Storytelling Conference 2024

Kate Benson, Qualitative Research Lead, Sky

Kate Benson is a Qualitative Lead in Sky’s in-house Research Team, and also runs Sky’s Customer Closeness programme. In both these roles, she has seen how crucial great storytelling is, to engage stakeholders across the business in the worlds of consumers. Before working at Sky, Kate worked as a Researcher at The Nursery Research & Planning. She has also previously spent three years serving as a Board Member for the Association of Qualitative Research.

Grant Feller, Founder, EveryRung

Caroline Florence, Founder, Insight Narrator

@InsightNarrator

Caroline Florence is the Founder of Insight Narrator, a training company that has helped over 10,000 business professionals drive impact through data storytelling. Caroline is the author of ‘Data Storytelling in Marketing: How to tell persuasive stories through data’ and was included in the Twenty Women in Data & Tech in 2023 for services to learning and development within the data sector. She was also listed in the ESOMAR Insight250 in 2021, as a global innovator in data-driven marketing and she speaks regularly at conferences around the world on the value of storytelling.

Elizabeth Harris, Customer Director, B&Q

@BandQ

Lizzie Harris is Customer Director at B&Q, the UK’s leading home improvement and garden living retailer and part of Kingfisher plc, the international home improvement company, operating 1,400 stores in 8 countries across Europe. An experienced marketing analytics professional, Lizzie has also worked for Gymshark, Sainsbury’s and Lloyds Banking Group.

Chris Hides, Managing Director, The Academy

Chris is Managing Director of award winning PR consultancy The Academy. Before that, he set up and ran M&C Saatchi PR, taking the agency from UK startup to international network. He is also a Trustee at environmental charity Surfers Against Sewage.

Jeremy Hollow, Founder, Listen & Learn Research

@LALResearch

Jeremy Hollow is the Founder and CEO of Listen + Learn Research, an-award winning agency and the leading global authority on the human side of social data, helping clients tap into the potential of social commerce.  A writer for This Social Life, a blog about how people live their lives on social media, and a speaker at SXSW, Jeremy is featured in the ESOMAR Insight 250 and Social Intelligence Insider 50.

Ian Hudson, Managing Director, Bloomsbury Publishing

Ian is Managing Director of Bloomsbury Consumer Publishing, having been CEO of Dorling Kindersley and a member of the Global Executive Committee of Penguin Random House. He is also a Non Executive Director of Which?

Elizabeth Jones, Associate Director, BAMM   

Alice Loxton, Influencer, presenter, documentarist

Alice is one of the UK’s standout young historians, a presenter and author with over two million followers on social media. She has presented many history documentaries and is about to publish her second non-fiction book, Eighteen.

Ailsa MacKenzie, Group Strategy Director, Global Radio

Ailsa has worked in the media industry for 19 years; starting her career at media agencies before making the move to media owner. At Global she leads a team who work with agencies and clients to solve their business and marketing challenges. She is passionate about the power of media to transform brands but also as a force for positive change.

Dr Joanne Meredith, Research Manager, Magenta

@MagentaVoices

Jo is a researcher with over 15 years’ experience of conducting research within an academic context. Jo has a PhD in Social Psychology, with specialisms in cyber and media psychology. She is a qualitative researcher with a specific expertise in using a range of methods to analyse language in a variety of contexts. As a renowned specialist in discourse and conversation analysis, Jo enjoys examining language in detail and findings ways to provide insight into how language is used. Within her academic research, Jo has focused predominantly on understanding online behaviour and communication, with a specific focus on social media. Since joining Magenta she has transformed discourse analysis into a commercial offering that support clients get to the heart of who their consumers are and how best to speak to them.

Sophie Meyer, Producer of Rye Lane, Dorian Gray and St Trinian’s

Sophie has two careers. One as a successful producer and script editor of films such as Rye Lane, Dorian Gray and St Trinian’s. The other as an artist who ‘seeks a visual and material language to express the unspoken, the pre-verbal, the unsayable’.  

Andy Myers, Director, Walnut Unlimited

With a background in cognitive neuroscience brain imaging (fMRI) and over 15 years of experience in market research industry, Andy works to bring the worlds of neuroscience and market research together to better understand brands, brains and everything in between.  With no-nonsense science, without the techno jargon, Andy seeks to better understand human behaviour to deliver ground breaking insights and effective change for brands.

Ed Nash, Qualitative Research Lead, Sky

Charlotte Neal, Head of Marketing, Turning Point

Charlotte Neal is a senior marketing leader with 20 years’ experience in strategy, planning, communications, and customer experience. Currently Head of Marketing at Turning Point, a UK social enterprise that supports people with their substance use, mental health, or learning disability, she has also held a number of senior marketing roles at Sodexo Health & Care, and AXA Health, as well as working as a Director in creative and media agencies, including Havas.

Jeremy Nye, Senior Global Insights Manager, Just Eat Takeaway

Jeremy's story began in Burgess Hill in Sussex and will likely end in a nursing home a few miles from Burgess Hill. 

In between, after taking forever to finish studying (including an MBA from NYU) Jeremy has worked largely in TV (CBS, MTV, BBC, Star TV, ITV, Thinkbox and Channel 4). He then shifted from Gogglebox to Gobblebox and has spent 8 years at Just Eat Takeaway managing a variety of insight areas, guiding the shift from takeaway to convenience, plus couriers, customer closeness and supporting commercial partners. 

The more Jeremy look at consumers’ relationship with food the more there is to learn and brilliant companies like The Mix have helped to bring these stories to life.

Beyond work, Jeremy has two sons, a dog called Tig, and has been carefully holding on to a secret that will only be shared with the residents of that nursing home (where no-one will believe him).

