The leadership team
The minds that drive our business forward!
Frédéric-Charles Petit
Chief Executive
Frédéric-Charles Petit is the Founder and Chief Executive of Toluna plc. He holds a Masters degree in comparative jurisprudence from New York University and a diploma in advanced studies in international economic law from the Sorbonne in Paris (D. E. A.). He practiced as a French lawyer in the corporate department of Allen & Overy’s Paris office, before establishing Toluna in May 2000.
Jim Fredrickson
Group Chief Operations Officer
Jim joined Toluna as Group Chief Operations Officer in December 2011. The appointment emphasizes Toluna’s ongoing commitment to providing high-quality survey data and a superior client experience. His industry background, commitment to quality, and deep understanding of client needs will benefit clients across the world. Jim most recently held the position of President, North America at IPSOS Interactive Services where he had responsibility for all of the online market research conducted in North America. Prior to working at IPSOS, Jim spent more than 20 years at Harris Interactive, and held the title of Executive Vice President, Global Research Operations. During his tenure at Harris, Jim was responsible for a number of initiatives, including the globalization of Operations and the development of the online market research capabilities. He holds a Bachelors of Science Degree in Math and Computer Science from the State University of New York College at Brockport. Jim has been active in numerous industry organizations including those that are involved in promoting the overall quality of online data collection.
Mikael Tiano
Chief Financial Officer
Mikael joined Toluna in May of 2010. Mikael serves as the company’s Chief Financial Officer and comes to us with over 25 years of international and finance experience. Mikael has held senior financial roles within the telecom branch of Vivendi, specifically as the Chief Financial Officer of the network and IT branch, and similar positions at SFR-Cegetel Group Morocco Telecom, and at the Seb Group. Mikael started his career in the banking industry at BNP Paribas then worked for the finance division of Danone Group before joining Ernst Young Advisory Servises in charge of the finance sector in Paris. His academic background include a MBA from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and a Master in economics from the University of Paris.
George H. Terhanian, Ph.D.
President, North America and Group Chief Strategy Officer
George Terhanian is Toluna’s North American President and Group Chief Strategy Officer. He is a member of the board of directors of the Advertising Research Foundation as well. Through the years, he has also served on committees or advisory groups for organizations such as the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research, the US Department of Education (USDE), the British Polling Council, and the American Social Health Association.
Prior to joining Toluna in 2011, Dr. Terhanian served in a variety of roles for nearly fourteen years at Harris Interactive, including President, Global Solutions; President, Harris Interactive Europe; and President, Global Internet Research. He also oversaw the Harris Poll.
Earlier in his career, Terhanian taught in elementary and secondary schools and worked briefly in the Inspector General’s Office of the USDE. He also served an appointment as an American Educational Research Association (AERA) Fellow at the National Center for Educational Statistics, and received a dissertation fellowship from the AERA.
Dr. Terhanian received a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, an Ed.M. from Harvard University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Haverford College. His methodological expertise lies in the design and analysis of multi-mode studies.
John Bremer
Chief Research Officer
John Bremer joined as Toluna’s Chief Research Officer in April 2011. Before joining Toluna, Bremer served as Chief Research Officer at Compete, Inc., a Kantar Media company. Prior to working at Compete, John worked for Harris Interactive. His work has consisted of research into all areas of representativeness. He has specialized, however, in areas of non-probability sampling, rare populations, selection bias, and online survey research. He is most well known for having developed the proprietary propensity score weighting technique utilized by Harris, as well as producing successful election forecasts in the US in 2000-2008 and in the UK in 2005-2010. In addition, he co-directed the Harris Center for Innovation.Previously, John was a senior research assistant to Dr. James Heckman, specializing in selection bias issues. Projects John worked on were cited in awarding Professor Heckman the 2000 Nobel Prize in Economics. John was also a research associate at the advertising agency DDB Needham in their Analytical Resources Group. John received his BAs in statistics, mathematical economic analysis, and public policy from Rice University in Houston, T X, where he was also an NCAA Division I Academic All-American swimmer. He was awarded an MS in statistics from the University of Chicago. Later John returned to the University of Chicago to obtain his MBA. He was awarded an MA and is ABD in political science from the University of Rochester receiving high passes on his qualifying exams in American Politics, Econometrics and Positive Theory. He is a professional member of the American Statistical Association.
Currently, John is co-chairing the CASRO Online Research Conference, to be held in March of 2012. John is featured monthly in the Market Research Bulletin’s SURVEY Magazine. John also sits on the Research-on-Research Committee for the Advertising Research Foundation‘s Research Quality Council as well as the American Statistical Association’s Survey Review Committee.
