Team

Malinda Midkiff

Senior Manager of US in Research & Consulting

Malinda is a cultural anthropologist and qualitative researcher who loves digging into the why behind people’s actions. She’s especially interested in understanding the cultural and human context that shapes how people live, decide, and navigate everyday life. Off the clock, Malinda enjoys people-watching, period dramas like Bridgerton, reality TV, dance battles with her kids and actively avoiding learning the rules of Roblox or Minecraft.

Russ Wilson

Head of UK in Research & Consulting

Forget fancy job titles, Russ speaks fluent Consumer. His PhD in Applied Linguistics coupled with his wicked backhand in table tennis makes him a formidable talent. We’re glad he’s on our side!

Katie Allen

Senior Manager - Research & Consulting

With her background in psychology, Katie is a naturally inquisitive person who loves to dig deep to understand what truly makes people tick. Driven by a passion for the ‘so what?!’ and storytelling, she’s spent the past 5 years helping brands resonate with consumers.

Michelle Castle

VP of Director of Quantitative in Research and Consulting

Michelle has been translating consumer understanding into successful brand, product, and marketing strategies for over 25 years. She heads up the Creative Analytics team at The Sound, with a focus on guiding critical decision-making and identifying new growth opportunities through data-driven insights. Before The Sound, Michelle’s roles included US CEO of Hall & Partners and CEO of db5 (now Bastion Insights).

Pete Sakalowsky

Vice President of Growth

Liz Dunne

Director of Quantitative in Research and Consulting

Liz won’t be joining us for the next “Screamfest” or “HorrorFest International”.  She’s so averse to watching horror movies, she religiously reads “TheMovieSpoiler” so she can use her quant skills to predict and analyze the twists.  However, over winter break, you could find her and her twin sister Shining at the Overlook hotel.  Classic twin behavior, right?

Dominique Peters

Director of UK in Research & Consulting

Powered by coffee and a quest to pet 100 cats, Domi is a question-asker and dot connector who’s currently 57 felines deep into her New Year’s resolution. When she’s not in her natural habitat—somewhere in nature—you’ll find her researching stationery shops with her 15-year-old Windows 10 wallpaper in the background. She’s fueled by nostalgia and the purr-suit of paper goods!

Robyn Sharp

Senior Manager- UK in Research & Consulting

Sameera Mathias

Manager of Quantitative in Quantitative Research

Sameera is curious by default. She enjoys understanding people, continually asking better and better questions, and turning incongruencies into insights.

Bruna Pereira

Growth Manager

Bruna is quite literally the nicest person we’ve ever met. But don’t be fooled by her cheerful charm. We’re pretty sure she’s a secret agent. She speaks 5 languages, can interpret tarot cards, reads 125 books per year, and holds a double BA in Psychology and Political Science… which means she cannot only read your mind but debate with you telepathically. Her downfall… confined spaces. So if you encounter her, make sure it’s in an elevator.

Daisy Martinez

Senior Manager of Quantitative in Research and Consulting

Daisy is a running aficionado—running early, running her mind, and yes, running 5 half-marathons. We’re told she didn’t run them for the stats, or bragging rights, but for a genuine love of running— which we’re half certain we’ll be running a confidence interval on once we form our own team (a joke for all you Quanties out there).

Wendell Thomas

Manager- US in Research & Consulting

Wendell needs no embellishment – he’s currently questing for the best oatmeal raisin cookie (Garfield is his nemesis), believes ghosts are beings from another dimension (best take on phantasms I’ve heard), and loves learning languages (presumably comes in handy with the transdimensional entities). Wendell needs his own show and I would watch it.  

Nohelys Flores

Office Mgr./HR Generalist in Human Resources

Nohelys thinks the song The First Noel was written about her, but is a little confused about that “king” part. She’s besties with Jimmy Butler; they bonded over a mutual hate of vegetables, adulthood, and Chicago-style hot dogs while getting pedicures this one time (where and when nobody “Nohelys”, as she likes to say). She also gets pretty annoyed if you ask her how she spells her name with no L’s in it, which is a little hypocritic-L. (That joke is just for me and I’m not sorry about it).

Amber Williams

Senior Manager- CAN in Research & Consulting

Amber has been known to hang out in cold baths reading trashy novels and nibbling on Cadbury Chocolate fingers, bouncing her insights off of her veritable legion of rubber ducks. She was featured in The Evening Standard.

Latasha James

Head of HR in Operations

Latasha went to Hogwarts once. Rumour has it she’s still there; her kids have been divided between the houses, she holds regular BeanBoozeled competitions, and her smile tames even the gruffest Basilisk. Luckily they’ve got good Wifi, so that we get her company, too!

George Wharmby

Manager- UK in Research & Consulting

Much like a duck, George is an avid fan of the water – you’ll catch him out paddleboarding or surfing whenever the English weather permits. He thinks of the world like a duck, too – calm and serene on top but so much furious paddling going on underneath; that’s why he loves behavioral economics so much!