Arian Oldroyd, Creative Director, Madano

Arian is Creative Director at Madano. Sitting within the creative team, Arian is responsible for driving all creative communications strategy behind client projects. Arian joined Madano in 2023 and brought with him 16 years of industry experience working on a range of projects across print, digital and motion. This included everything from global social media campaigns to fully immersive interactive platforms, all with a focus on delivering genuinely impactful work.

Arian has always been excited by the creative challenge and has a desire to always push design and digital to create well crafted, innovative solutions, aligning to business strategy and engaging target audiences.

Over his career, Arian has worked with a wealth of world-renowned brands including Armani, Absolut Vodka, The Body Shop, Adidas, The Premier League, Harrods, and Sky. He is proud to have won two Sabre Awards for his work with Elior and Armani, as well as a Webby Award for his work with PVH.

Eve Robertson, Research Director, Magenta

@MagentaVoices

Eve has a decade of experience crafting compelling narratives and delivering high-quality insights to clients worldwide. With a background in Social Anthropology and as a mixed-method researcher, Eve enjoys weaving together data and stories to create impactful presentations that resonate with stakeholders. With a passion for uncovering hidden insights, Eve is dedicated to helping organisations transform their narratives and maximize impact of insights on stakeholders. Together, Eve and Jo have translated discourse analysis from an academic to commercial setting – using it to build typologies, enhance segments and guide brands on the language to use (or avoid!) to best speak to customers.

Alice Salisbury, Co-founder, Inkling CC

Having worked in both insight and ad agencies, Alice co-founded ICC in 2012 with the purpose of creating a comms agency for the consumer. ICC helps companies not simply get to a consumer-led strategy, but communicate that strategy to the business in a way that gets it noticed, understood and acted on.

Kate Skivington, Research Director, Boxclever

@Weboxclever

Kate is a Qualitative Research Director at Boxclever with 15 years of experience. Working with clients across FMCG, food and drink, fashion and beauty, Kate has a passion for understanding human needs and cultural nuance, and for bringing these stories and insights to life in an engaging and immersive way that allows them to live on within organisations. As a storyteller, Kate loves designing immersive workshops and discovering new ways of presenting that go beyond PowerPoint, and that are commercially compelling. Kate has previously won an MRS Impact award for a workshop on making memories in the market research world, where she took attendees on a sensorial journey of insight discovery!

Harry Steer, Consumer Insights Specialist, Chivas Brothers

Harry heads qualitative insight for Chivas Brothers' category-leading family of single malts, where decision making is consumer-centric from product to portfolio, from innovation to promotion.

Nicola Stevens, Head of Insight - Retail, Close Brothers

@CloseBrothersMF

Nicola is Head of Insight at Close Brothers for motor and insurance finance, where she has created and established their first in-house research, insight, and strategy team.

With extensive knowledge across financial services, Nicola and her team ensure that meaningful insights drive well-informed commercial business decisions about strategy, products, services, and experiences. She believes that truly understanding customer needs, pain points, and future market trends can keep businesses strong and focussed on what matters most. Because without customers, companies have nothing!

Nicola is passionate about connecting with others and sharing ideas and best practice. She is an active member of AURA and the Insight Management Academy.

Eszter Szijarto, Strategic Planning & Brand Insight Manager, Triumph

Max Taylor McEwan, Research Director, Madano

Max is an advanced research professional with nearly a decade of experience in leading research consultancies. He is passionate about the role that data can play in supporting organisations to communicate their impact and in deeply understanding audiences. His experience covers policy, advanced analytics, and communications.

Sarah Taylor, Head of Beauty Insights, Boots

@BootsUK

Sarah is the Head of Beauty Insights at Boots UK, bringing over a decade of experience in insights across various areas within the company. Her portfolio includes Loyalty, Brand, Commercial, and Marketing, while also working in close collaboration with external suppliers for a duration. Passionate about embedding customer understanding into decision-making, she employs analytical and problem-solving skills to extract pivotal insights from complex data. Sarah seamlessly integrates diverse research, customer feedback, and market trends to craft compelling narratives that incite action. She fosters an innovative culture, encouraging exploration and pushing boundaries within the organisation.

Tash Walker, Founder, The Mix

Tash is the founder of The Mix, a global insights agency based in London and New York. Tash started her career in branding, working at JKR, BrandMe and FutureBrand, where she became increasingly frustrated with the blandness of research and insight that wasn't driving true action. And so The Mix was born, combining research, strategy and creative to help elevate insights to decision making.

In that time, she has pioneered the 4-day week and grown The Mix to become a global business that works with the likes of Diageo, Nike, PepsiCo and Nestle, as well as a period serving as chairman of the marketing academy.

Emma Wicks, Head of Analytics and Editorial Insight, The Telegraph

With extensive experience in analytics and data management, Emma has helped to transform The Telegraph’s digital operation as Head of Editorial and Product Analytics. Her role builds on her past experience with companies such as Merkle Aquila and John Lewis.

Dan Young, Director, Shed Research Consulting

@danielowenyoung

Dan specialises in insight synthesis – bringing together existing data and research, and making more of it.

He set up Shed Research Consulting in 2011 to do just this. Dan utilises the untapped potential of all the research sitting in files, on desks, and online. And he uses this insight to build compelling stories which drive business decisions.

Dan synthesises his clients’ insight for them and also trains them how to do it themselves.

He’s worked in market research and customer insight his whole career, at places like MORI and Legal & General. Dan’s won multiple industry awards for his work and frequently speaks (to whoever will listen) about the value of insight synthesis.