Manon Allen

Research Manager

Before joining us, Manon was an analyst at a polling startup, primarily serving government and non-profit clients. Before that, she was an editor at GRI, a leading global political analysis publication. She has a BA in History and Politics and an MPhil in Political Science from Cambridge.
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Justin Ibbett

Founder and CEO

Justin is a pioneer of the use of AI within quantitative research. He’s a seasoned campaigner and product specialist who has worked with clients from ABinBev to HM Cabinet Office and everywhere in between. He holds an MPA from LSE and Columbia, where he focused on Bayesian statistics and machine learning.
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Ed Keller

Senior Advisor

Ed is one of the foremost experts in consumer insights, supporting our US expansion as well as other strategic client initiatives. He has over 35 years of experience in the market research industry, including as CEO of several leading insight agencies. Ed has been inducted into the Market Research Council Hall of Fame.
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Mousom Dhar Gupta

VP Engineering

Mousom leads our engineering team. He has 16+ years of experience leading cross-functional teams and building and shipping large distributed systems for Amazon, Meta, AirBnB and Stripe.
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Alicia Barbe

Product Manager

Alicia partners with our engineering team on key product initiatives and supports our self-serve clients using the platform. She previously worked for the Royal Society of Arts helping to grow and diversity their fellowship community. She has a BA in Liberal Arts from the University of Warwick.
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Daniel Robertson

Senior Advisor

Dan leads our growth in Canada. He is a comms leader with over 30 years experience in government and advising corporate and non-profits. He has served as the Canadian PM's Director of Strategic Communications. For public services, he was awarded the Queen's Diamond and Platinum Jubilee medals.
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Peter Logg

Senior Software Engineer

Peter is a lead backend engineer at Focaldata. Peter was part of Focaldata’s team that delivered MRP analysis during the 2019 General Election. Before Focaldata, Peter was a data scientist at Photobox, an online photo company (owner of Moonpig). Peter has a PhD in condensed matter physics from the University of Cambridge, and an MSci in theoretical physics from Imperial College London.
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James Kanagasooriam

Chief Research Officer

James was Head of Analytics at Populus and founded a polling startup before joining Focaldata. Along the way, he's advised political and business leaders from around the world on public opinion and society – and originated the concept of the "Red Wall".
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Thea Barnes

Research Analyst

Thea is a data analyst in our research team. She previously held a data science role at martech startup Ocula Technologies. She has an MEng in Engineering Mathematics from the University of Bristol.
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George Pinder

Head of Data Services

George heads up our data services group. George is a winner of the MRS Advanced Certificate in Market and Social Research Practice Award. He previously worked as a senior researcher at ICM Unlimited. George has a BA in Human, Social and Political Sciences (HSPS) from Cambridge.
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Oliver Sheinwald

COO

Ollie has 12+ years experience building products and scaling consulting teams. Before Focaldata, he was Head of Strategy and Product at S-RM, £70m+ revenue global cyber and intelligence consultancy for Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 businesses.
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Alexandra Jonsson (AJ)

BizOps Manager

AJ is our Business Operations Manager. Prior to joining, AJ worked in similar commercial and people focused roles across other startups and professional services organisations. She is originally from South Africa and completed her studies in Psychology at the University of Pretoria

Anna Bayley

Research Manager

Anna is part of our data services group. Before joining Focaldata, she previously worked at IFF Research where she specialised in delivery of large quantitative projects. Anna has a BSc in Psychology from the University of Birmingham.

Olivia Brookes

Research Executive

Olivia is part of our research team. She was previously a junior research executive at consumer and business insight firm BVA BDRC. She has an MSc in Applied Psychology and Economic Behaviour and a BSc in Neuroscience from Cardiff University.
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Luke Harris

Senior Software Engineer

Luke works in our AI-native product group. Before Focaldata Luke has spent over 6 years in the financial sector building core banking systems, payments hardware and trading platforms. His experience spans startups, scale-ups and large corporations including Thought Machine, and TradingView.

Sophia Ring

Senior Research Executive

Sophia is part of our Research Services team. Before joining Focaldata, she worked in the policy and public affairs team at Portland Communications. She has an MSc in Politics & Human Rights from the London School of Economics.

Shailen Patel

Software Engineer

Shailen joined Focaldata straight after graduating from the University of Cambridge with a MEng in Engineering specialising in Information and Computer Engineering. He was part of the original team that built our quantitative research platform.
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Slava Karnaukh

Frontend Tech Lead

Slava is the frontend tech lead at Focaldata. Based in Ukraine, Slava has 9+ years experience in product development and software engineering. He has an MSc in Economic Cybernetics from the Kyiv National Economic University.
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Vlad Pandur

Senior Research Executive

Vlad is part of the data services group. He has 5+ years in market research, delivering hundreds of projects in that time. Before Focaldata, he worked for Belgian market research agency InSites Consulting. Vlad has a BSc in Psychology from the West University of Timisoara in Romania, where he was also employed as a research assistant.
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Mariya Hristova

People + Operations Lead

Mariya ensures each person at Focaldata has everything they need to do the best work of their careers. She’s helped scale several businesses and startups including recent people and talent roles at remote work firm Hofy and livestreaming service Twitch (part of Amazon).
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Ben Lobo

Data Scientist

Ben is one of the leading MRP specialists in the UK. He has a PhD in MRP from Royal Holloway, University of London and an MA in Social and Political Theory from the University of East Anglia. He previously worked in data analysis at Populus for three years.
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Adelina Badea

Software Engineer

Adelina is part of our AI native product group. Before Focaldata, she worked as a software development engineer at Amazon for two years. She has a BSc in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh.

