Joining our London office is Steve Heron. He’ll be coming on as our Head of Qualitative Research. Rather than writing a biography, we thought that it would be great to hear from Steve himself in an interview

1. How did you get started in Market Research? What path brought you to Face?
Well it all began as a designer where I was always focused on figuring out what was important for the end user in order to make sure we helped our clients create experiences that were usable, useful and delightful. These skills transferred easily across into more brand and marketing focused challenges as my career developed.

So having a background with strong design, brand, innovation and research experience meant I was looking for a company that also wants to be meaningfully different from the competition, and to be recognized by the clients as the company to come to when they have a challenge and don’t know where to start – this sounds like Face.

2. What’s your favourite type of research?
It really has to be a combination of Co-creative and immersive in-depths. It’s driven by curiosity to discover what it is that people really want to do as opposed to just listening to what they say they might do.

3. What do you think a multi-disciplined team brings to a research problem?

Simple, a multi-disciplined team brings a wide range of expertise, ideas and challenging opinions to the problems we face today and in the future. It keeps our thinking fresh and allows us to embrace change.

4. What do you think is the most exciting development in the MR world?
It’s the consultancy that can combine both highly creative research techniques with a Design thinking approach who will deliver the greatest value to clients – it’s about having the ability to understand where insights (not just find me the killer insight) lead to identifying business opportunities and how we can work with consumers, clients and agency partners to turn these opportunities into actionable ideas for brands, products and services.

5. What do you do when not coming up with useful insights for clients?
Well if it’s not day dreaming around designing my ideal house in my head – it would have to be getting lost out on the hills and in the woods on my mountain bike.