Verve Promotes Seven, Hires to Support Waitrose Win

Community panels pioneer Verve has appointed Tesco veteran Simon Taylor as a Research Director leading its grocery specialism, supporting key client the John Lewis Partnership; and has announced seven promotions.

The John Lewis Partnership last year announced a five-year Partnership Plan, aiming to fully orientate around the customer, bring the John Lewis and Waitrose brands closer together and make them 'the UK's go-to brands for customers who want quality, value and sustainability'.

Verve, whose work for John Lewis is detailed in MrWeb's recent Communities supplement, has also recently won the Waitrose account, and will soon launch a combined community panel - extending the scale, capability and reach of the existing John Lewis community to include the Waitrose and John Lewis Finance brands.

Taylor (pictured below left) brings more than 30 years of retail expertise, including more than 25 at Tesco and five as Retail Director at boutique consultancy OKO.

Verve has also promoted six people in the UK: in the Research team, Lydia Burrell (below right) is promoted to Associate Director, Laura Chieri (top left) to Research Manager and Alice Virgo and Clara Boudet to Research Executive. In the Community Management team, Eugen Tuchendria has been promoted to Director, and Madalina Khan and Camelia-Diana to Community Manager.

Meanwhile in the US, Miranda Barenie (top right) has been promoted to Vice President.

Founder and CEO Andrew Cooper says the firm as enjoyed 'a very strong first half of the year' and comments: 'The promotions are very well deserved, and it's great to have Simon join us. We look forward to bringing on board further inspiring insight specialists as we continue to expand out our proposition to meet an ever-widening range of needs for our clients'.

Web site: www.addverve.com .