Verve Ramps Up Recruitment in London

London-based research panel and online community specialist Verve has expanded its team with the appointment of five client-facing members of staff.

Verve was launched in 2008 by the founders of Research Now, Hall & Partners and the iD Factor - Andrew Cooper, Mike Hall and Jon Gumbrell. Last month, the firm closed a £0.75m round of funding.

Since then, it has hired Karen Alexander and Sallie Furness as Senior Research Executives, Claire Long as Senior Community Manager, Julie Agbonifo as Community Manager, and Lysbeth Plas as Qualitative Research Executive.

Alexander joins from Kantar Media, where she worked across a range of qual and quant projects in the media sector, and also on the community panel of a major daily newspaper. Earlier, she worked at Facts International and BMRB.

Most recently, Furness worked at Hall and Partners, prior to which, she held qual and quant roles at FreshMinds and Ipsos, and was a Market Analyst with national charity the Shaw Trust.

Long, who has previously worked at Nielsen, Kantar and TPoll, most recently served as Quality Manager for multi-country healthcare community panels at P\S\L.

For the past six years, Plas has worked as a freelance translator, prior to which, she was a translator at Flamingo International.

The five join recent recruits: Community Panel Managers Susanna Pecyna, Patricia Pinakova and Poppy Taylor; Quality Assurance Manager Ade Oshunbade; and Survey Scripter Rafael Portas.

Cooper says: 'We are very excited about the opportunities for community panels in 2013 and are focused on building a strong team ready to take on the challenge.'

Web site: www.addverve.com .