Ray Poynter Named as 2023-2024 ESOMAR Council President

ESOMAR today announced that Ray Poynter, Managing Director of the Future Place and founder of NewMR has been elected as the organisation’s new 2023-2024 Council President. Poynter will serve in his new position for two years, replacing Kristin Luck of ScaleHouse who has completed her two-year term and will now serve an additional two years in an ex-officio capacity.

Voting was conducted among ESOMAR Members from 23 February to 10 March 2023, outcomes of which included the selection of eight additional Council Members for the upcoming term. 

“As an ESOMAR Member for over 30 years, I'm passionate about the organization and am putting forward a program of two elements: continuity and reform,” said Poynter. “My vision is to help continue ESOMAR’s existing initiatives surrounding international expansion, greater inclusivity and accessibility, and partnerships with other industry organisations. In addition, I want ESOMAR to be an example of democracy and accountability, and to focus on boosting communication channels and serving both existing and future members.”

Ray Poynter is currently Chief Research Officer of Platform One and the Managing Director of The Future Place. His career has spanned more than 40 years in the market research industry, working in senior positions at companies such as Sandpiper, The Research Business, Intelliquest, Millward Brown, VirtualSurveys, Vision Critical and Potentiate. Poynter regularly shares his knowledge through participation in industry events, conferences, training workshops, and through his writing.

He is the author of The Handbook of Mobile Market Research, The Handbook of Online and Social Media Research, and more. He also serves as a content provider for The University of Georgia's MRII Mobile Market Research course and the Greenbook GRIT report. Poynter holds a master’s degree in Research Methodology from The Open University, Postgraduate Certificate of Education from Nottingham University, and a bachelor of science (honors) in Computer Science and Economics from Salford University. He is a Fellow of the Market Research Society and served as an ESOMAR Council Member from 2018-2021. 

Also serving on the 2023-2024 Council are the newly elected representatives who hail from Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America. Out of 19 candidates, the eight who were elected to serve are: 

• Alina Serbanica, PhD - Senior Vice President, Ipsos, Romania

• Jean-Marc Léger - President, Leger, Market Research and Analytics, Canada

• Tom De Ruyck - Chief Growth Officer & Managing Partner at Human8, Belgium

• Martha Llobet - Founder, Q2Q Global, Spain

• Dr Liubov Ruchinskaya - Global Consumer Insights Director, Electrolux, Switzerland

• Corrine Moy - Consultant, Marketing & Data Science, United Kingdom

• Dharmendra Jain - Operations Director, Kantar, Kenya

• Alain Mizrahi - CEO, Grupo RADAR, Uruguay

  
  

  
  Current ESOMAR President, Kristin Luck, commented, “It gives me great pleasure to welcome such an experienced and passionate group of ESOMAR Members to the Council. We are an association that is ‘powered by peers’ and I look forward to working closely with Ray and the incoming Council in my role as ex-officio/past-President, to ensure that ESOMAR is truly future proof.” 

  
  

  ESOMAR has a membership of more than 11,000 individual professionals and over 750 companies which provide or commission data analytics and research in more than 130 countries. Its ICC/ESOMAR International Code provides a universal professional standard for the global research, insights and data industry, and its Council is responsible for providing the strategic vision of ESOMAR and management of its executive arm.