Directors

The Forge has a unique, business model. Our team exclusively comprises senior directors.

Every director at The Forge is most motivated by working on projects. Based in multiple locations, every member of the team brings 15 -25 years’ experience helping marketing leaders at global businesses target the greatest opportunities for growth.

Our Directors

Co-Founder & Director

Steven Melford

Co-Founder & Director

Simon Garnett

Director

Kirsty Yeomans

Co-Founder & Director

Karl Miley

Director

Lee Manning Craik

Director

Joe Catling

Director NL

Daniel Quinn

Director

Adam Rowles

Director

Shanna Boland

Director

Jill Sarsfield

Director

Danielle Todd

Director

Elspeth Edwards

Director

Charlotte McDonald

Director

Anna Anisimova

Director

Joris Westerman

Director

Laura Halliday

Unique Business

Our director-led business provides clients with the following benefits.

A clear focus on commercial returns

We are outcome driven and always focused on how we can unlock true future value. Nearly all our work involves understanding how we can positively change or shape behaviour, so that we can influence how and where people choose to spend their money.

Hypothesis-led, helping you make more of what you already know

We always start with what you already know and use that to build a hypothesised solution. We then use fresh research to efficiently fill any gaps and test the hypothesis. This enables us to move at speed and develop agile solutions.

Landing actionable solutions in complex environments

We understand how to effectively collaborate with senior stakeholders, and how to secure buy-in across large and complex organisations.

Flexing to your working style

We don’t have a mandatory process, and neither are we wedded to a specific set of tools. We are confident flexing our approach to fit the challenge and your organisational culture and working style.

Delivering impact across a diverse range of sectors

We have developed a deep understanding of how to understand and influence behaviour across a wide range of business sectors, and we apply this to every engagement.

We build the solution with you

We act as a true partner to your business rather than a ‘black box’ solution provider. We bring you on the journey and transfer ownership at completion. 

Co-Founder, Director

Steven Melford

About Steven

Steven is an entrepreneurial business leader with 25 years of experience of bringing strategy, creativity, and a range of insight approaches to brand challenges.

He has created two successful growth consultancies. He founded, managed, and grew one the industry’s leading brand and marketing consultancies – Clear. A desire to get back closer to projects led to the launch of the Forge.

He has strong track record of delivering brand growth for clients: driving market share, profitability and sales/revenue for both products and services businesses. This includes Developing a growth strategy for Unilever’s €20BN Beauty and Personal Care division, created a new brand architecture for Tesco’s Own Label business and Helping to unlock the lunch occasion for PepsiCo leading to an award-winning creative campaign

Originally a scientist who worked for the BHF, Steven loves truly understanding of how things really work and providing evidence-driven recommendations to clients. He holds a DPhil in Molecular Biology from the University of Oxford.

Co-Founder, Director

Simon Garnett

About Simon

Simon leapt over the client desk to become a consultant almost 15 years ago, following a thorough grounding at Diageo, GSK & Nestle in marketing and innovation roles.

That experience of the practicalities of client-side businesses – and the hard work that goes on once the consultants leave the room – ensures he brings a deeply commercial and pragmatic approach (as well as boundless energy) to his projects and recommendations.

These include: creating a strategy for a major apparel company to win in natural and sustainable materials; developing an approach to innovation strategy and concept pipeline development that has led to norm-busting results and been adopted as global best practice in one of the world’s largest consumer healthcare companies; and helping unleash the lunch occasion for PepsiCo, leading to a ground-breaking campaign.

Prior to founding The Forge, Simon was MD at a consultancy in the US and has worked across pretty much every category you can think of (except cars, Simon doesn’t understand cars). He also has a degree in Theology.

When away from the office, you’ll most likely found Simon on water or snow, probably standing on (or falling off) some sort of board.

Director

Kirsty Yeomans

About Kirsty

Kirsty has spent the last 16 years solving complex customer problems for some of the world’s leading brands in industries as diverse as automotive, education, finance and FMCG.

The common thread running through her work is a passion for helping people to understand the world in all its messy, contradictory glory whilst remaining sympathetic to the unique challenges of the clients that she is advising.

She has a natural bias for interrogating a problem from multiple angles and uses bespoke frameworks and models to help her clients focus on the things that will deliver the best commercial results.

Her successes at The Forge include: helping to unlock the lunch occasion for PepsiCo leading to an award-winning creative campaign; creating a framework for the future growth of femcare for J&J; developing a trends and growth model for PepsiCo Europe.

Prior to The Forge she ran the consumer and retail division of FreshMinds (now Decidedly), and has served on the committee of the AQR. She has a degree in History.

Specialism

Thought Leadership

Co-Founder, Director

About Karl

Karl has spent the last 20 years working with some of the world’s leading brands helping to define robust strategies for growth.

Adept at deploying a wide range of insight approaches to brand challenges, his expertise lies in numbers and storytelling. Karl has a keen analytical eye enabling him to identify the pertinent points in any dataset before translating them into actionable and compelling frameworks and stories, that anyone can engage with.

