Promotions and New UK Structures for Verian

Verian Group, previously known as Kantar Public, has launched seven new UK centres of excellence, aligned with public policy challenges identified by the new Labour government; and has announced promotions for fourteen of its staff.

Independent public policy evidence and advisory business Kantar Public was sold two years ago to pan-European private equity firm Trilantic Europe, and for its first year retained the Kantar name, before rebranding as Verian Group last autumn.

Senior promotions include that of Kathy DiPrincipe to Senior Director in the Behavioural & Communications team and Adam Knight-Markiegi, who joined the firm last year, to Director in the Evaluation practice; and Adam Ozer to Senior Data Scientist, specialising in causal inference, quant survey methodology and data analytics.

Three employees have been raised to SRE level - Mimi Aram-Walker, Bryony Butcher and Helen Kenney - and three to Research Manager (Nick Bull, Sanjeev Devarajan and James Smith). There are also five new Associate Directors: Rebecca Lambrou, John Morris, Rebecca Steer, Monisha Walsh and Daniel Hodgkin.

UK CEO Craig Watkins says of the promotions: 'It is a huge pleasure and a source of pride to see the hard work and progress of our colleagues being recognised and rewarded'.


The new UK centres of excellence support 'mission-driven Government', in line with the 'national priorities' set out by Labour, and connect across Verian's UK teams. Each is led by a member of Verian's UK leadership team. 'We have created these centres specifically to integrate across our existing teams' says Watkins, 'bringing together the three Verian pillars of our multi-methods technical expertise, the ability to bring the UK citizen into the heart of participatory decision-making, and our policy and subject matter experts. This will ensure that we can continue to best support our clients' priorities and the UK's new government's mission-based approach to delivery'.

The seven centres focus on:

• Mission Delivery
• Value for Money
• Democratic Engagement
• Sustainability and Critical Infrastructure
• Justice and Safety
• Opportunity and Growth
• Public Health and Wellbeing.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.