Leading global market research company Ipsos Australia today announced the appointment of Shaan Tainton as its new head of business consulting, as the division looks to grow in the Australian market.

In her new role, Tainton will be responsible for developing a sustainable stream of client engagement in the agribusiness, healthcare/meditech, industrial, construction and automotive sectors and will build the Australian team of consulting specialists.

Ipsos Business Consulting is a specialist consulting division of Ipsos. It provides companies with strategies for evaluating business unit performance, advice for driving expansion and growth in new and emerging markets and formulating fact-driven plans to drive successful sales and marketing campaigns.

Tainton has more than 20 years’ expertise in business change through customer research insights. She is a specialist in the areas of building customer, employee and stakeholder engagement having worked at senior levels with a number of respected organisations such as HSBC Bank, IBM, Microsoft, Pfizer, Rolls-Royce, BP, London Police Force and the FBI.

She has held several senior executive positions with Synovate, Sirota Consulting in New York and Assessment & Development Consultants in London. In early 2001, Tainton founded Behavioural Insight in New York, as a full service marketing and business insights consultancy.

Her career has focused on helping organisations align and strengthen customer engagement to improve business performance, supported by a collaborative management style to enable facilitation of change at the ground level utilising behavioural psychology, organisational development, anthropology and marketing science.

She has professional qualifications in industrial organisational psychology, counselling, applied organisational research and group facilitation.

“Ipsos Business Consulting has been active in the Australian market since the acquisition of Perth-based Market Equity in 2005,” Ipsos Business Consulting CEO Peter Snell said.

“We are now relaunching our Business Consulting practice in Sydney under new leadership and will be building our consulting team to service the major markets. We are fortunate to have secured Shaan, a very experienced professional, who was previously with Ipsos in the US, to lead our team.

“The Australian economy is changing and many companies will need the specialist business-to-business services Ipsos Business Consulting provides to help them build, compete and grow their operations, both domestically and overseas and particularly in Asia, where there are many untapped opportunities.”

Commenting on her new role, Tainton said, “I’m very excited to be joining the Business Consulting offering in Australia and helping to grow the team here.

“Australian companies are in a unique and valuable position for growth in this market but also in Asia where the opportunities are vast. I look forward to working with our Australian clients and growing the Australian footprint.”