Nynena Gaye

Manager of Quantitative in Research and Consulting

Nynena was in an accident once. She ended up getting an ultrasound and the doctor told her that she had the most beautiful spleen he’d ever seen. He called in nine other doctors to check out how great her spleen was – they all gathered around to compliment her. It’s her biggest flex.

Beth Klein

Director - US in Research & Consulting

Ever The Outsider, Beth once dressed up as a clown for Halloween, hoping to impress Stephen King, but he said she was doing IT wrong. In Desperation and Misery, she moved to Portland Just After Sunset (Full Dark, No Stars) to fight bears.

Clea Stone

Associate Director- CAN in Research & Consulting

Princess Clea started at The Sound as an intern and after she thwarted the sinister Sith Lord Darth Vader we took her on as a Senior Associate. She is based in our Alderaan office.

Yunseon Tokko

Senior Designer in Design

There’s more than meets the eye with Yun. He is a volcano of passion waiting to explode, sometimes in incredibly odd places. We hoped Yun would be the first bio we created to be 100% visual. No words. Only pictures and exquisite design. Please stay tuned. We see your true colours, Yun!

Brynn Harris

Vice President, Head of Analysis in Research & Consulting

Brynn is the OG of all OG Sounders. She has been with us from the from day one… and taking credit for company smarts and calling them a Brynn-sight since day two!

She’s lucky she’s so clever or we’d have fired her ages ago.

Dave Rees

Vice President and Head of Sound Films in Operations

Dave is an award winning editor and ex drummer of the band SNFU. He dropped out of college, has never worn a suit and has lots of tattoos. When you enter ‘Generation X stereotype’ into Google he comes up just before Kurt Cobain.

Jenny Zaragoza

Senior Project Manager in Project Management

Jenny also project manages feeding times in the office. Since she’s started every person on the team has gained 7 pounds. We never knew how much we enjoy bagels, flavored coffee creamer and cheesy bread. Thank you Jenny.

Alexis Stephens

Lead Project Manager in Project Management

Being both arty and organized, Alexis loves to manage Chicago projects with a crafty flourish. Don’t be surprised to receive an artisanal focus group schedule and hand made screener with a bird on it.

Jerusha Bennett

VP of Innovation + Brand Strategy

What can we say about Jerusha…

In Hebrew the meaning of the name Jerusha means: Married.

In Biblical the meaning of the name Jerusha means: Banished, possession, inheritance.

Take from that what you will!

Harjot Bassra

Vice President - PM in Operations

Harjot has more than 10 years’ experience of organizing stuff. She can read minds, see through walls, eats light, and sh*ts magic. She was invented in a lab in 1947.

Rebecca Roth

Director - US in Research & Consulting

Rebecca is a craft master. And her crafts are many and equally mastered. She’s a potterist, a sewerist, a ceramicist and an IKEAist. She’s also a brilliant researcher with a background in anthropology and digital ethnography but she doesn’t let that small detail outshine her ability to assemble a FÄRLÖV with her eyes closed.

Simon Dannatt

Global CEO in Executive

With over 200 years experience, Simon joined The Sound from Cello where he was President of Cello USA and CEO of the Value Engineers US. With his English accent and silver fox hair he’s known affectionately around the office as ‘the old English man with grey hair’. Claims to have a limp from running marathons but we think it’s a war wound.

Greg Raposa

Lead Editor in Film

Greg lives his life according to the latest from Big Data, and all the numbers point to ice cream. When he’s not wrapping his head around fuzzy math, he’s bringing stories to life through film and animation. He lives in New York City with his very attractive dog, Bosco.

Sandy Chouchani

Vice President in Research & Consulting

Sandy is part of the Vancouver team, but, strangely, is based many many miles away in Buffalo.
Which makes me sit and wonder, like, why?
Why you left me
Oh Sandy.
Oh Sandy, baby, someday
When high school is done
Somehow, someway
Our two worlds will be one

David Katz

Business Manager in Operations

David’s real name is David Cats but in 1987 he changed the spelling to attract chicks. He has not looked back since.

Sophie Welsman

Director - CAN in Research & Consulting

When people join the Sound one of the first things they get excited about is their bio on this website. Well Sophie was no exception. Sophie was so excited about her bio that she kept asking and asking and asking for it to be written. Well creativity, like insights or strategy, doesn’t just arrive by magic. You need to be informed, inspired and in the mood… or the outputs might be a bit boring. We don’t do boring at The Sound. Sophie knows that now.

Vlad Goutman

Senior Accounting Manager in Operations

Vlad imputes financial information. This means we get to call him Vlad the Imputer.

Sonja Socknat

Senior Manager- US in Research & Consulting

With the recent advent of fake news and alternative facts, i just realized that these bios are really ahead of the game; I’ve been writing fake bios for over 10 years. Anyway this is Sonja and she recently changed the spelling of her name from Sonya to appear more interesting.