John has been in the research business for more than 20 years, having served as a pollster to two Australia Prime Ministers, three New Zealand Prime Ministers and numerous Australian State Premiers.

John has also worked extensively in the United States and Japan. As a well-recognized adviser to political and corporate chiefs on both sides of the Tasman, John's experience in measuring the community's heartbeat places him in the top echelon of market researchers in this part of the world.

UMR's Australian General Manager, Bruce joined UMR in 1996, bringing training in law and business and a work background in corporate and project banking and industry-related research. At UMR, he conducts both qualitative and quantitative research, and specialises in a range of areas including:

• Public affairs/issues management
• Infrastructure
• Community consultation
• Stakeholders (incl. shareholders, customers support users)
• Financial services and products
• Government projects

Bruce heads UMR's qualitative research team and moderates several focus groups or depth interviews nearly every week. These have commonly required accurate, rapidly obtained reads are essential to determining the campaign and business strategies' initial viability and continued success.

Bruce holds an MBA and degrees in law and commerce. He has also completed university courses in psychology and statistics.

Felolina has worked for over ten years in the market research industry and has extensive experience in both quantitative and qualitative research. She is conversant with the full spectrum of qualitative techniques.

Felolina also has considerable experience in financial sector research, including market segmentation, advertising development, new product testing and several studies relating to credit card usage and acceptance.

Recent work has included stakeholder perceptions of commercial operations in the Northern Territory, community attitudes towards local government services and major infrastructure developments, aged-care facilities and customer satisfaction campaigns. Also, work has included opinion of Maori and Pacific Peoples towards climate change, community attitudes to local government services and major infrastructure developments, aged-care facilities and customer satisfaction campaigns.

Felolina has a Bachelor of Arts (Anthropology and Sociology) from Macquarie University.

Campbell has substantial experience in Australia and New Zealand, particularly in the fields of financial and political research.

He has acted as account director for a major credit card company in both Australia & New Zealand for the past five years. Campbell has directed a wide range of research including brand and advertising tracking, government regulation on credit card usage, new product development, sponsorship impact and advertising testing.

Campbell also heads our Perception Analyzer Research Unit, and has been involved in qualitative research in the political sphere for two federal elections in Australia, several state elections and the 2005 NZ election. Other projects he has been involved with include property development, mining, educational research and infrastructure expansion.

Cassian joined UMR in May 2004, bringing with him solid CATI and analytical skills. He started his career with ATR Australia (now AGB Nielsen Media Research) and then spent two years in the Data Collection division of Millward Brown. Here he held a range of roles, starting in their CATI facility but soon moving into a full time position where he was responsible for sample management for three national call centres, as well as managing qualitative respondent databases. He has extensive experience in phone room operations, both from an interviewing and management perspective.

With a strong computer science background, Cassian now manages all Quantitative projects at UMR, programming both CATI and online surveys, and analysing results using Quantum and SPSS. Cassian is also responsible for the IT infrastructure for the Sydney office.

Bettina joined UMR in October 2005 from the research division of APN Outdoor. At UMR she works across both qualitative and quantitative research projects in a range of roles, including recruiting and moderating focus groups, liasing with client and supplier contacts, preliminary desk research, data analysis and report writing.

At APN outdoor, Bettina was responsible for consumer trends and research to maximise the effectiveness of client marketing and media placement.

Prior to this Bettina spent a year in London travelling and working as a researcher for a not-for-profit organisation. Her responsibilities included surveying its membership base to look at issues of concern to workers in the aviation industry, including collective bargaining, workplace health and safety, and the situation of national carriers.

Bettina also spent two years at the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Starting as a graduate, she was promoted within three months to an analyst in the Census Development and Evaluation branch. In this role she worked on new question development, testing of revised question formats and the development of the new internet-based Census option.

Bettina holds a Bachelor of Cognitive Science with a major in Psychology.

Stephen is joint owner of UMR Research. He has 20 years experience both undertaking and using market research to develop issue management and communication strategies in New Zealand, Australia and throughout Asia. He specialises in corporate image and public affairs, issue management and financial services.

