Asia Pacific 2019

ESOMAR Member

Senior Project Manager

Noriko Kishida is a Senior Project Manager of the Product Service Development team in Cross Marketing Group, which focus development and promoting new research concepts and methodologies. She had been a pioneer in execution of new market research of both qual and quant, from online communities, neuro marketing to RDIT. She has over 25 years of experience working in research for various field of clients, FMCG, IT, energy, car, and public sector, etc. She has always found joy in providing clients with good services, and is excited thinking about how to introduce the new service, match it for client solution, and develop a team to execute it.

ESOMAR Member

Head - Brand & Marketing

Karan Kumar is a Brand and Marketing Strategist who knows how intelligent story-telling successfully drives brand conversions. Several of Karan’s brands have attained serious leadership positions. His many works across conventional and digital media ecosystems have earned him significant recognition in media and across various marketing and industry platforms. Founding member of the India chapter of The Marketing Society and a previous winner of ‘Best Presentation’ at ESOMAR Asia-Pacific, Karan currently heads Brand and Marketing at one of India’s largest Apparel and Lifestyle brands.

ESOMAR Member

Business Development Officer

Caryl Marcelo has a degree in Psychology from the University of Santo Tomas. She is currently working as a Business Development Officer of Prestige MKT Research Services Asia Inc. and handles both qualitative (one-on-ones, mystery shopping) and quantitative projects. In 2018, she is assigned as the Data Privacy Officer of Prestige.She is an experienced market research analyst doing one-one-one interviews and analyzing consumer attitudes and behavior. She is also the very first member of the Young ESOMAR SOCIETY in the Philippines.

ESOMAR Member

Programme Committee Chair

Vice-President - Planning & Market Insights

As the first Executive Director of Marketing Intelligence & Insights for Sands China, Cristina has helped transform Asia’s largest operator of Integrated Destination Resorts into a strategically focused consumer-centric culture by leading the process to provide actionable insights and foresights that continuously provides a competitive advantage across all aspects of the resort.

A research expert with more than 15 years of experience in both academia and corporately, Cristina has actively worked with the leading research, media, and advertising, and brand agencies in areas ranging from new product development & launch, entertainment, retail, food & beverage, and gaming development, strategy and marketing.

Cristina is continuously seeking and evaluating pioneering methodologies that delve well below the surface of claimed and intention data to better able to predict and capitalize on an ever changing marketplace, particularly in our primary Asian markets.

ESOMAR Member

ESOMAR APAC Ambassador

Chairman

John Smurthwaite is Chairman for TNS in Malaysia. Looking for adventure John left the safety of his Melbourne MD role at Frank Small & Associates (now TNS) in the late 70s and travelled to Asia where he established most of the Asia TNS offices - from Jakarta to Seoul, from the Philippines to Calcutta and many more.

During most of the last 10 years, John was Chairman of TNS in APAC. Always a strong ESOMAR supporter, John was a Programme Committee member for ESOMAR Asia Pacific conference 2012, he was a speaker at an ESOMAR Career Event in Melbourne and is the current ESOMAR Ambassador for the Asia-Pacific region. John was also the 2011 winner of ESOMAR’s prestigious John Downham award, recognising outstanding achievement and excellence in his contribution to the market research industry at an international level.

Senior CMI Manager

Ramanathan Vythilingam (Ram) made the transition from Engineering to Market Research over 14 years ago and has not looked back since. For the past 9 years, Ram has been working in the Consumer and Market Insights function at Unilever in various regional and global roles. In his current role as Senior CMI Manager, Ram leads an Insights team, that works with Beauty Personal Care Brands the world over, on all matters relating to Content.

In a world where Brands are increasingly finding it hard to stay relevant, those that tap into the power of story-telling and emotions, will emerge the winners. Within this narrative, Ram is excited to be working with Brands to help them navigate the maze of proliferating media channels and to create and deploy content, that is compelling, engages people in a relevant manner, and builds strong Brands.

Ram is incredibly excited about the future of the Insights function, as advances in technology will only further enhance our ability to understand people better. And Insights teams that fully embrace the uncertainty and roll with the changes, will fortify their place as a source of competitive strength to the business.

Ram has presented his work at various forums like Neuro-Marketing World Forum, ESOMAR and MORES. His paper on Application of Nudge for Brand Re-Launches was presented at ESOMAR APAC 2018.

Qualitative Research Manager

Irene is a Qualitative Research Manager with over 6 years of experience in market research. Graduating from SH Institute of Foreign Trade with a Bachelor of Economics as well as winning several awards for English Speech, Irene began her career in a start-up dedicated to online big data analysis. Irene joined IPSOS in 2015; prior to IPSOS, she spent almost two years in Nielsen responsible for retail analysis. Irene’s career has spanned a wide spectrum of topics and categories, but has had a strong emphasis on fast moving categories, in particular baby & mum, beauty, and F&B categories, and has mainly served multi-national manufacturers including Danone, Nestle, KraftHeinz, Chanel, L’Oreal, and Coca-Cola.

Managing Director

Ms. Lynn is Managing Director of Kantar TNS China under WPP group who is responsible for driving business growth with developing Kantar proprietary solutions.

Senior executive with extensive and in-depth knowledge of APAC region, particular in consumer centric business. Her research experience spans Australia, New Zealand, US and China., also covers a wide range of important industries such as Automotive, FMCG, luxury, Finance etc.

Lynn loves exploring the human mind to uncover the magic that makes brands and services relevant and exciting to consumers. Her primary expertise is in translating consumer insight and innovation solutions into business results. Prior to KTNS, she was vice president for managing Nielsen Qualitative Practice Greater China region and Emerging business.