Former Millward Brown CEO Becomes efamro DG

European industry body efamro has appointed former Millward Brown CEO Jan Oostveen as Director General, replacing Lex Olivier who stepped down in 2011 after six years in the role.

efamro promotes international standards and best practice in market, social and opinion research, and seeks to influence legislation and public opinion in their favour.

Oostveen is the former CEO Northwest Europe at Millward Brown and former Chairman of the MR section of MOA. Earlier in his career, he spent ten years in various positions at Nielsen, including Board member of ACNielsen Netherlands, and a member of the senior management team at ACNielsen Benelux. He has also served as a Board member at Centrum voor Marketing Analyses, General Manager of Tecmar, and Senior Research Manager at Interview-NSS (later part of Synovate).

Commenting on Oostveen's appointment Stig Holmer, President of efamro, said: 'Jan's appointment comes at a time of change for efamro. Over the last two years we have increased our work in supporting our member associations and in representing the European research sector. In particular we have built a very constructive relationship with ESOMAR to ensure that the sector speaks with a single voice, particularly on key issues such as the current revision of the data protection directive. Our goal must be to build on this work, to provide a strong platform representing all stakeholders in the European research sector.'

Holmer thanked Olivier for his contribution to efamro over the last seventeen years, and wished him well in the future. Olivier was one of the founding Board members of efamro in 1994, and become Director General in January 2005. He began his career in research with Unilever in 1973 and retired as CEO of Research International Netherlands in 2007. Latterly, he served as Senior VP of Business Development for Lightspeed Research, responsible for introducing online access and custom panel research programmes to both Kantar's and parent-company WPP's European clients.

Web site: www.efamro.eu .