His extensive experience working at the top level in politics and involvement in numerous issue management and political campaigns in New Zealand and Australia brings a vital additional dimension to many UMR projects. He is known for giving direct and clear advice based on UMR research findings.

Prior to joining UMR Stephen was a senior political adviser to New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange and following his resignation in 1989 worked for a year as Executive Assistant to then Deputy Prime Minister Rt Hon Helen Clark.

He is a highly skilled and experienced focus group facilitator who undertakes base line qualitative research in almost all projects he is involved in.

Qualifications

Tim has worked in the top levels of the political and corporate sectors for 20 years as a senior journalist and in recent years as a strategic adviser to a former Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers and Chief Executives.

He has extensive experience commissioning and overseeing the application of research for strategic planning, targeting communications, campaigns and policy development.

His issues management experience has involved him directly with major reforms in the areas of industrial relations, immigration, accident compensation, health and the energy sector. He has a detailed knowledge of government and has acted as a consultant to some of New Zealand's leading companies on issues management.

He became Director of Strategy for former Prime Minister Jenny Shipley and subsequently Chief Adviser to the former Leader of the Opposition Hon Bill English. He has had joint responsibility for management of the National Party's parliamentary office and its polling and market research operations.

Qualifications

Alice is a specialist social market researcher with a particular focus on projects designed to achieve awareness, engagement and behavioural change among the public. She also has a keen interest in public sector research including customer satisfaction and service improvement.

She has considerable managerial and research experience in the health and disability sectors which brings valuable on-the-ground experience to research design for clients. Alice's work in the sector has secured UMR as a preferred research supplier to the Accident Compensation Corporation.

At UMR, she has applied the full range of research tools to a wide variety of projects and has led the use of innovative techniques such as creativity groups to provide insight into difficult issues where the value of traditional methodologies is likely to be limited.

Alice previously worked for Capital Coast Health where her managerial responsibilities involved interfaces with community support agencies, government departments, private health providers and the wider disability community. This gave her a depth of experience on the impact of policy changes on providers, patients and clients. Her project work for Capital Coast Health has included customer satisfaction, quality improvement and the development of new service initiatives.

Qualifications

Alice has a Bachelor of Science (Biochemistry) and a Diploma in Business Studies.

Gavin has extensive international experience working on projects in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and Asia, and has expertise in both quantitative and qualitative research. He joined UMR in 1997, spent 2002-2004 working in research in the United Kingdom, and returned to UMR in late 2004. His specialist areas are public sector and transport research, with a particular emphasis on relating research findings to communications and marketing strategy.

Having run research projects both internationally and domestically, Gavin is familiar with the challenges involved in researching a wide range of subjects amongst diverse audiences. Examples include scoping research for a government website in Belfast, interviewing benefit claimants in Glasgow, managing a ongoing quantitative tracking monitor covering Australia, New Zealand and four Asian countries for a major financial organisation, and conducting focus groups with farmers in rural Southland.

While in the UK, Gavin conducted research for the Home Office looking at options for a unified government portal (similar to www.govt.nz). These projects included questions on understanding of the public service as a whole and on moves towards ‘joined up’ government.

Qualifications

Gavin has a Master of Arts (Political Science) with honours.

Karen has a keen interest in social research. She is gaining experience conducting qualitative interviews with various stakeholders.

She conducts extensive literature searches, presents the research findings and provides general research support to the UMR team. In addition to this she sets up and manages online surveys and research involving our ‘SAYit’ panel.

Karen has a Master of Arts in Psychology from the University of Auckland.

Andrew has a degree in commerce and has a specialist interest in Internet Marketing and brand research, especially in regard to youth and entertainment markets.

Andrew prepares presentations, reports and graphic illustrations of research findings. He is also responsible for gathering data and information on research projects.

Qualifications

Andrew has a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration (Marketing and, Electronic Commerce and Multimedia)

Andrea has specialist expertise in the areas of stakeholder, business, consumer and social research. With over 13 years experience in market research she has managed research projects that have covered audiences in New Zealand, Australia, the US and Asia.

