Kantar appoints two new global leaders
Two new senior team members have joined Kantar. Chuck Brinker and Christoph Haschka arrive at the professional services firm, as it looks to grow its brand guidance and mergers and acquisitions offerings.
Kantar Group is a British professional services firm which was founded in 1992. It has more than 30,000 employees working in 100 countries. The firm has been working to expand the expertise of its global leadership in recent months, with a string of hires – including new CEO Chris Jansen.
As the firm continues to prepare for its next phase of growth, Kantar has named two new global leaders. Chuck Brinker will lead the strategically important brand guidance product team, while Christoph Haschka arrives to head up mergers and acquisitions.
Commenting on the appointment, Kantar’s Deputy CEO and Chief Financial Officer Ian Griffiths said, “Chuck’s expertise in building AI- and ML-infused applications and making analytics more user-friendly will be key in further advancing our innovation agenda and delivering more valuable insights to our clients… Christoph will head up our group M&A team and lead our inorganic growth agenda. Christoph brings us deep experience across the TMT landscape and track record of generating and closing M&A transactions.”
Brinker will join from September 2021, and will report to Ted Prince, Kantar’s Chief Product Officer. He brings 20 years of professional services experience to the firm, having most recently worked as Vice President in market research solutions with Survey Monkey. There he was responsible for the launch and management of the market research product suite, which became its fastest growing business. Brinker previously also spent five years with Edelman as Senior Vice President of its insights business in Chicago, supporting clients like Adobe, Disney and Starbucks.
Commenting on his new role, Brinker said, “Kantar’s brand guidance portfolio has an almost iconic position in the marketing landscape. With its transformation journey well underway, I look forward to joining the team, and delivering a new level of insights and analytics that take advantage of advanced analytics and simulation engines, deeper data integration and greater platform flexibility.”
Haschka meanwhile joins Kantar with immediate effect, and will report to Deputy CEO Griffith. He has previously led and executed transactions across the globe, and worked with global media and telecoms companies as well as entrepreneurs. He spent several years as an independent consultant, but most recently, he was Group CEO of The Food Solutions Group, which he built through a number of acquisitions combined with organic growth.
He remarked, “The transformation taking place at Kantar over the past two years has helped it establish a reputation as one of the most dynamic enterprise in the media and insights space. Its recent acquisitions illustrate the ambition of the company, and I look forward to building on those successes by identifying and bringing in new capabilities and expertise and working with the team globally.”
