Consultant

Andrew is a consultant and trainer with Econsultancy, where he has trained thousands of marketers on the practicalities of data and analytics over the past decade.

He is also CEO at Lynchpin, an independent analytics consultancy he founded in 2005 that works globally on data strategy, data science and data engineering projects with clients including Canon, Viacom and Emirates.

Insights Editor

Ben Davis is Insights Editor at Econsultancy. He edits Econsultancy articles and contributes to our reports and events. Ben is interested in emerging technology, UX and brand. He lives in Manchester, England.

Xeim Commercial Director

Damian is our Commercial Director Director helping leadership teams define and exceed their digital marketing and ecommerce goals via Econsultancy’s multi-touch learning capabilities.

Damian has over 23 years’ experience in senior commercial and leadership roles with some of the world’s most exciting and forward-thinking organisations, including Media Solutions Director at Time Warner Inc, Executive Director for advertising agency WFCA, and Managing Director for Adobe’s leading training provider, Academy Class.

In addition to being a Chartered marketer (CIM), he is an ILM certified Coach, NLP Practitioner, UK Ambassador for the Continued Professional Development (CPD), Advisor for HRH Prince of Wales Nominet Trust, and recently appointed Fellow at the Royal Society of Arts.

Outside of work he enjoys exploring places off the beaten track with his young family and is a mixology enthusiast in search of the perfect cocktail.

Senior Learning Editor

As a Senior Learning Editor and consultant, Julian defines and develops customised learning solutions that help accelerate the digital transformation of Econsultancy’s global clients. He also contributes to the ongoing development of Econsultancy’s multi-touch learning offering.

Julian has spent over 25 years working at the forefront of digital marketing and ecommerce, advising and training clients across sectors on how best to adopt, and adapt to, ever evolving digital media & technology within the marketing mix.

Most of this time was spent within the media agency world (with stints within WPP and Dentsu) where he was responsible for delivering integrated, digital marketing communications plans, consultancy and training within insight & strategy roles.

Director of Programme Management
As Director of Programme Management at Econsultancy, Kate is responsible for the management and smooth running of customised training and consultancy projects for Econsultancy’s global clients.
Before joining Econsultancy, Kate held Business Unit Director roles at Chemist+Druggist and venuefinder.com at UBM (now Informa), managing all aspects of business management, strategic planning and P&L ownership. Kate has a proven track record in transformational change management, new system implementation and process improvement.

Research Director

As Econsultancy’s Research Director, Laurence Bird leads the content & research strategy and team for Econsultancy’s subscribers.

Previously, Laurence worked in Haymarket’s Strategy & Planning team where she led the insight strategy across the whole group.  She joined Haymarket from AutoTrader, where she led the customer value strategy and insight team for the #1 digital marketplace in the automotive industry.

Earlier, Laurence worked as an independent consultant and held positions at several media, marketing and analytics companies.  She was Digital Research Director at Time Warner where she led the digital insight programme for CNN International globally, including the creation and management of award-winning thought-leadership projects.

Previous to that, Laurence was Vice-President at IAB Europe and Head of Planning & Research at IAB UK where she worked closely with the CEO and Board and acted as a consultant to the online and mobile industries. She also chaired the IAB’s Research Council, led the research & planning team, and managed the Measurement Committee.

Before joining the IAB, Laurence held several positions at Walt Disney International where she provided quantitative and qualitative analysis and conducted and commissioned projects across all product categories, including digital, TV, films, consumer products and theme parks. She was involved in global initiatives focusing on the company’s brand management and strategic planning.

Laurence holds a global top-tier Executive MBA from Imperial College Business School, where she specialised in Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Marketing. While studying, she won the prestigious London Business School Business Plan Competition and consulted for the Beijing Olympic Games.

Senior Analyst

Lynette works in the research team at Econsultancy, where she works on delivering industry-leading research, briefings and reports for the digital marketing industry. Her previous experience has involved responsibility for delivering measurements and insights and improving overall online customer experience for Cancer Research UK and the Royal Mail Group.

Consultant

Neil is one of Econsultancy’s most experienced and thought leading consultants. He is the founder of Only Dead Fish, a digital and media consultancy that specialises in applying strategic understanding of emerging media technologies to help businesses innovate, become more agile, and optimise their effectiveness within the new, networked communications environment.

Neil is the author of ‘Building The Agile Business’ (Kogan Page, April 2017), and a regular keynote speaker on organisational agility, digital transformation and digital strategy. He has been named by BIMA (British Interactive Media Association) as one of the most influential people in the UK digital industry for two years in a row.

Neil curates the global quarterly series of Firestarters thought leadership events on behalf of Google and has worked with market-leading global businesses including The Financial Times, BBC, Warner Bros, the UK Government, Samsung and YouTube. He is also an associate of The Futures Agency, a collaboration of some of the world’s leading forward thinkers and futurists and is also the co-founder of the Fraggl Twitter curation app.

