Richard Leslie, President and Chief Strategy Architect
Richard Leslie is a Founder and President of Trend Influence, a global strategy and innovation consultancy grounded in primary consumer insight. His dexterity and proficiency as a marketer is directly related to the varied roles he has successfully performed throughout his career, but the foundation of his empathy with human behavior was derived from his active participation in cutting edge youth culture during his formative years including alternative music and sports.
Richard’s professional experience is varied, including; Qualitative and Quantitative Research, Strategic Brand Planning and Product Development, Integrated Promotional and Creative Strategy as well as Event Planning and Interactive Planning. His broad experience includes extensive work with leading global brands such as Coca-Cola Global Innovation, Toyota, Lexus, Scion, Kimberly Clark, Timberland, Volkswagen, International Truck, Unilever, Absolut Vodka, Level Vodka, Ford Europe, Cruzan Rum, Plymouth Gin, Tiger Beer, Ministry of Sound, Reebok, Camel, Winston and Salem Cigarettes.
In his ‘spare’ time, Richard enjoys travelling, tennis, cycling, surfing, reading, listening to his extensive record collection and spending as much time as possible with his family and Bailey and Weller, his beloved pointers. Visit Richard's profile on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardleslie
Bryan Andrews, Founder and President of AppTheory
Bryan Andrews has worked in various capacities in Marketing and Technology and has been involved with internet related technologies since 1994.
During his years at Cox Communications he served as Program Manager, Knowledge Management Services Group where his team launched the first KM initiative for Cox Communications and Cox Enterprises. He previously headed a team that managed all external and internal web initiatives including Cox.com and Cox Intranet.
He worked many years as CTO of Trend Influence (a sister division) before taking the role of President for AppTheory. During his tenure, he has focused the company on agile development techniques and technologies that have made the company competitive in the marketplace.
Bryan is active in the open source development community and is a contributor to the DotNetNuke open source project. He is a level 2 member of the AspElite, and a moderator and member of the AspAdvice private mentoring community.
Bryan serves on the Tenet Healthcare / Atlanta Medical Center Institutional Review Board for Ethical Human Research.
Jeff Peters, Director, Vice President, Brand Innovation
Jeff works closely with the core project team as the client advocate, grounding our thought partnership with the client’s business objectives. He also works closely with the new business team & advances TREND INFLUENCE’s agenda for organizational and methodology optimization.
Jeff is a highly accomplished marketing, innovation and advertising executive, with a successful track record of branding and launching products on Madison Avenue for companies as diverse as M&M Mars, AT&T, Pepsi, Gillette, Pfizer and DeBeers. Jeff managed M&M’s “Chocolate is Better in Color” brand reintroduction – awarded Advertising Age’s 10 Big Ideas in Marketing, 2004. While at Arnell Group, Jeff led comprehensive strategic recalibration for brand, product & experiential levels for Lipton Tea – Ready-To-Drink and Leaf formats. His agency career includes J.Walter Thompson, Young & Rubicam, Kirshenbaum & Bond and Arnell Group.
Jeff is a sports and music enthusiast enjoying running, biking and piano. He volunteers with Puppies Behind Bars, training Labrador puppies to become guide dogs for the blind and explosive detection dogs for law enforcement.
Jamie Gordon, Director, Knowledge and Insight
Jamie joined Trend Influence in January 2005 as Director, Knowledge and Insight. She utilizes her professional and cultural experience in designing custom primary Anthropological research, and strategic consulting solutions for brands such as Volkswagen, The Coca-Cola Company, Pillsbury, International Truck and Engine, Timberland, Kyocera Wireless and Absolut Vodka.
Jamie is a student of human culture, a social chameleon endowed with a “hall pass”, and functioning as a participant-observer among culture and lifestyle verticals. Jamie’s academic background includes degrees in both Anthropology and Sociology but her passion is the development of hybrid methodologies that can be utilized in consumer understanding and brand and product development. Every day provides an empirical data set that impacts her professional outlook. Jamie is an innovator who represents a unique hybrid breed of brand marketing strategist and consumer culture researcher.
