mindline Hires Five Former Happy Thinking People

Full service research agency mindline has appointed five former execs from consultancy Happy Thinking People, for its new Berlin-based qual unit mindline explore.

The company now has more than 150 employees across its three offices in Hamburg, Berlin and Nuremberg. Its mindline explore division specialises in psychological and cultural understanding of people, brands, markets, products and media - both through qual standalone projects and integrated qual/quant research designs.

Oliver Schieleit (pictured) takes the role of Head of Qualitative Research and will be responsible for the entire mindline explore team, which comprises twelve researchers at the firm's HQ in Hamburg as well as the five new execs in Berlin. In addition to the operational management of the team, Schieleit will be responsible for the continuous development of the mindline explore qual toolbox and will also support the further development and promotion of combined qual/quant studies for the mindline group. Schieleit previously spent more than eleven years at Happy Thinking People (acquired by InSites earlier this year, prior to its rebrand as Human8).

In his new role, Schieleit will be supported by former Happy Thinking People senior researchers Iris Korsten, Lilli Mix, Thomas Ludzinski and Claudia Antoni, who will join at the beginning of October. This team brings experience in cultural understanding, strategy and innovation, and qual/quant studies. Antje Gollnick, MD of mindline and mindline explore, comments: 'With Oliver, Claudia, Iris, Lilli and Thomas, we are further strengthening our expertise for large-scale international qualitative research, a competence that mindline has been successfully demonstrating for our customers in quantitative research for many years'.

Web sites: www.mindline.de and www.mindline-explore.de .