Insights Writer

Nikki Gilliland is a writer at Econsultancy.

Managing Partner

Paul has spent the last eight years helping marketing and digital leaders and their teams adopt a new mind-set and build new skills by developing and delivering multi-channel learning programmes.

Prior to this, Paul spent 15 years in operational marketing at Nestle & Diageo. His senior roles included Head of Scotch and Luxury Brands for Global Travel & Middle East and Beer Portfolio Manager for Southern Africa. This combination of operational experience and capability building means Paul is able to understand and authentically connect with marketing teams at all levels.

Paul loves the outdoors and in his free time can most often to be found running, cycling or dog walking with his family which includes an 12 year old boy (George) and identical nine year old twin girls (Ruby & Leela).

Deputy Insights Editor
Rebecca is an internet aficionado, technology enthusiast, and an ardent fact-checker. Her favourite topics to sound off on include voice search, SEO, emerging technology, digital transformation, UX, and ridiculously overhyped marketing trends.
 Away from the blog, she can mostly be found on Twitter.

Managing Director

Richard became sole Managing Director of Econsultancy in March 2021 and is responsible for the evolution of Econsultancy into a Multi-Touch Learning provider. He is 100% focused on delivering exceptional outcomes for our customers and has a passion for making our products and services as good as they can possibly be.

Richard spent the 10 years prior leading some of the world’s most iconic B2B brands at Centaur Media and Ascential including Marketing Week, The Festival of Marketing, Creative Review, MEED Media (in the Middle East), World Architecture Festival, Drapers and the Architects Journal.

Before moving to B2B Richard worked in D2C ecommerce founding EBTM which listed on AIM in 2006 and setting up DMGT’s ecommerce operations. Before that Richard worked in music, perhaps most notably running Tribal UK Records “the UK’s most respected and forward-thinking label” (Rough Guide, 1999).

Richard holds a degree in History from Durham University and an MBA from Imperial College, London.

Director

Richard is a Director at Econsultancy and specialises in accelerating marketing performance & digital transformation.

Richard has worked internationally with The Coca-Cola Company, domestically with McDonald’s restaurants, heading Adult and Family Marketing, and before Econsultancy was one of the four equity partners of Oystercatchers. In addition to working in brand marketing, Richard has worked for Publicis Worldwide where he led the agency’s P&G business in EMEA for several years while running Publicis Groupe’s African expansion in parallel.

Richard is an award-winning diversity advocate and has been recognised as a ‘Male Agent of Change’ by the Women’s Business Council & Management Today, as well being ranked in the top 12 men championing women in business by the Financial Times. Vice-Chair of The Ideas Foundation, Board Member of Creative Equals, Token Man, BAME2020 and the first male SuperMomma for SheSaysUK. He is proud to be called a ‘Campaigner for increased diversity in the industry’ by The Huffington Post.

Senior Analyst

Rose Keen is a Senior Analyst and author at Econsultancy, where she helps deliver industry-leading research for the digital marketing industry.

With over 10 years of media and business strategy experience, she has worked across a wide range of industries from automotive and consumer electronics to food and fashion. Her particular interest is the intersection between consumer behaviour, cultural shifts and technology.

SVP, Learning

Stefan manages all of Econsultancy’s research and content in North America. He is the primary author of over 100 studies exploring topics in digital marketing, technology and business transformation with partners such as Adobe, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Salesforce.

Stefan’s work has been featured in the Wall St. Journal, New York Times, USA Today, NPR, CNN, CNBC, Fast Company and AdAge.

Before joining Econsultancy, Stefan was the research director for MarketingSherpa. He began his digital career as co-founder of rich media pioneer Bluestreak, now part of Dentsu.

Consultant

Steffan Aquarone is a UK digital entrepreneur, writer and speaker whose experiences range from film to payments.

In his career he has hired hundreds of people, raised millions in venture capital, started several startups, consulted for some big brands, created some much smaller ones, made a feature-length romantic comedy and failed in about every single way it’s possible to fail without going to prison.

He has gone on to advise brands like Sony, EY and McDonald’s on the future impact of technology on their businesses, as well as writing extensively on digital marketing and ecommerce.

Steff has significant experience in technology, having launched two startups in the past ten years: mobile payment app Droplet, which he cofounded in 2011, raised over £1.6m of venture capital in an attempt to do to payments what Skype did to phone calls. And his latest payments startup, Paygora, which reduces admin for accounts departments and let suppliers get their invoices paid next-day.

A respected digital leader with fifteen years’ experience in product design, innovation and digital, Steff has
developed and delivered highly effective creative learning programs for organisations including Coca-Cola, Ralph Lauren, Dyson, Shell, Biogen and General Mills.

The Mirror newspaper listed Steff as one of the most influential new media figures under the age of 30 and he now speaks around the world on innovation, entrepreneurship and digital transformation.