Philippe Guilbert
Senior Vice President Quality and Innovation, General Manager France
Philippe Guilbert joined Toluna in 2007 as Sr VP in charge of Quality and Innovation. Philippe defines Toluna’s new product development strategy. Before Toluna, he was Scientific Director of several TOP10 French Market Research institutes (BVA, CSA, TN Sofres). He has a diploma in advanced statistics (ENSAE) and economic sciences (Paris I university).
Frank Smadja
Senior Vice President of Research & Development
Frank is Senior VP R&D at Toluna where he is leading the R&D effort spearheaded by the social voting site toluna.com. Frank’s experience lies in text analysis and communities. Before joining Toluna, he co-founded RawSugar a social bookmarking start-up that pioneered faceted search based on user tags. Prior to that, Frank worked at Bellcore, Lehman Brothers and several start-ups where he was responsible for solving a multitude of business problems using a selection of unique and fun technologies. Frank’s credits include multiple patents, refereed publications, book chapters and speaking engagements at leading conferences, a recent paper can be found here http://www.toluna-group.com/us/news/fs-speak/. He earned his PhD and MSc in Computer Science from Columbia University, NY.
Mark Simon
UK Managing Director and Global Leader,Technology Practice
Mark is the UK Managing Director and runs the Global Technology Practice. The group’s responsibilities include enterprise community solutions (PanelPortal) through to self-service micro-payment polling tools such as QuickSurveys. Before joining Toluna as a founding member of the UK business in 2005, Mark worked for Greenfield Online, a pioneer in internet research (and subsequently acquired by Toluna in 2009). Prior to joining the internet research revolution he had 8 years experience in data planning and direct marketing. Mark has a degree in Business Economics and French from Southampton University.
Val Karruck
Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing
Val joined Toluna in June 2005, bringing with him a wealth of experience gained in executive positions in high growth organisations. His global online research, media, technology and services expertise helps Toluna to focus on building long-term client relationships and successfully meet clients’ requirements. Val holds an Honours degree in Electronics from UMIST in the UK.
Michael Anderson
Head of Sales, North America
Michael Anderson is Head of Sales for Toluna North America. In his role, he is responsible for overseeing the company’s North American sales effort. Michael joined Toluna (formerly Greenfield Online) in 2003 as Senior Director, Major Accounts and was tasked with heading up some of Toluna’s key client relationships. In this role, Michael was influential in creating sales and service teams that worked together, in partnership, to improve the level of service and, in turn, increase revenues and client loyalty. The model he developed is in use today. Michael has an MBA, Finance and a B.S., Mathematics both from Fairfield University.
Peter Shafer
Senior Vice President, Enterprise Solutions
Peter Shafer joined Toluna as Senior Vice President, Enterprise Solutions in April 2011. Most recently, Peter served as CEO of KRC Research. In this role he was responsible for KRC’s strategic plan and business operations, specifically focused on new business development, research innovation, talent acquisition and client management. Shafer comes to Toluna with more than 20 years of industry experience having held marketing and sales leadership positions at the Gallup Organization, and Harris Interactive. Peter spent 12 years in various senior public affairs positions with several DC-based organizations. He is the author of two books relating to public affairs measurement and has written numerous articles published in a variety of journals, periodicals and major newspapers. Peter has a BA in Political Science from Washington College and currently serves on the Washington College Alumni Council as head of the Strategic Planning Committee. In addition, he has a Masters in Marketing from the University of Maryland.
Nitin Patel
Senior Vice President of Engineering for Enterprise Products
Nitin Patel is a Senior Vice President of Engineering for Enterprise Products at Toluna centered around Toluna’s leading Unified Panel System and industry recognized AutomateSurvey and PanelPortal platforms. Nitin is an expert at building enterprise class systems using small, highly efficient teams in multiple locations including off-shore development. Nitin joined the Toluna team as part of the acquisition of Greenfield Online and made significant contributions to the global panel and survey fulfillment integration of the companies in record industry time. Prior to Toluna, Nitin has held key management positions building enterprise systems at JDA Software (Retail Marketing Software), Engage (Internet Advertising Platform, PictureTel (Desktop Video Conferencing Systems). Nitin earned his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Northeastern University and attend Boston University for his Masters in Software Engineering.
Mathilde Lelievre
Vice President, Global Operations
Mathilde is Vice President of Global Operations at Toluna where she leads the global Client Services team. Mathilde joined Toluna in 2005 and grew her team from 3 employees in a single location to 400+ team members worldwide, servicing revenues which have grown to £49 million (2009). In her position, Mathilde has been instrumental in defining and implementing the company’s operations strategy, and has been actively involved in the due diligence and integration of three acquisitions. Before joining Toluna, Mathilde held positions at the CEFC, or French Centre for Research on Contemporary China, and more recently Ciao Surveys. She obtained a BA in International Relations and Master in Political Sciences studies, receiving a bilingual diploma and speaks four languages.
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