It is this skillset and his belief in the power of simplicity, that has enabled him to successful partner with clients across categories as diverse as personal care, snacking & beverages, retail, consumer technology and financial services.

Prior to joining The Forge, Karl was European Board Director at Clear, one of the industry’s leading brand and marketing consultancies, where he led the 20 strong European Insights team.

Karl has a BSc in Chemistry & Food Science and a MSc in Food Economics and Marketing.

Specialism

Thought Leadership

Director

Lee Manning-Craik

About Lee

Lee has 24 years’ experience as an insight professional across both developed and developing markets.

Previously Head of Qual and on the Business Management Team at Added Value, she has worked across geographies as diverse as Taiwan, Russia and El Salvador, and categories as diverse as retail, alcohol, financial services, FMCG and utilities.

She specialises in helping clients understand how to grow categories, leverage their portfolios, and unlock cultural nuance to better respond to specific market needs. Lee is passionate about understanding consumer motivations and behaviours however she firmly believes that insight only matters if a business can use it to realise a commercial impact.

Lee started life as an Archaeologist and was fascinated by how humans evolved. Working with scientists at Duke, Johns Hopkins, the Smithsonian, WITS and the University of Cape Town, and using fragments of the fossil record to piece together a story of behaviour, she pioneered new approaches to human dietary and evolutionary understanding.

She now uses these same skills to help businesses understand how to drive growth with their consumers.

Specialism

Thought Leadership

Director

Joe Catling

About Joe

Joe is a quantitative insight specialist, with 12 years’ experience working with leading brands across a wealth of sectors, including FMCG, telecommunications, energy and personal finance.

Before joining the Forge, he was Head of Analytics at Relish. He specialises in using data, and in particular analytical techniques, to address his clients’ strategic challenges. He’s adept at combining the art and the science: blending commercially-minded, practical problem-solving with statistical know-how. He’s spoken at a range of industry events, including Big Data World and an MRS Speaker Evening on segmentation and storytelling.

Successful projects at the Forge include: building snacking Demand Spaces for PepsiCo across multiple European markets; creating a multi-market, values-driven segmentation framework for a global beer brand; and developing a UK demand space model that underpins Tata’s brand, category and channel planning.

Joe holds a BA in Maths and Philosophy from the University of Oxford.

Specialism

Thought Leadership

Director NL

Daniel Quinn

About Daniel

Daniel has spent 25 years advising some of the world’s leading organisations on insight-fuelled growth strategy and innovation. His expertise and passion lie in high-empathy consulting – developing clear and compelling frameworks for action which take equal account of the human needs and qualities of the end user as they do the drives, strengths and cultural context of the client team and organisation.

His quest for commercial impact has seen him develop category-shifting profitable innovations for categories as diverse as beer, premium spirits and consumer electronics through to charities, mining and fuels retail.

He has a strong entrepreneurial streak, having helped co-found, manage and scale Happen in mainland Europe – a pioneering Innovation Agency famed for generating speed-to-market and impressive ROI for its clients, which was acquired by Accenture in 2019. Prior to joining The Forge, Dan was a Director within Accenture’s European Innovation Network where he successfully built the Energy and Natural Resources practice, applying insight and innovation to big existential challenges around the Energy Transition and Sustainability.

Specialism

Director

Adam Rowles

About Adam

Adam looks after marketing for The Forge.

He has spent 14 years in the industry helping leading global clients find solutions to their strategic marketing challenges. At The Forge, he is responsible for identifying opportunities to support new clients before promoting and presenting the propositions that will help them to move forward.

Prior to The Forge, he led the New Business and Marketing team for brand and marketing consultancy, Clear, where he was New Business Director. He also has a degree in Marketing.

Outside of work, Adam is a passionate, but distinctly average, sportsman with a keen interest in uphill skiing.

Director

Shanna Boland

About Shanna

Shanna is a senior brand strategist with a specialism in quantitative insights. She has helped some of the world’s leading brands as well as start-up businesses grow through insight-driven, commercially viable and sustainable growth strategies. Her industry experience spans FMCG, consumer health, technology and financial services.

Shanna is passionate about balancing creativity and commerciality, creating simplicity from complexity, and telling meaningful, consumer-centric stories that turn insights into action.

Before joining the Forge Shanna was a director at Kantar Consulting as part of their Commercial Strategy team. 

Shanna holds an MA in Political Science from the University of Heidelberg and an MA in Economics and Development from the University of York.

Specialism

Thought Leadership

Director

Jill Sarsfield

About Jill

Jill has 20 years’ experience in quantitative insight, working with leading brands in categories including retail, alcohol, FMCG and the charity sector.

She combines research rigour with a talent for cutting through the data clutter to land compelling, actionable insights across a wide variety of consumer challenges including driving loyalty, developing new products and optimising brand portfolios.

Before joining The Forge, Jill worked for her own consulting business, Kazu Insight, and held senior quantitative roles at Razor Research and Freshminds (now Decidedly). She started her insight career at Kantar.

Jill has a degree in History and Politics.

