Practice Leaders

Tony Coulson, Group Vice President, Public Affairs

Tony Coulson works on policy and communications research with clients at the international, national, provincial and local levels. This includes issue and communications studies ranging from assessing public knowledge, attitudes and (reported) behaviors on a given topic through to audience segmentation, message development, and communications testing.  Much of this work is undertaken in support of efforts to raise public awareness or manage organizational reputations.

Tony’s clients have included federal, provincial and local governments, professional associations and regulatory bodies, as well as NGO and private sector clients.  A few examples of recent projects include:

• Assisting a professional association with a strategy to expand its membership base while maintaining current members;
• Conducting brand and logo testing for a crown corporation;
• Assisting a provincial government to understand retention and attrition in a key occupational sector;
• Conducting public surveys as well as expert, student, parent and community consultations as input to an anti-gang communications effort;
• Extensive work in relation to health-related social marketing;
• A major research program to understand public knowledge and attitudes toward public service delivery and privatization; and
• Many studies to assess citizen and stakeholder perceptions of government performance.

Tony has graduate degrees in political science and business administration along with nearly twenty years of experience in policy, research and communications.

Email Tony Coulson, Group Vice-President, Public Affairs, or reach him at 403-613-5735 or 613-230-5089

Derek Leebosh, Vice President, Public Affairs

Derek Leebosh has over 20 years experience as a specialist in public affairs research. He has led both qualitative and quantitative projects for various provincial and federal government departments, charities, advocacy groups, industry associations, trade unions and private sector clients. He is the lead qualitative researcher within the Environics public affairs group having moderated over 2,000 focus groups in both English and French across Canada and internationally.

Derek’s particular areas of expertise include health promotion and social marketing, social policy, consumer issues and testing of creative materials and communications strategies. Recently he has conducted research on such topics as:  ad testing among teenagers for the National Anti-Drug Strategy, perceptions of heart disease and stroke among visible minority women, farmed salmon from BC and Atlantic Canada, issues facing northern Canada, the growing gap between rich and poor, child care and early learning, social justice and climate change, access to the justice system for people with low and middle incomes and how to get young men to eat more fruits and vegetables.

Derek joined Environics in 1990 after receiving a graduate degree in History from the University of Toronto. He is a bilingual Montreal native and has been a regular participant in both official languages in televised political panel discussions on Radio-Canada and Business News Network.

Email Derek Leebosh, Vice-President, Public Affairs, or reach him at 416-969-2817

David MacDonald, Group Vice President, Financial Services

Mr. MacDonald oversees the execution of Environics’ advisor-based syndicated research programs, including the Advisor Perception Study, the Wholesaler Effectiveness Study, and the Call Audit program. As well, he works with financial services and other B2B clients to design and execute custom studies, including both qualitative (focus groups) and quantitative surveys of advisors, investors/clients, wholesalers, and other key stakeholder groups.

Mr. MacDonald has led several projects involving the application of social values analysis and the execution of multi-country consumer segmentation strategies, twice receiving MRIA Awards of Excellence, including Best Multinational (2004) for automotive research, and Best In Class (2007) for tourism research. David has published numerous articles in industry publications, served as keynote at conferences, and has often consulted to the media.

A member of the Environics Research Group since 1999, he holds a Dean’s List MBA in International Business from Schulich, and a B.A. in International Relations and Economics from the University of Toronto. In 2008, he earned the Certified Marketing Research Professional (CMRP) designation. Mr. MacDonald has been a member of the Advisory Committee of the Georgian College Research Analyst Program (RAP) since 2001, and is currently serving as Committee Chair.

Email David MacDonald, Group Vice President, Financial Services, or reach him at 416-969-2814

Robin Brown, Senior Vice President, Consumer Insights

Mr. Brown is responsible for leading the Consumer Insights and Cultural Markets groups. His primary areas of expertise are retail and packaged goods, but he has worked with companies from a wide variety of industries including telecoms, financial services and media. He has extensive experience of research into branding, consumer decision-making and shopper behaviour. He has  published many articles in industry publications and has consulted to the media on these topics on many occasions.

Mr. Brown has 20 years' experience in the market research industry, working in the UK, Asia and Canada. He spent 10 years working in Greater China and has leveraged his understanding of Asian consumers to develop a strong track record of research into Canadian newcomers and visible minority communities.