She has particular strengths in quantitative methodology, questionnaire design and quantitative modelling. Due to her active involvement in conducting baseline qualitative research Andrea adds new insight by providing a cohesive link between qualitative findings and required quantitative outcomes. Applications for the quantitative models developed by UMR have ranged from illustrating and explaining attitudes and behaviour, to calculating uptake of new products or services, to assessing the impact of communication strategies.

In line with the other UMR Directors Andrea is known for her ability to forge strong working relationships with clients and for providing direct and actionable advice.

She also has extensive experience in consumer research and attended the ESOMAR (World Association of Research Professionals) conference on customer satisfaction research in Brussels. Techniques taken from this conference were implemented at UMR.

Qualifications

Andrea has a Masters in Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science (Botany and Genetics).

Vanessa has particular expertise in multivariate analysis and statistical modelling. Involved in all projects requiring in-depth multivariate analysis, she brings new insights and approaches to each project.

Vanessa has undertaken extensive training (in both New Zealand and Australia) in analytical techniques and has worked collaboratively on projects with the University of Auckland

She is an expert practitioner of analysis software - SPSS (including advanced analysis packages) and Quantum. Vanessa has the skills to implement an extensive array of advanced analysis techniques including, factor analysis cluster analysis, answer tree, conjoint analysis, multidimensional scaling and perceptual mapping.

She also has overall responsibility for data management and quality control processes for all UMR quantitative projects.

Qualifications

Vanessa has a Bachelor of Science (Statistics and Psychology).

Marc has specialist expertise in rural and youth research, and cognitive testing techniques.

Coming from a farming background Marc brings added insight to projects conducted among rural audiences. This has been evident in the value he has brought to projects for Fonterra, the Wool Board, the Animal Health Board and for a number of environmental organisations.

Marc has a special interest in social, evaluation and public sector research. He has been involved in several evaluation projects for ACC. Other public sector clients Marc has conducted research for include Statistics New Zealand, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, New Zealand Customs, the Human Rights Commission, State Services Commission, Department of Labour and the Energy Efficeny and Conservation Authority (EECA).

Marc is also our lead youth researcher and has conducted a raft of qualitative techniques among youth audiences for a range of public and private sector clients. He attended the ESOMAR (World Association of Research Professionals) conference on qualitative research in Boston, U.S.A, which had a particular focus on conducting youth research. He brought back a number of innovative techniques which are now utilised by UMR.

He has over eight years experience in research and before joining UMR worked for Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) as a Survey Design Statistician.

At SNZ he developed skills in survey design and cognitive testing techniques. Cognitive testing is used to develop optimal survey instruments and to manage non-sampling error.

Qualifications

Pania is National Fieldwork Manager for our New Zealand operations. Her particular skills lie in her ability to build a cohesive interviewing team while maintaining strict quality control procedures and adhering to deadlines.

Her skills have been honed in the customer service industry where she was involved in establishing customer service teams in the service and production industries.

She then moved to the market research industry where she has worked for over seven years overseeing fieldwork functions, joining UMR in 2001.

Pania's responsibilities include the overall management of UMR's interviewing team (including quality assurance, data integrity, staff supervision and recruitment). She is also involved in the planning of fieldwork and is responsible for UMR retaining our IQS accreditation.

Jeremy, a triple major in economics, applied statistics and geography, is a statistician with a specialist interest in multivariate analysis and survey design.

He is responsible for analysis of quantitative survey data, including the coordination and operation of UMR’s monthly Omnibus survey. He advises on survey design and methodology including for UMR’s on-line survey research.

Jeremy is also responsible for the preparation and quality check of research tables and charts.

Qualifications

Jeremy has a Bachelor of Science (Applied Statistics and Geography) and a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration (Economics)

Dean has extensive experience in computer and network support. He has also undertaken extensive training to become proficient at Quancept programming/script writing.

He manages UMR’s CATI (Computer assisted Telephone Interviewing) System and maintaining the integrity of UMR’s IT infrastructure. He is also involved in the preparation of all quantitative surveys for the CATI System.