A self titled “consumer anthropologist” she specializes in connecting to hard-to-reach targets such as Gen Y, urban city lifestyles and various ethnic, lifestyle and cultural segments. She has travelled extensively and is as comfortable conducting interviews with Truckers in Nashville as she is with Trendsetter youth in Istanbul.
Jeff Duvall, Strategy Architect
Jeff Duvall supports Trend Influence as a Strategic Architect leveraging a unique background and perspective, operating cross functionally across many aspects of brand and product development. Jeff has an extensive and diverse record of achievement, ranging from his years as an economist in the public sector (at the USDA funded Food Marketing Policy Center), a sector research manager for Information Resources, Inc (which was the largest Marketing Research Company in the USA during Jeff’s tenure) Jeff earned a great reputation for his client service skills in supporting P&G’s Food and Beverage team at their global headquarters, and 8 years of marketing strategy support at The Coca-Cola Company.
In 1997, Jeff was recruited by The Coca-Cola Company to support global initiatives in their Strategic Marketing Presearch, Research and Trends group. During his tenure there, Jeff pursued a rare experience path and learning curve across many different marketing insight and brand support functions, including quantitative analysis, qualitative investigation, brand equity, trends and foresights, health and wellness, and new product innovation (USA and Global Groups).
Recognizing the need to rethink traditional marketing approaches, Jeff was granted the rare opportunity to embark on an educational sabbatical to pursue his PhD in Sociology with the intent of helping companies like The Coca-Cola Company (and other Fortune 1000 companies) to recognize opportunities to support altruistic and environmentally friendly causes and programs in a manner that strengthens brand equity, corporate reputation, consumer resonance, and price premiums, thereby helping the world while helping brands and their shareholders. This PhD will complement prior degrees in Economics (M.A.), Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics (M.S.), and Marketing (B.S.).
Andrew Bauer, Project Director, Insight and Strategy
As a legacy member of the Trend Influence team, Andrew has witnessed the company’s rapid growth in both size as well as research product offerings. Along the way he has had the chance to operate in nearly all organizational / team / process roles from managerial to minutia. This gives him the unique perspective on our processes, and allows him to shepherd our projects from start to finish as efficiently as possible at every turn.
Although native to Atlanta, Andrew studied International Business in Nuremberg, Germany, earning his Vordiplom, before returning to received his undergraduate from Georgia State University in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing. While abroad he worked at Deutsche Telekom’s innovations branch, T-Nova Innovationsgesellschaft mbH, documenting processes and implementing European Foundation for Quality Management guidelines throughout the group’s business units, which ultimately manifested itself in a submission to the European Quality Award.
Before entering the “real world”, although we consider ourselves far from the typical grind, Andrew was a touring drummer and percussionist, playing rock, reggae and jazz across the country. His life outside of Trend Influence is still full of music; composing, playing piano, classical guitar and jamming with his surf band any chance he gets.
Kenn Taylor, Recruiting Specialist
Kenn Taylor is our custom recruiting expert and manages our global roster of lifestyle and culture experts, the GC3 (Global Consumer Culture Consortium). The GC3 also includes best of breed consumer intelligence experts, consumer anthropologists and research recruiters. Kenn manages all aspects of the recruiting and pre-work processes that are critical to the Trend Influence approach to consumer intelligence.
Kenn is also a culture expert in his own right bringing an extensive and high level background in sports management from both an operational standpoint and the direct management of athletes. He has been heavily involved in cutting edge skater culture and extreme sports. He is also well versed in various martial arts and was involved in one of the largest such gym of this nature in the world. The facility attracted athletes from around the world, who sought to be at one of the global nexuses for the development of mixed martial arts, but also appealed to a large contingent of consumers that were attracted by health aspects of the broad range of martial arts courses that were offered.
Kenn completed his marketing education and graduated from Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business with a BBA in Marketing, where he worked on extensive research projects for both Earthlink and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
Katarina Johnson, Consumer Anthropologist
Katarina joined Trend Influence in August, 2007, bringing with her an extensive background in healthcare, biotech, and public health research. As Consumer Anthropologist, Katarina functions as ethnographer and culture expert, implementing Trend Influence’s custom research techniques.