Specialism

Thought Leadership

Director

Danielle Todd

About Danielle

Danielle is a quantitative insight specialist, with a wealth of experience and expertise advising global brands spanning technology and media, utilities, FMCG and finance. 

Prior to the Forge, Danielle was Head of Client Strategy at Relish, where she specialised in addressing strategic challenges, unlocking new growth verticals and commercially focused consultancy. Her strengths lie in communicating simple stories from complex data that inspire action.

Danielle is passionate about elevating our industry; being the Women in Research (WIRe) London lead, WIRe Advisory Board member, MRS Diversity, Inclusion and Equality lead and is often seen presenting, Chairing or judging at IIEX, ESOMAR or MRS conferences.

Danielle holds an MA in Geography, and an MSc in Environment, Society and Culture, both from the University of Edinburgh. Danielle also enjoys exploring wine, dystopian fiction and CrossFit, but usually not at the same time.

Specialism

Thought Leadership

Director

Elspeth Edwards

About Elspeth

Elspeth has worked in marketing and innovation for over 20 years for some of the world’s leading brands and businesses. Her expertise lies in decoding challenges and driving insight-led innovation strategies, visions and pipelines that deliver commercial success.

Having spent time both agency and clientside, her pragmatism combined with her tenacious curiosity and creativity has seen her develop numerous innovations that have built commercial strength in diverse categories from beer, car care, electronics and botox through to sportswear and dairy.

Prior to joining The Forge, Elspeth has headed up a hotel marketing department, run her own consulting business alongside developing a cooking brand as well as spending time client side working for Arla at booth a local and global level. 

Away from the office, Elspeth is likely to have a racquet in her hand, she plays Padel for Great Britain and competes at a national level in racketball. The rest of the time involves long dog walks in beautiful places, travelling and enjoying great food and wine with great people.

Specialism

Thought Leadership

Director

Charlotte McDonald

About Charlotte

Charlotte’s background spans consultancy, technology, academia and insight.

Previously Senior Director, Insight & Strategy at Lifestream (previously Big Sofa), Charlotte pioneered projects that used video to better identify consumer experiences in home and in store.

She is passionate about understanding consumer behaviours, habits and routines, and the ‘say-do’ gap, especially in areas such as health and sustainability. She’s equally motivated to drive commercial success for clients, whether that’s for a record-breaking creative campaign or category-challenging innovation platforms.

She holds an award-winning PhD in marketing from The University of Leeds, where her interests in ethnography and observation began.

Specialism

Thought Leadership

Director

Anna Anisimova

About Anna

Anna is a quantitative insight specialist, with a breadth of experience interrogating complex data to help global brands understand their customers and inform their high-stake decisions.

Before joining The Forge, Anna was a Director at Incite, where she led one of its largest accounts and used her advanced analytics expertise to consult on technically challenging projects, from segmentations to complex conjoint studies.

Anna is passionate about finding ways to simplify and visualise data to tell a clear, engaging and commercially-focused story that gets to the heart of what her clients need.

Her skills in this area, along with her relentless pursuit of excellence, helped her become a trusted partner to many clients on both sides of the Atlantic.

Anna holds an MSc in Applied Social Psychology from the University of Sussex.

Specialism

Thought Leadership

Director

Joris Westerman

About Joris

Working agency side Joris has spent the last 20 years solving insight, brand and innovation challenges for some of the world’s leading organisations in industries such as FMCG, finance, technology and non-governmental.

Drawing on his background in economic psychology and passion for tech, Joris connects the dots to unlock real human needs with relevant, viable, and feasible solutions and strategies. Joris has a track record for making things happen, helping organizations drive meaningful change.

Prior to joining the Forge Joris worked as an innovation expert at Accenture, an organisation he joined after they in 2019 acquired Happen -an insight driven innovation agency where he was leading the Amsterdam office. At Accenture Joris deployed his insight and innovation skills working on challenges in the energy transition and sustainability domain.

Joris has a degree in Marketing and Economic & Social Psychology.

Specialism

Thought Leadership

Director

Laura Halliday

About Laura

Laura has 18 years’ experience helping some of the world’s leading brands grow, taking on categories from beer to beauty, and challenges from brand positioning to ‘future of’ projects for tech, health and food companies.

She began her career as a Marketing grad trainee and brand manager at Unilever, before making the move to insight and brand strategy. In 2009 she joined the boutique agency Big Green Door, before moving to Asia in 2013, where she led APAC wide projects for six years as Director at Flamingo Singapore. Over the past 5 years she has worked as an independent consultant, with a particular focus on developing marketing excellence for SMEs.

Laura loves uncovering ways to help brands resonate with consumers. Her global experience makes her especially attuned to identifying how ideas, products and solutions can resonate in specific cultures and contexts, whilst her hybrid background gives her powerful insight into how to embed thinking in a client’s business.

With an MA in English Literature and Language, Laura is a proud word nerd. Her love for etymology, Oscar Wilde and Nora Ephron make her a fearsome pub quiz competitor (but only for very specific rounds).

Specialism

Thought Leadership

Have a question for us?

Let us know how we can help.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

NEWSLETTER

Receive our thinking before it is published.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.