leading debrief sessions• Feeding into all aspects of research material development to ensure all objectives were met and outputs were of tangible use• Advising the Change4Life team on all research issues, including methodologies and most effective use of budget • Creating and maintaining a virtual library of research, and supporting colleagues in accessing evidence and insight• Disseminating and communicating research findings to Change4Life team and wider stakeholder audiencesOn a day-to-day basis I managed our continual tracker, worth over £1m as well as numerous ad-hoc creative development research projects (exploring advertising and CRM concepts), insight work, and behaviour change and brand monitoring evaluation studies. I was actively involved in a number of ground breaking and / or high profile projects including primary research into behavioural economics looking at social norming as a tool for influencing behaviour, an evaluation study looking at the shopping habits of those on the Change4Life CRM journey to understand actual behaviour change, and several studies exploring the controversial issue of using Change4Life messaging on pack / at point of sale. Working on such projects, I have demonstrated flexibility, judgement, sensitivity and perception as well as excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

In my role at the NSMC I helped organisations starting social marketing programmes to build capacity in the area of research and engagement. As part of this, I developed practical guides to three specific research concepts: segmentation, insight and evaluation. Health inequalities was my other area of interest, with particular focus on mapping Government programmes and campaigns to explore targeting of different audiences, particularly those from disadvantaged groups, and media analysis exploring the presentation of health inequalities in print media and the impact this has on public perceptions of this issue.

I worked on a vast range of qualitative, quantitative and deliberative projects for clients including: British Airways, BT, the Cabinet Office, the Consumer Council for Water, Defra, the Department of Health, the Heritage Lottery Fund, HMRC, Ministry of Justice, Ofcom, Ofgem, the Natural History Museum, PepsiCo, Royal Mail, Sainsbury’s, the Sustainable Development Commission, and a range of Strategic Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts. Projects ranged from concept and communications testing, policy development and corporate reputation management. I had extensive experience in engaging with hard-to-reach audiences and am as comfortable talking to district judges or city analysts, as asylum seekers or young people in care. Within ten months of joining the company I was promoted to Senior Research Executive, and on my return to the UK in February 2007 I was rehired and promoted again to Consultant level. My role incorporated:• New business development and marketing activities• Responding to research briefs, writing proposals and pitching for new business• Planning and setting up research projects and managing external and internal costs for projects• Overseeing and co-ordinating on and offline external fieldwork with partner agencies • Supervising in-house recruitment and fieldwork• Developing research materials such as questionnaires, discussion guides and stimulus materials• Moderating workshops, focus groups and depth interviews across the UK, and lead facilitating at large scale workshops• Analysing qualitative and quantitative findings (using a variety of statistical techniques)• Writing debriefs and final reports (often to a publishable standard)• Presenting research findings (often to senior audiences including Ministers)• Key account management and development• Overseeing the work of junior members of the team• Recruitment and training of junior staff• Line management of one Research Executive

As part of the Specialist Qualitative Group, working on an ad-hoc basis to support the different sectors across the organisation, I gained experience in a variety of fields such as business, finance, media and consumer. Clients spanned from ING to Lion Nathan, from Foxtel to Electrolux. As a global company a number of our projects were also multi-national. My role incorporated all aspects of the research process, and I was involved in all stages from proposal writing to fieldwork to reporting and presentation. Areas of specialisation included branding and communication development, usage and attitudinal studies, new product development, and segmentation studies. In my role I provided expert specialist knowledge to the different sectors within TNS, juggling their requirements as internal clients as well as those of external clients.

A role was created for me as the first graduate trainee at First Movies, a research agency, specialising in researching films (both locked off and in post production) and film marketing material (trailers, TV spots, posters, DVD sleeves etc.) for all the major studios as well as independent distributors. We conducted both qualitative and quantitative work, and I was involved in a great deal of international projects, working in Japan, Brazil and across Europe. My role incorporated all areas of research including proposal writing; project set-up and management; materials development; managing local and international online and face-to-face quantitative projects; moderating qualitative focus groups; processing data, coding and tabulation; analysing findings; writing debrief reports (generally 5-8000 word reports in two to three working days); and desk research for generic projects / background information.

Fast Marketing was a marketing agency that specialised in planning FMCG campaigns for clients such as Unilever, Britvic and Coors. The agency approach was to find out the “Experiential Core” of a product through research groups, then evoke that core through intensive TV advertising and sampling in order to convert users. My role focussed on client management, qualitative research and communications, working closely with Research Director.