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cred
Co-Founder, Stone-Olafson • Executive Vice President, Angus Reid Strategies (Vision Critical) • President, Ipsos Observer • Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Ipsos-Reid Canada West

client success
Air Canada, Blackberry, Microsoft, Dell, ENMAX, Calgary Stampede, Farm Credit Canada, SaskPower, WinSport

best at
Brand strategy, communication testing, anything qualitative, figuring out issues within organizations, bad puns.

Tim’s cool and collected ability to listen and then provide astute practical advice is second to none. We think it’s because he’s old — he says “nothing surprises him after 25 years in the research and consulting business”. Regardless, he has an instinctive ability to find creative solutions on the spot. He's the kind of person you want at the table when your organization is under pressure; when you're the decision-maker upon whom so much depends; when you need someone to come up with a completely different way of thinking about an issue, or when you just need a sounding board. He’s an excellent blend of researcher and trusted consultant: concise, perceptive, thorough, and unflappable.

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cred
Director & Team Lead, Customer Success Vision Critical, Toronto • Research Director, Vision Critical, Minneapolis • Senior Research Manager, Vision Critical, Calgary (& Sydney Australia)

client success
Audi, Volkswagen, MIT Technology Review, Princess Auto, EPCOR, ATB Financial, TELUS, Swoop Airlines, Jayman Homes, Kellogg’s, Duke Energy, Dell, Hill’s Pet

best at
Voice of customer, panels, analytics, awesome (& concise) reports, early deliverables, new (& old) music trivia.

At the intersection of Sociology and Business is where you’ll find Amy, who brings a keen understanding of how to effectively infuse the voice of customers into the minds of the business world (you may also find her at the intersection of Yonge and Queen Street helping our Toronto clients). Her focus is on delivering key insights with actionable results for her clients through research and consulting. Her approach has earned her a reputation as a creative problem solver with a work ethic that will delight anyone who works with her.

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cred
Partner, Stone-Olafson • Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Vision Critical, Calgary • Vice President Ipsos-Reid, Calgary • Vice President Ipsos-Reid, Toronto

client success
ENMAX, BlackBerry, SaskPower, Calgary Stampede, Business Insider

best at
Reading people, Qualtrics, delivering perfection, acerbic wit.

Chris is the “behind the scenes” guy at Stone-Olafson. If you’ve ever worked with us, Chris has likely been involved and you probably didn’t know it. His affinity for all things tech has resulted in Chris choosing our survey platform, serving as our IT department, serving as our accounting department, programming a large percentage of our surveys, arranging our sample sources, running most of our data tables, and serving his clients… and that was yesterday.

Chris gets it done, and he makes our lives easy. He is proud to be the only MBA graduate in the history of MBA graduates to have never put ‘MBA’ on his business card.

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cred
Partner, Stone-Olafson • Vice President, Vision Critical Customer Marketing Manager, Kraft Canada • Director of Marketing, Cott Beverages Inc.

client success
Princess Auto, Epcor, ATB, Husky, Mark’s, Mayfair Diagnostics, Big Rock, Calgary Academy, Hold it All Inc., SaskPower, FCC

best at
Delivering the story buried in reams of data from multiple sources on one page, marketing, working with billion dollar companies, on-boarding clients, well-placed, jaw-dropping comments.

Kristine's pure marketing savvy is her greatest strength as a professional. It permeates and infuses everything she does to help her clients shine. She works hard for her clients, but insists it doesn’t feel like work when you love what you do. She's one of the few in the business who's truly proficient in tackling a business challenge whether it requires a rigorous quantitative or personal qualitative approach, or just re-works and re-thinks the data clients already have.

With the heart of a client and the mind of a researcher, she knifes through the noise and gets to the critical issue, and frankly, for most of her clients that’s “how do we make more money?”. Whether it’s an advertising and communications challenge, or understanding product development and consumer experience, Kristine knows how to dig the most out of what consumers say, turn it into what they mean, and (most importantly) provide realistic, practical advice about what her clients need to do—because she’s been there, and not all consultants realize what it’s like to be a client.

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cred
Co-Founder, Stone-Olafson • Organizational Effectiveness Manager, Calgary Stampede • Consumer Insights and Brand Manager, Calgary Stampede • Senior Research Manager, Ipsos-Reid

client success
Calgary Co-op, Calgary Stampede, Calgary Economic Development, Calgary Chamber, YWCA, ENMAX

best at
Employee engagement, branding, fixing problems, presenting, long-term client relationships, landscaping.

Outcomes, and how information can best be used to achieve the client's business goals, are what drives Mathew. He's a fixer who prides himself on simplifying the issues to get to the heart of a problem, then just as quickly recommends how best to solve it. He works from the belief that great information is not about collecting numbers and providing reams of charts: it's really all about engaging audiences. Mathew has worked with grocers, hotels, museums, industry associations, tourism attractions, not-for-profits and ad agencies. He's been called upon for strategic advice by clients in the energy industry, NGOs and governments. And he helped lead the re-development of one of Canada's most iconic brands, the Calgary Stampede. A convincing and engaging communicator, he always delivers objective answers to hard questions. No stalling. No BS. Just clear, simple answers and direction.

