ISSUE #12: Fall/Winter 2011
Promotions
Meredith Kroot
Senior Vice President (CPG/Retail)
Meredith is an idea person and a strategic thinker. She likes to figure out how to stretch the boundaries of standard research and "think outside the box." She is very creative and enjoys coming up with new ways to attack a business issue.Meredith has outstanding product knowledge and can fluently explain features, benefits and technical issues.
Meredith is also expert at building client relationships; clients love working with her.She works with the client as a partner and colleague and gets engaged with the client's business issues. Meredith has expanded KN's relationship with several clients over the past year, including Smuckers, Kimberly Clark, Playtex and Nestle-Gerber
Meredith is also passionate about the research she does for her clients.She is now the company expert on white space and concept testing and has handled a number of segmentations with ease.She also knows how to take multiple data inputs and pieces of knowledge and weave them together. Not many others have this level of combined technique.
Meredith tends to be the person in CPG/Retail who will jump on new product ideas like mobile and integrated behavioral and custom. And she is a leader and motivator for her team, placing significant emphasis on her team's development.She spends a good deal of time ensuring that her team members are engaged and involved in the client deliverables.The team really respects her knowledge and her ability to win over clients.
Raleigh Cobb
Senior Manager, Panel Relations
During his lengthy tenure with KN as an Interviewer, Call Center Supervisor, and currently Call Center Manager, Raleigh has repeatedly and consistently shown himself to be a tremendous asset. He is intellectually curious, self-motivated, analytic, and detail-oriented.Raleigh always approaches, executes, and reflects upon his work with the highest standards. His training and guidance have been instrumental in making our call center outsourcing successful. Additionally, Raleigh's wealth of knowledge and experience in all aspects of Panel Relations benefits the team daily.His input and assistance across numerous KN teams and projects has been a significant contributor to KN's success.
Ramesh Kan
Vice President, Technology Tools
Ramesh consistently contributes and performs at the VP level and has answered the call to assume many responsibilities of our former VP of IT position. His planning and discussions have breadth, depth and strategic sense; he keeps very much on top of industry trends and smartly leverages his awareness in research for Tools. He has stayed with KN through its ups and downs since 2000 and has very effectively stepped into a significantly new role to support KN business needs.
Naomi Keller
Associate Vice President, Business Development (Service Bureau)
Naomi has effectively grown the Service Bureau practice to a $5 million-plus unit for 2011, from a $1.6 million base in 2010. The unit has grown approximately four-fold in Naomi's three years of managing the Service Bureau. She has had impressive business development success with new accounts in 2011, including Morgan Stanley, Fleischman Hillard, Javelin Strategy, and others. She also has been instrumental in adding Cada Cabeza to the SBT mix and working with the former GRA team. She receives positive client feedback on timeliness and thoroughness of requests for bids and proposals; and Naomi always shows a willingness and effectiveness in helping her teammates in Chicago, Palo Alto, and elsewhere when needed for bid support.
Alex Nagaev
Senior Research Analyst, Data Management Services
Alex has been a member of the DMS team since 2006 when he joined KN. Alex has taken a significant step forward, especially as it pertains to managing key DP responsibilities independently. He did a commendable job in managing the daily functions of the DMS department in Eley's absence.
Additionally, Alex has made important strides in being able to support the Client Service teams with data cleaning and manipulation questions. He is sought out by CS for help on complicated data issues that require extensive SPSS knowledge and data knowledge overall. He is known to be able to stay on schedule and maintain a high level of quality in his deliverables. He is always willing to help out the CS teams whether it is to resolve a data issue or to help line up the best resources for a quick turnaround or complicated study. Alex has also been instrumental in making outsourcing of DP work successful and profitable.
Alex has most recently taken over the day-to-day scheduling, resource allocation, and management of DP production - allowing Eley to focus on higher level and more forward thinking needs. In spite of stepping into a more coordinative role, he has maintained the quality of the production tasks that he is responsible for.
Rupa Patel
Project Director, Business Insight (Pharma)
Rupa began her market research career at KN in November 2008. She is always focused and productive, doing whatever is needed to get a job done, while remaining unflappable and extremely mature in the face of unexpected obstacles. On top of her regular workload, Rupa has also made outstanding contributions to the development of the Ugam Project Management team, including two trips to India, daily check-in calls with the team in Mumbai, participating in weekly team leadership phone calls, stepping in to provide coaching and advice, and offering effective instructive feedback (not just the easy "pats on the back"). Rupa's broad range of contributions are deeply appreciated across the BI Custom practice.
Kelly Pinola
Senior Research Analyst, Project Management (Business Insight)
Kelly joined KN in August 2010 with a double major in Marketing and Economics from the University of Massachusetts. She has mastered the Project Management workflow process and has already become a key contributor and "go-to" person for a wide variety of projects across Pharma and CPG/Retail. The entire BI Custom practice has benefited from Kelly's strong mentorship of a summer intern and a new staff member, as well as her ability and willingness to jump in on short notice and make strong contributions to "extra" projects, even when her own workload is high. Kelly's project leaders particularly appreciate the way that she takes ownership of her projects, including the fact that she is never hesitant to speak up when she senses that something must be addressed to keep the project on course.
Karen Semans
Project Director, Government & Academic Research
Karen has gained extensive experience in project management and has taken increasing responsibility for the oversight of projects. She has eagerly taken on full responsibility for day-to-day project management, production of deliverables, and client contact. Karen has also proven extremely proficient at establishing and maintaining cordial and collegial client relations; she is very responsive to client needs and is able to handle "hard-to-manage" clients effectively.
With the experience that she has gained across a wide variety of projects requiring many different kinds of samples, quotas, media, survey content, and deliverables, Karen has become a "go-to" resource for Survey Science staff to help guide new and/or unusual projects through the system successfully. In addition, she has become a primary trainer for newly hired RAs and SRAs and has taken on an increased leadership/mentoring role for these staff.
In addition to her usual project work, Karen has provided support for ancillary or analytical tasks that are not typically part of her day-to-day tasks – such as supporting senior staff in the production of AAPOR presentations. And she has demonstrated strong dedication to the success of her projects, often working extra or off-schedule hours to ensure that deadlines are met and deliverables are of the highest quality.