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1/13/2010
IRI Continues Expansion of “Growth & Innovation” Platform by Enhancing and Expanding The Hendry (IRI) Market Structure Practice Area
Building on The Hendry Group Acquisition, IRI Recruits World-Class Senior Talent to Enhance Predictive Market Structure and Attitudinal Segmentation Capabilities
CHICAGO, Jan. 13, 2010 - Information Resources, Inc. (IRI), the leading global provider of consumer, shopper, and market insights for the consumer packaged goods (CPG), retail, and healthcare industries, today furthered its commitment to creating a global, world-class, sales, servicing and consulting practice around its integrated Hendry (IRI) Market Structure business to drive clients' growth and innovation agendas. The Hendry (IRI) Market Structure practice will now integrate IRI's existing Markov indirect switching modeling, hierarchical clustering and multidimensional scaling capabilities with The Hendry direct switching model and industry-leading simulation to provide the most advanced, integrated modeling capabilities available today to enable CPG marketers to identify "growth and innovation" opportunities.
IRI is further enhancing its capabilities with the naming of three new senior executives for its market structure practice. Bob Hilarides will be the integrated practice area's executive vice president and general manager; Mike Duffy was named vice president, Client Engagements; and Srinivas Kowta will serve as vice president, Analytic Modeling. These very experienced executives join a leading team of experts, including Lorraine Scarpa, executive vice president, and David Lewis, senior vice president, to form an industry-leading organization with a vast amount of experience in the CPG industry working with both manufacturers and retailers.
Hendry (IRI) Market Structure Offers Unique Differentiators
The Hendry (IRI) Market Structure service is the only organization that provides marketers with a single source for all modeling data content, including the Hendry simulation tool, IRI's Consumer Network (demographic and purchase behavior panel), and the integration of attitudinal and usage insights.
"Incorporating the Hendry model and simulation tool and capabilities into IRI's existing modeling expertise creates a world-class market structure practice that will be essential to IRI's growth and innovation recommendations to clients both in the United States and in Europe," said IRI Consumer and Shopper Insights President Robert (Bob) I. Tomei. "The predictive capabilities now available will enable IRI clients to more successfully navigate today's transitional economy, characterized by pockets of recovery and areas still burdened by recession."
"Our objective is to create a world-class, global practice area that supports our clients' growth and innovation plans going forward," added Tomei. "This will be accomplished by developing new, integrated solutions complemented with a new leadership team and a very experienced group of experts who can effectively consult with our clients to maximize their opportunities."
New Executive Leadership
Supplementing IRI's expanded capabilities are three senior executives who have joined IRI to lead and support the new Hendry (IRI) Market Structure organization.
Bob Hilarides, executive vice president and general manager, Hendry (IRI) Market Structure, joins IRI from Cannondale Associates, where he served as partner/managing director. In this role, he was part of a management board that grew Cannondale from a fledgling consultancy into a respected industry thought leader in shopper and retail/customer marketing. WPP/Kantar purchased Cannondale in 2004.
"Hendry has long been regarded as the gold standard in market structure, and I am thrilled to join such a strong and seasoned team of Hendry and IRI professionals to take this business to the next level," said Hilarides. "Coming out of this difficult economic environment, clients have never been more in need of identifying real growth opportunities and quantifying the upside associated with different strategies. Our new combination of data, validated methodologies, tools and strategic insight will allow us to provide more value to clients in this critical undertaking."
Before Cannondale, Hilarides held several marketing positions at Quaker Oats. His positions included product manager, Aunt Jemima syrups and mixes; product manager, Mrs. Richardson's product portfolio; and other positions with Quaker Instant Oatmeal, the Semi-Moist Dog Food portfolio and Gravy Train. Hilarides began his career as an account executive at Ross Roy Advertising. He earned an M.B.A. with Distinction from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a bachelor of arts, Cum Laude, from St. Lawrence University.
Additional Client Engagement Leadership
Mike Duffy, Hendry (IRI) Market Structure's new vice president, Client Engagements, comes to IRI from NuVista Strategies, a leading marketing consulting firm, where he served as senior advisor during the last two years.
Prior to NuVista, Duffy was senior vice president of Marketing for Nielsen Advisory Services and developed several patent pending services. Before that, Duffy held the senior director of Market Measurement position at Kraft Foods. Among other duties, Duffy purchased and managed nearly $1 billion in syndicated data, services and analytic consulting across nearly all key U.S. suppliers. He holds a master's degree in geology from University of Pittsburgh and a bachelor's degree in biology from Michigan State University.
New Analytical and Modeling Leadership
Srinivas Kowta is the new vice president, Analytic Modeling, supporting the Hendry (IRI) Market Structure business. Before joining IRI, Kowta was associate vice president, Marketing Science at GfK Healthcare for the last two years. His primary responsibilities included management of and involvement in multivariate statistical analysis for healthcare projects. He also served and led teams that completed a wide range of statistical studies of factors that influenced both patients' and physicians' choices of pharmaceutical products.
Before GfK Healthcare, Kowta was director of marketing sciences at Verispan, LLC, where he served in a leading role for the development of several new product offerings for Verispan's Marketing Effectiveness product line.
Before his tenure at Verispan, Kowta was promotions analytics manager and engagement manager at IMS Consulting; assistant research executive, research executive and senior research analyst at Millward Brown; and held additional project and research positions. Kowta has completed his doctoral coursework in marketing communications from University of Connecticut and earned a bachelor of engineering (chemical) degree with honors from India's Birla Institute of Technology and Science.
"With the acquisition of Hendry and the addition of Hilarides, Duffy and Kowta, IRI now offers the most comprehensive market structure capabilities available, complemented by a highly-experienced and innovative management team," said IRI Consulting & Innovation Executive Vice President Krishnakumar (KK) Davey, Ph.D. "This expansion rounds out our offerings in the growth and innovation arena and establishes IRI as the lead thought partner in driving growth for our clients. As a result, IRI is now positioned to provide the unique combination of consulting services, technology and analytic platforms to rapidly increase clients' marketing effectiveness and return on investment."
About IRI
IRI is the world's leading provider of consumer, shopper, and retail market intelligence and insights supporting 95 percent of the FORTUNE Global 500 consumer packaged goods (CPG), retail and healthcare companies. Only IRI offers the unique combination of integrated market information, automated and predictive analytics, innovative enabling technologies, and domain expertise. With IRI, leading retailers and manufacturers are able to quickly discover breakthrough insights driving smarter decisions and actions across the enterprise for breakthrough results. Companies around the world depend on IRI for improved productivity, stronger brands, and dramatic revenue growth. For more information, visit http://us.infores.com.
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IRI CONTACTS:
John McIndoe
E-mail: john.mcindoe@infores.com
Phone: (312) 474-3862
Fax: (312) 726-1091
Shelley Hughes
E-mail: shelley.hughes@infores.com
Phone: (312) 474-3675
Fax: (312) 726-1091
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Summit 2009 Insights
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"We live in a world where we have mountains of data but nuggets of wisdom." |
Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, Chairman, Symphony Technology Group and SymphonyIRI Group
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