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Cred
Associate Vice President, Ipsos-Reid • Senior Research Manager, Ipsos-Reid

Client Success
Calgary Co-op, Calgary Chamber, Calgary Stampede, Calgary International Film Festival, Forzani Group, McKesson Canada, Telus, The City of Calgary

Best at:
Keeping people connected, staying on top of details, making clients’ lives easy… basically, everything.

An outgoing “people-person”, it’s only natural that Gillian truly loves to figure out the complexities of how people think and why they do what they do. Her passion for delving into the consumer experience is complemented by what some may call “Type A personality” or what Gillian simply refers to as attention to detail. Priding herself on leaving no loose ends, she is responsive to client needs, digging deep into the data to find the detailed insights that will provide next steps, solve the problem, and ultimately drive the business. She’s a versatile consultant who can take the details and translate them into something clients can use.

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Cred
Research manager, Brightside • Researcher, Critical Mass • Researcher, Shaw Communications

Client Success
Calgary Economic Development, Tourism Calgary, ATB, USAA, Blue Shield of California

Best at:
Customer experience, Qualtrics, fancy analytics, listening (really listening), making it easy, Lego

Customers, employees, audiences…..they’re not just points of data. They’re people. Megan is the kind of consultant that seeks to bring the customer to life through the lens of their behaviour, motivations, values, and beliefs. Basically figuring out what makes consumers tick. Like most researchers she is captivated by data, but she doesn’t get lost in the details. She is driven to find the trends and nuggets of intelligence that lead to breakthroughs. Megan has lived as both a consultant and a client. Why does that matter to you? She knows what it means to put research to work.

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Cred
Research Assistant & Reporting, Vision Critical • Production & Reporting Manager, Ipsos-Reid

Client Success
ENMAX, Overstock, Calgary Stampede, EPCOR, SaskPower, BlackBerry

Best at:
Making data readable and engaging, multi-tasking, putting out fires, Trivial Pursuit.

Although she lives in the middle of no-where, Jen touches most our projects in some way. She’s our behind the scenes reporter who excels at anticipating what the client will want to know and how they will want to see it. Jen (thankfully) is a bit of a perfectionist and basically takes care of the smallest details in how we share what we learn. Need to figure out how to bring a gazillion data points to life on the screen? She’s your gal.

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Cred
Associate Vice President, Ipsos-Reid • Senior Research Manager, Ipsos-Reid

Client Success
Calgary Co-op, Calgary Stampede, Brookfield Residential, ATCOenergy, Heritage Park, Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission, Minnesota Lottery

Best at:
Segmentation, customer experience, brand strategy and development, client service, sarcasm.

When you meet Kim you'll notice she talks fast, she’s very clever, she smiles a lot, and doesn't miss a thing. Bring your most challenging and problematic issues forward, and you'll get an approachable, knowledgeable business partner who will be more than happy to raise the bar on what you thought research could accomplish. She can get her mind wrapped around a psychographic segmentation just as easily as qualitatively understanding the modern home buyer. In a sentence: she gets it.

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Cred
Research Manager, Kantar • Senior Analyst, Voice of the Customer, Questrade Financial Group • Researcher, Institute for Hospitality and Tourism Research, Ted Rogers School of Management

Client Success
Travel Alberta, Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership, Calgary Stampede, Heritage Park, Questrade Financial Group, Canada Goose, KPMG, IKEA, Kruger Products, Tourism Nova Scotia, Canada Bread

Best at:
Customer experience, building relationships, travel & tourism research, losing her keys

When you meet Juleigh, she will likely ask you if you’ve seen her keys. After that, you will notice her positive attitude, upbeat nature, and willingness to take on any challenge. She has a particular passion for qualitative research - her empathic nature allows her to connect with anyone and her eye for detail may help you uncover things you have never considered before.

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Cred
Market Research Analyst, District Ventures Plus • Marketing Science Analyst, Critical Mass

Client Success
Nissan, INFINITI, Balzac’s Coffee, Sapsucker, Nadamoo!

Best at:
Customer experience research, pivot tables, slick visualizations, pasta sauce from scratch.

Chris brings sound agency experience in areas of digital marketing, website analytics, market research, brand positioning, and product management. He’s done analytics and consulting for a top automaker’s website and app, a national coffee brand, and one of the largest non-dairy ice-cream manufacturers in the US. This experience has made Chris great at understanding and conceptualizing problems, distilling various types of information, and how to test, validate, and report on key insights. Simply put, Chris makes data make sense through his research skills, pivot tables, and data visualizations, survey development and programming, and by building concise reports.