Our Management Team
With over 20 years of experience in the global marketing industry, Russ has led the marketing efforts for many Fortune 500 companies, growing their brands and agency compensation along the way. He was most recently the Executive Vice President at Saatchi & Saatchi. He has often been quoted and published in industry trades due to his foresight in marketing audience trends and agency and marketer needs.
Russ had a vision while finishing the third leg of his overseas assignment in Japan at J. Walter Thompson: brand idea value will come from a leader that has real multidiscipline strategy expertise. Expertise and insight that is gained by working within, not just “around”, various marketing disciplines. His vision was to work in these various disciplines to gain real knowledge of their intricacies and how each one works to build a brand, separately and together.
With over twenty years of brand planning and research experience, Kirsty’s unique blend of strategic brand building/marketing expertise combined with a refreshing, expertly-honed exploratory moderating approach has established her as a pioneer of Qualitative Strategy®. The result is truly insightful and actionable answers to address business/marketing challenges.
Kirsty left her native, England, in 1991 to come to the US. She was an official member of the so-called “90’s British Ad Planning Invasion”. In 2001, Kirsty left advertising to form Affini, LLC, a Global Qualitative Research Company. In 2015, Kirsty formed Parkel Navigation Group with Russ Parkel, an expert in and pioneer of brand navigation. This unique collaboration allows Qualitative Strategy® to realize its optimal opportunity as an integral input to brand and product idea development.