Fiona Blades — President’s Farewell 2024
Dear MRC Members,
I am delighted to have this opportunity to send you one last letter before I pass the torch to Steven Snell, your new MRC President!
I have had a phenomenal two years as President and am incredibly grateful for this opportunity and to the 2023-24 Executive Committee members: Anne Brown, Simon Chadwick, Sandra Grandsoult, Jeff Haselum, Susan Hogan, Steven Snell, Erin Sowell, and Monica Wood. A particular thank you to Sandra, Simon and Monica as they transition off the Exec this year, and to Rosemarie Sharpe for her guidance of the MRC over many years as our Administrative Director.
In reflecting back over this time, the word Transformation springs to mind for the MRC. In 2020, the entire world lived through an extraordinary catalyst event – the pandemic. Like other organizations, we had no choice but to embrace virtual meetings. It was time to transform. One of the first things we realized was that our new virtual world enabled geographic expansion. Keeping true to MRC criteria for membership – our members are all achievers in their fields – we embraced geographic diversity inviting industry leaders from Europe, Asia, South America and beyond. This year we have hosted events in other countries, such as the luncheon in a private room at The Bleeding Heart, before the MRS conference in London, kindly sponsored by Jane Frost, CBE (MRC member) and the MRS. I have been delighted to meet MRC members at IIEX Amsterdam and Quirks NYC in the last month and hope to see some of you at ESOMAR Congress in Greece in September.
Event Programming has also transformed. We cover politics, AI, international research and more. We also launched MRC’s Meet the Author series, chaired by J. Walker Smith. Walker has hosted Fred John, Dr Rachel Lawes, Diane Hessan and Mark Earls this past year, reviewing content of their books as well as how those various topics impact our industry–all shared in intimate, members-only meetings capped at 20 people.
The MRC Hall of Fame was our most recent event. Monica Wood and the Hall of Fame Committee worked tirelessly to build on learnings and successes from 2023 (our first year in-person, post-Covid Hall of Fame event). We had a record number of candidates nominated for the four awards, and tickets were sold out nearly two months prior to the July 19th event! Kantar’s spectacular space was a fitting place to celebrate our industry-leading honorees:
● Steve Schlesinger – Current Practitioner
● Ira Schloss – Legacy Practitioner
● Steven Millman – Change Maker
● Pamela Forbus – Research Ambassador
Congratulations to each honoree! And a very big thank you to our sponsors: Kantar, Dynata, Repdata, Sago, Sunrise to Sunset Travel (Ira Schloss’s company) and Wordibly. And a big thank you to all who joined in person. For those unable to make it, we have plenty of photos on the MRC website — and we hope to see you at this leadership event next year!
MRC Emerging Leaders membership is my final, and most important, mention of our transformation initiatives. Created to help mentor, shape and encourage up-and-coming leaders in the Insights industry, the individuals who been accepted to the MRC Emerging Leaders team are working to establish their own distinguished careers and are certainly breathing new life into our organization. We also have a committee dedicated to creating an MRC Executive Leadership Program. If we are putting customers and insight at the heart of organizations, we need people in our industry with extraordinary leadership skills. A number of client-side members are working on this committee.
Please click here to see the introduction our MRC Emerging Leaders prepared, which also showcases what they are bringing to our organization. Some of the individuals you’ll meet in this video will be welcomed as full MRC members this year. They are inspiring. Please volunteer to mentor an emerging leader and consider whether there is an emerging leader in your own network who you’d like to nominate as Emerging Leaders (click here to sign up for mentorship and request a nominations form).
I hope these transformations instill optimism. Both the emerging leaders and all of our members who are tackling the challenges in this highly transformative and evolving space are leaned-in and hands-on.
Mark Your Calendar for August 23 @ 12:30PM ET (5:30PM UK) for our kick off event of the 2024-25 year. Our Meet the Author (MTA) series, hosted by J. Walker Smith, features celebrated author, speaker, and Black American SME, Pepper Miller. The discussion will center on Pepper’s newest book, Let Me Explain Black, Again: Exploring Blind Spots and Black Insights for Marketing to Understand Black Culture and Perspectives. This is a live virtual event. Please RSVP to Rosemarie at info@mrcouncil.org.
THANK YOU for the wonderful opportunity to serve as MRC President. You have been incredibly welcoming to me, supportive of the changes we have made and guided me in the direction we have taken. Working with such luminaries is an honor, finding new friends is a deep pleasure. I look forward to seeing you all as I take on my new Past President responsibilities.
You are in good hands with Steve! Over to you, Steve…
With best wishes for a happy and healthy summer…see you soon!
Fiona Blades
Outgoing President
Market Research Council