Katarina is an experienced interviewer; her most recent projects involving consumers, experts, patients, and sales representatives. She is also a skilled quantitative analyst whose survey research experience includes project design and management, questionnaire development, data collection, and data analysis. She served as a consultant on strategic marketing issues including demand forecasting and optimization, positioning, and brand equity assessment. Katarina has led the team as ethnographer, culture expert, and consumer anthropologist for insight projects such as Toyota Motor Services, The Home Depot, International Truck and Engine, Kimberly-Clark, The Coca-Cola Company, and Genentech.
Katarina’s broad experience also includes acting as the primary research assistant on two quality-of-life studies within the Wharton School’s Healthcare Systems Department. Her work from these projects has recently been published in several international science journals. Additionally, Katarina draws from her experiences studying at the Ethnographic Field School of Medical Anthropology in Monteverde, Costa Rica. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003 with a B.A. in Anthropology and Psychology.
Catherine Normoyle, Designer
After graduating with a B.S in Industrial Design from Georgia Tech, Cat joined the Trend Influence creative team in August, 2005. She contributes to the team through the creation of client deliverables including interactive presentations, concept and testing boards, video storyboards, agency decks and other related print, graphic, illustration, web and multimedia assets. She also works closely with the Business Development team, defining the current brand identity of Trend Influence and the agency’s services and solutions.
She concurrently pursues her passion as a dancer, choreographer and teacher. She began teaching at The Studio Atlanta Dance in 2000 teaching jazz/ballet/tap. In 2001, she went on to teach the jazz program at Kennesaw Dance Troupe and choreographed such performances as Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker. She volunteers with groups such as Cobb Children’s Theatre, a non-profit organization, for numerous productions including Annie, School House Rock and Seussical the Musical. In 2004, she began dancing with Culture Shock Atlanta, a professional hip hop dance troupe and youth out-reach organization and continues to work with the company today.
Matthew Bradley, Consumer Anthropologist
Matthew is a consummate and experienced consumer anthropologist constantly striving to better his understanding of how to comprehend humans. As concerned with ethics as he is with efficacy, Matthew pushes boundaries with the way data is collected and analyzed through video and other types of media capture. He also feels very strongly about the value of classically trained behavioral scientists conducting behavioral based research. We couldn’t agree more.
During his career, Matthew has worked with a broad set of clients including; Web MD, PepsiCo, ConAgra, Kraft, Unilever, Whole Foods, Target, Wal-Mart, and GlaxoSmithKline. He began this journey through a concentration on Social Anthropology at Harvard University, Cambridge, and furthered his skill set by studying digital video and filmmaking at the New York Film Academy.
Barry Morsillo, Director, Strategic Development
Mr. Morsillo joined Trend Influence in July 2007 as the Director of Business Development. Previously, Mr. Morsillo served as a Director for Imaginatik, a software and professional services company specializing in innovation and idea management technology platforms for Fortune 500 organizations.
Prior to Imaginatik, Mr. Morsillo served as the Director of Sales for Global Market Insite (GMI), a leader provider of market research software and global online panels for consumer and business quantitative research. Mr. Morsillo was also the Director of Sales for Nielsen/NetRatings, the global leader of Internet Audience Measurement solutions including analysis of online audiences, advertising, video, consumer-generated media, word of mouth, commerce and consumer behavior.
Mr. Morsillo graduated from the University of Florida with a BS degree in construction management.
Justin Arsenault, Industrial Designer
Originally hailing from California, Justin originally came to Georgia to attend Savannah College of Art and Design. While at SCAD he won an internship with Procter and Gamble which lead to his adoption of an intense research based design philosophy. Graduating with a B.F.A in Industrial Design has enabled him to excel at many different design tasks from Brand Identity to complete Product Development of complex items such as bar-b-que grills.
In his role at Trend Influence, Justin leads the design strategy for clients such as Navistar and LG Electronics by supporting the cross functional teams in identification of knowledge gaps and strategic opportunities for brand and product resonance through design.
In his spare time he enjoys being physically active; a few of Justin's hobbies are coaching Academy youth soccer, cycling, riding his Harley-Davidson, and boating.