MEET THE TEAM
"A comprehensive, balanced blend of skills and experience."
Tim Baker
Chairman
Tim's background is in blue-chip clients and suppliers: He worked at Distillers (pre-Diageo) and Unilever before moving to Research International and then ACNielsen. This experience, along with a sensitivity to client needs, enables him to design the most appropriate solutions for business needs and budgets, particularly in the leisure market.
Jamie Rayner
Director
Jamie’s experience spans across both client and agency side. From pioneering behavioural shopper insight 20 years ago to today: designing global research programmes, decoding and disseminating insight back into the sales and marketing functions of global companies, to elicit change and unlock brand growth.
Jon Darby
Managing Director
Starting out in agency side operations, Jon rose rapidly. He is highly experienced in all methods of data collection and analysis. He enjoys the challenge in creating innovative and practical solutions to address complex research objectives. He sees the effective visualisation of research information as a key to successful project delivery.
Anna Dawson
Head of Qualitative Research
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With over 20 years of qualitative exploration into shopper behaviour, across a variety of sectors, FMCG research is the backbone of Anna’s expertise. Her deep dive into all-things grocery, was kick started via a strong grounding at IGD (Institute of Grocery Distribution). She has worked alongside Shoppercentric for the last 15 years, feeding into projects across a variety of sectors. No shopper gets away with the easy answer when Anna is on the case.
Marie Screene
Head of Quantitative Research
Marie has 20 years agency side consumer market research experience (GfK, Nielsen, Savanta (previously The Oxford Research Agency / Future Thinking). A specialist in FMCG business, with a keen interest in new product development research, including concept testing, product testing, ranging, and packaging evaluation. With her friendly professionalism, building close working relationships with clients is one of Marie’s core values.
Jasper Darby
Research Manager
After working in operations for a tour operator, Jasper joined Touchstone as a Trainee Research Executive in early 2019. With a creative mind and a fine attention to detail he supports many areas of the business. On a day to day basis he usually works alongside Rob, assisting the directors with project work. Consisting of report creation, data analysis and bringing results alive with digital output.
Lauren Beedie
Research Executive
Lauren joined Touchstone in September 2022 after recently completing her Masters degree in Forensic Psychology and her undergraduate in the same area. Lauren works alongside Rob and Hannah on a daily basis. She aids our Research Directors in the set up and project management of both qualitative and quantitative projects through to the analysis of data collected and the creation of reports.
Rob Bates
Operations Manager
After teaching English in Hong Kong for 4 years, Rob returned to the UK to start his career in Market Research. Rob is heavily involved in all operational aspects of the business from building virtual shelves and project setup to data analysis and report creation. Rob has a keen eye for data quality and can often be found scouring through data at a detective-level to ensure all our data is top quality.
Hannah Daniels
Senior Research Executive
Hannah joined the team in May 2021 as a Trainee Research Executive after having spent three years obtaining her undergraduate degree in psychology. Working alongside Rob and Jasper and aiding the Research Directors, Hannah can be found diving into both qualitative and quantitative project work where she conducts various tasks including analysing data and creating reports.
Lauren Chappell
Research Executive
Lauren joined in August 2023 after achieving a higher level diploma within Business and Management, Lauren can be found engaging and working alongside Rob and the quantitative team, helping to collect and analyse data that is later used in reports, She can also be found assisting the team with field work preparations.
All members of the Touchstone team are Members of The Market Research Society