Oli Richardson

Product Manager

Oli works in our AI-native product group. Before Focaldata, he was a senior product designer and then product manager at the food delivery company Gousto, building tools to help manage weekly menus for their 5 million customers. Oli also previously worked at Accenture in public service and innovation teams. He has a BA in History from the University of Bristol.
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Adam Higgins

Machine Learning Intern

Adam is working on Focaldata's MRP capabilities. He joined from the University of York where he was awarded a PhD in Mathematics. Before his PhD, Adam completed a Masters of Mathematics at the University of Oxford

Iordanis Paschalidis

Software Engineer

Iordanis hold a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Hertfordshire. He worked at Shell, where he contributed to their electric vehicle charging solution and at Curve where he worked on the launch of their US product.

Guy Miscampbell

Head of Political and Social Research

Guy leads our Political and Social research team. He has previously worked as a Special Adviser in 10 Downing Street and the Department for Education, run data operations for the 2021 Canadian federal election campaign, and over the last decade has worked across think-tanks, legislatures, and governments in three countries.

Kiran Shahzad

Software Engineer

Kiran has joined Focaldata's core quant research platform as a Software Engineer. She has previously worked across fintech including UBS, BlackRock and Vitol in either a Backend or Full-Stack Engineer capacity. She has a BSc(Eng) in Information and Communication Technologies from Queen Mary University of London.

Nate Roundy

Data Scientist

Nate is a data scientist in our research group. Before Focaldata, they were a social sciences researcher and academic. Nate was awarded an MPhil and then PhD in Politics and International Relations from the University of Cambridge. While there, they conducted original mixed-method research in collaboration with the Cambridge-YouGov Centre for Public Opinion Research. Nate was also a graduate teaching assistant in research methods at UCL.

Nate Higgins

Senior Software Engineer

Nate has 10+ years experience building web applications using modern tech stacks. His experience spans startups, digital agencies, and major companies like The Times. Nate is actively involved in public service and serves as a local councillor in east London for the Green Party.
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Gokul Chandrasekaran

Senior Software Engineer

Gokul has 10+ years experience as a software engineer working in India, Australia and now the UK. He previously co-founded a martech startup in Sydney. Gokul has also worked as an instructor at General Assembly, where he mentored the next generation of software professionals.
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Cristina Miclea

Design Lead

Cristina leads design at Focaldata. She was a programme manager at C40 Cities, a global network of cities committed to confronting climate change. She has a BSc in Psychology from UCL and an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London.
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Aaron Conway

Senior Software Engineer

Aaron is a frontend engineer at Focaldata. He previously worked at healthtech startup Thriva Health as well as co-hosting his own podcast called The Third Wheel. He has an MEng in Computer Science from the University of Warwick.
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Evie Christiansen

Machine Learning Engineer

Evie was previously an applied scientist in machine learning research at the digital identity startup Onfido and a former fellow at Fellowship.ai, a leading ML programme. She has a MSc in Computing Science from Imperial College London and a BSc in Physics with Theoretical Physics from King’s College London.
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James Large

Machine Learning Engineer

James is part of our new product group. He previously worked as an ML engineer at the fintech startup AlfaIQ. Before that he was a research associate at the University of East Anglia where he was awarded his PhD in Computer Science.
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Calin Luca

Senior Research Executive

Luca Petru-Calin is a member of Data Services team. He has worked in the the market research industry for over 15 years for companies such as Toluna, Dynata and Insites-Consulting. He is originally from Transilvania.

Huey Lai

Software Engineer

Huey is a software engineer whose experience spans startups and large organisations such as JP Morgan and AWS. Prior to joining Focaldata, she founded her own company to provide high quality STEM education and mentorship to students worldwide. She has a BA in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge.
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Sam Williams

Senior Research Executive

Sam is part of our data services group. He is a former project manager at Savanta and worked as a strategic governance executive for education consultancy Strictly Education. He has a MSc in Social Research from Birkbeck, University of London.
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Andrei Prodaniuc

Software Engineer

Andrei is a frontend engineer at Focaldata. Based on Timisoara, Romania, he has 8+ years experience in software development. Andrei has a MEng in Computer Software Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Timisoara.
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Matt Chennells

Research Manager

Matt is a research manager in our research and analytics group. Originally from South Africa, he’s held various academic and consulting roles in the UK and RSA, including as an associate at the economic consultancy Genesis Analytics. He has a PhD in Philosophy and an MSc in Behavioural and Economic Science (University of Warwick) and an MCom in Economics (University of Cape Town).