The Team
Justin Alderson, Managing Director
The company is headed by Justin Alderson. Justin has over fifteen years experience in market research, both in agencies (Taylor Nelson Sofres and Research International) and at British Airways Airmiles where he was Market Research Manager before setting up Aurora Market Research. The business was one of the first research agencies to specialise in online research, utilising the market-leading Confirmit interviewing software, and as such, Justin is able to draw on a wealth of experience in conducting research online.
He has overseen a vast number of research projects, covering all types of quantitative and qualitative approaches for a variety of clients, ranging from large blue-chip companies to small independent businesses.
The Research Team includes:
Across the team we have a large number of years of research experience on both client and agency side, and a project team working with you will be selected based on our relevant experiences:
Anne Bowden, Associate Director
Anne has over 10 years of experience clientside at Thames Water and Avon Cosmetics, and ran her own market research agency for 3 years. Her experience encompasses the full range of qualitative and quantitative techniques across a variety of sectors, and includes brand/ image studies, advertising research, customer satisfaction, customer tracking, employee engagement, and new product research.
Dan Kelly, Associate Director
Dan leads Aurora's full service research team. Dan has over 8 years agency experience, both on and offline. He has a strong technical background and has extensive experience of overseeing, running and analysing in-depth market studies for a wide range of clients, including conjoint, trade-off and segmentation projects. He is also particularly experienced in panel-based research and complex sampling techniques.
Tom Lobban, Associate Director
Tom's focus is on client development and satisfaction. Tom has several years experience overseeing research projects for a range of clients from small start-ups to blue-chip companies, and so is excellently placed to understand client research needs.
Kiertan Matharoo, Research Manager
Kiertan has five years research experience, having joined the company in October 2007 after completing her degree at the University of Brighton. She is particularly experienced in conducting research in the loyalty sector, and also in conducting media-based surveys. Kiertan has also worked on a number of international and multi-language research projects. Prior to working at Aurora, Kiertan completed her dissertation in comparing online and face-to-face methodologies, and has also worked for IPSOS-Mori, where she gained experience in the employee, sports and leisure research.
Steve Jones, Panel Manager
Steve joined the company in September 2011 having come from a similar role at Nielsen. Steve is the main point of contact for enquiries regarding our online panel, Justtheanswer. He is also responsible for the recruitment and day-to-day maintenance of the panel, to ensure continued high quality response from our panel.
Judy Ovens, Consultant
Judy has 20 years experience gained at NOP, RSGB and SGARI. She was at SGARI for 12 years and was appointed a board director in 1997. Judy has worked with Unilever, Nestle, L’Oreal and Weetabix on all aspects of product research, branding and concept testing.
Angela Murray, Senior Research Executive
Angela has five years research experience, having joined Aurora from ToLuna in January 2008. She has particular expertise in the travel and loyalty sector and specialises in customer satisfaction research and customer relationship management. Angela has run numerous long-term tracking projects for a number of clients.
Louise Ainslie, Senior Research Executive
Louise joined the company in February 2010, having completed a Masters degree in Social and Applied Psychology from the University of Kent. Louise has particular experience in the loyalty and financial sectors.
Laura Ellis, Research Executive
Laura joined the company in April 2010, having completing her degree in Sociology, Culture and New Media at the University of Surrey. She has also worked at YouGov where she gained experience working on omnibus projects.
Ben Cookman, Research Executive
Ben has three years research experience, having previously worked at MEDIX, specialising in healthcare research. Ben joined us in August 2011.
Natalie Fildes, Research Executive
Natalie joined us in March 2011 having completed her degree in Psychology at the University of Surrey. Natalie has experience running long term tracking as well as strategic, bespoke research projects.
Catherine King, Panel Executive
Catherine joined Aurora in April 2010, having completed her degree in Psychology at the University of Sussex. Catherine looks after our panellists and works on the delivery of our sample only service run through our UK panel, Justtheanswer.
Kate Barwise, Research Assistant
Kate joined Aurora in July 2011 to assist with the day to day management of research projects and the panel, having completed her degree in Physics with Business and Management at the University of Manchester.