He has been a member of the Environics Research Group since 2008. Prior to joining Environics, Robin held senior project management positions with Synovate in Canada and Asia.

Email Robin Brown, Senior Vice-President, Consumer Insights, or reach him at 416-920-9010

Otto Akkerman, Group Vice President, Health & Pharma 

Otto specializes in providing the market insights pharmaceutical companies need to increase sales of their products. 

To this end, Mr. Akkerman and his team have developed a number of innovative approaches to capture a rich understanding of patients’, physicians' and other healthcare professionals’ beliefs and behaviors.  These approaches employ a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods and have received awards and recognition from a number of industry associations. 

Examples of the types of research Mr. Akkerman and his team commonly execute include:

Relationship Management & Loyalty

• Sales Force Effectiveness & Optimization
• CRM Campaign Effectiveness & Optimization
• Patient & Physician Satisfaction & Loyalty
• Corporate Reputation

Communications

• Message & Concept Testing
• Label Comprehension (Health Canada & Consumer Health Products Canada approved)
• Claim Testing & Validation (ASC/NCP & PAAB approved)

Market Landscape

• Product Trial, Uptake, Usage
• Patient Journey & Experience
• Treatment Algorithms 

As the pharmaceutical industry has gone through tremendous change, Otto has developed a number of practices to reflect pharma’s evolving needs in market intelligence.  In addition to gaining a deeper level of insight from an increasingly research-savvy market, this includes:

• the ability to reach specialty care physicians and low-incidence patient groups that are traditionally very difficult to recruit,  and
• developing innovative ways of engineering costs out of the research process so clients can do more with their research budgets.

Email Otto Akkerman, Group Vice President, Health & Pharma, or reach him at 416-969-2804

Rod McIsaac, VP Business Development, Health and Pharma

Mr. McIsaac brings to Environics, and our clients, extensive experience in both the execution of market research and the practical application of research results in the development of pharma communications and corporate strategy. Prior to joining Environics in 2003, he worked for 23 years in the pharma industry, where he held positions of increasing responsibility in both sales and marketing. He has been employed by multinational pharmaceutical companies, as well as by the largest information providers to the industry. He knows what it’s like to walk into a physician’s office as a sales rep and sales manager and what is involved at the corporate level when it comes to both launching new products and maintaining longevity in the sales of established products. This experience allows him to work closely and productively with our pharma clients: he understands their challenges because he has intimate first-hand knowledge of their industry.

Mr. McIsaac has directed a number of large-scale studies, surveying health care professionals and patients on the issues that concern them the most, and on their overall orientations to health and wellness. He has been a leader in developing both MDConnect^TM, our classification system for primary care and specialist physicians, and PatientConnect^TM, our segmentation of Canadian consumers of health care services. He can show clients how these segmentation tools have the power to transform the world of pharma branding and corporate image.

Email Rod McIsaac, VP Business Development, Health and Pharma, or reach him at 416-920-9010

Ron Silverton, VP Travel & Tourism Research Services

Ron Silverton returned to his roots in the travel, tourism and recreation sector in 2011 after 15 years of senior-level experience in financial services, where he led a marketing research and customer insights department. Ron has developed, championed and executed client-side B2B and B2C research programs for client segmentation, loyalty, branding, concept testing, advertising pre-testing, advertising tracking, new product development, knowledge management and data warehousing. Ron is an experienced facilitator who has directed numerous qualitative research projects and research-driven workshops for sales, marketing, operations and executive teams.

Prior to his client-side research career in financial services, Ron worked in research and planning for municipal parks and recreation, as a research consultant with a recreation consultancy firm, in special event management and in marketing for an eco-tourism company.

Ron holds an MBA with a Tourism Specialization from the University of Victoria and a BA in Recreation Administration from the University of Alberta. Ron completed the PMRS School of Marketing Research and, in 2005, completed the examination requirements for the MRIA’s Certified Marketing Research Professional (CMRP) designation. Ron is member of the MRIA’s Online Research Committee, a past National Director of the MRIA, and past Chairperson and Director of the MRIA’s Client Side Research Council.

Email Ron Silverton, Vice-President, Travel & Tourism, or reach him at 416-969-2816