Verve Opens Innovation Centre in Australia

Community panels and smart digital research firm Verve is to open a Global Centre of Research Innovation in Sydney, Australia, and has appointed Dan Alexander-Head to lead it.

The Centre will develop new propositions as well as rolling out existing innovations to new markets. One of these will be an ESG / Sustainability proposition, in which Verve says it has made a significant investment, and which is being developed for global roll-out by Alexander-Head and Executive Director Anna Williams.

The Centre will also bring to Australia Verve's offerings for Culture & Trends, Semiotics, Social Intelligence and Innovation, overseen by recently appointed Executive Director Kelly McKnight, who comments: 'Clients understand the world is changing and that traditional research can't keep up. Our expertise in people and culture research, powered by our future-consumer network and AI technology, enable us to understand and innovate for tomorrow's lifestyles. Australia is at the cutting edge of this work'.

The firm opened a Global Centre of Research Excellence in Johannesburg at the end of last year, and CEO and founder Andrew Cooper comments: 'Our organic growth model is being developed around a single global team approach - bringing the best of our skills in each of our territories and rolling these out across our markets in a truly joined-up way. We avoid the limitations of 'not invented here' as our propositions are invented everywhere and, as such, are sensitive to the local needs of the diverse markets we operate in'.

Alexander-Head (pictured), who joined Verve's partner company Potentiate in autumn 2020 as Director of Innovation, worked previously in a sales role at Qualtrics, and before that for nine years at Vision Critical (now Alida). He says of the launch: 'Having our Global Centre of Research Innovation based in Australia is also a sign of our intent to bring to the market the best of local talent and global learning and expertise - to give the local client something new and (hopefully!) inspiring to consider'.

Web site: www.addverve.com .