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President and Partner
Mike, along with his friend David, started this whole thing, fueled by a career-long passion for consumer research.
After three decades of serving clients in consumer research consultancies and in executive positions for global research firms, Mike founded ConsumerDNA with a critical mission in mind: providing clients with the deepest understanding of their consumers and at a level of clarity and actionability needed to make important and often complex marketing decisions.
Mike grew up in rural Pennsylvania amidst the beautiful Allegheny Mountains. After claiming many wrestling championships, and amassing a 129 and 5 win/loss record over 6 years, he took his winning tactics and talents to the University of Texas at Dallas, where he graduated with two MS degrees in Marketing Sciences and International Business.
Propelled by his exceptional strategic thinking capabilities and deeply felt passion for his field, he was promoted to partner at his first job out of college in just a few years. Mike went on to lead innovation, brand strategy, and market opportunities for Roper, NOP World, and GFK. At GFK he served as a global market research executive for 4 years as SVP, Director of Innovations. Mike also served as a lecturer at UTD, his alma matter, and is responsible for the development of several original consumer insights paradigms: the Product Experience Hierarchy, LifeMatrix segmentation, Future Buy, and Brand Architect.
Mike has the notable distinction of having conducted strategic consumer research for some of the world’s leading brands. To name a few:
Mike splits his time between his home base in Dallas, TX and the Tri-state area. He has a massive garden where he practices organic farming techniques (growing vegetables, grapes, berries, and other antioxidant-rich delicacies) and landscaping, and develops natural wildlife habitats on the surrounding acreage. He also studies global cultures with an eye on future international travel plans.
COO and Partner
David, along with his friend Mike, started this whole thing.
The youngest of 6 children, David grew up in Cedar Falls, Iowa and Denton, Texas where his Dad was a professor and his mother a beauty shop owner. David has worked in the Market Research and Consumer Insights Industry for over 25 years. He earned his BBA in Marketing and Management at the University of Texas at Austin and his MBA in Marketing, Business Statistics, and Mining at the University of North Texas. He thoroughly enjoys his day-to-day work in operations, designing and implementing data collection methods, analyses, and reporting plans.
Known for his amicable nature and results-driven leadership style, David excels as a project manager. He imparts great strength to every team through his exemplary problem-solving capacity and straight-forward communication. Before co-founding ConsumerDNA, he held positions as Vice President/Operations Manager for a ‘Top 50 US Marketing Research Company’ and as the Director of Marketing/Public Relations for a handful of non-profits.
David’s particular areas of expertise include:
David lives in Allen, Texas with his wife. He has three sons: Austin, the oldest, holds a Film degree from Arizona State and lives in Venice, California; Dylan is a student-athlete (Baseball) at The University of Kansas; and Tanner, the youngest, plans to be a video game developer. David also enjoys following The University of Texas football team (as demonstrated by his 30 years as a season ticket holder) and coaching youth sports. In his time off, you’ll find David vacationing in Mexico, with a camera and John Grisham novel close at hand.
Karin is a clinical psychologist, licensed as a Psychological Associate, and a certified Healthcare Service Provider. In her role at ConsumerDNA, she employs social and cognitive psychology frameworks to deliver behavioral sciences insights and uncover the depths of consumer needs and motivations. She is also licensed as a Clinical Addictions Specialist (LCAS), a registered yoga teacher, and she co-owns Clarity Counseling Center.
As an only child in a military family, Karin honed her creativity and fierce self-assurance from an early age. She received her BSc in Psychology from the University of North Carolina. Her career began at 17 years of age and includes includes working in an inpatient facility, a youth halfway house, volunteering at Coastal Horizons Rape Crisis Center, and co-leading body image groups for teenage girls in developing communities. In her clinical psychology practice, Karin is an advanced generalist, meaning she meets with minds from all walks of life. Gen Z and Millennials make up a large part of her current cliental, meaning that Karin has her finger directly on the pulse. With over 18 years in the field, her professional experience is dynamic and robust. She has worked in research labs and conducted psychological research and testing.
Karin’s behavioral sciences insights feature heavily in studies involving:
Karin lives with her husband, Davy, and their daredevil rescue kitty, Nathan. She is a lover of all things wellness – especially yoga, mental health, and nutrition – and travel. Delicious aromas are a permanent fixture in her kitchen, as are family and close friends.
Growing up in the Dallas suburbs, Stephen was surrounded by data, analytics, and the inner workings of business in general. With his father being an entrepreneur, programmer, and coder, it was only fitting that Stephen inevitably follow his dad’s footsteps. After graduating from Baylor University with a BBA in Marketing, he started his professional career working managerial positions for two major retailers: Walmart, followed by Bed, Bath & Beyond. He then transitioned into online Market Research and has been in the industry ever since for over 20 years. He enjoys working with all types of clients on their unique projects and dealing with the quick-paced nature of the industry.
Stephen’s particular areas of expertise include:
Stephen lives in Lewisville, Texas with his wife, Starla, of 24+ years, and their boy-girl twins, Tyler and Hannah. Both kids are entering their senior years of high school and planning to study Music and Biology, respectively, in their college of choice. He also enjoys professional sports, especially those of his hometown teams in Dallas. In his rare time away from a computer, you might find Stephen on the beach in Cancun, on the golf course, at the bowling alley, or perhaps trying his luck at the Blackjack table.
Haley has a hand in virtually every aspect of our organization – project management, content creation, and data visualization foremost among them – which satisfies her wide-ranging interests and love of a good challenge.
The first child of a big-time marketing exec and a visual artist, Haley inherited both a gift for creative problem-solving and a penchant for storytelling so delightful that the lack of brevity is often excused.
Before merging with the family legacy and signing on with ConsumerDNA, Haley attended the University of Southern California where she was awarded the prestigious Presidential Scholarship. There she completed a double major in International Relations and Global Business and contributed to the Disney and WB accounts during her internship with Los Angeles’ leading entertainment partnership marketing agency.
Haley has spent much of the last 5 years living, learning, and working remotely from Thailand and other corners of South East Asia. She is the touchstone for our research and partnerships in emerging ASEAN markets and China and her location in the opposite hemisphere allows our project work to proceed literally around-the-clock. Her experiences abroad range from the absurdly discombobulating to the stunningly familiar, reinforcing the dual notion that we humans have much, much more in common than we lack, and that the differences that do exist between cultures and individuals are a remarkable source of inspiration.
In addition to her full-time vocation in consumer insights, Haley also teaches Vinyasa yoga and runs a social enterprise operating in support of indigenous artisans and communities in northern Thailand. She maintains a daily meditation practice and ushers in each new year with a mindfulness retreat in nature. Though her hobbies skew a tad Bohemian (fermentation and wheel-thrown pottery, anyone?) she makes a mean Bloody Mary and actively maintains that the key ingredient is bacon.
Kimberly established herself quickly as a qualitative research expert and rose to lead this department within ConsumerDNA. She has conducted thousands of personal interviews and is known for her high-quality analyses and personalized notes to our clients regarding the trends and insights she uncovers in the data.
She obtained valuable training and experience with the U.S. Census Bureau where she conducted in-home interviews and eventually became a supervisor when she took on this challenging role overseeing data collection for a major U.S. city.
She worked in Bechtel Power Corporation’s procurement department for 16 years. Perhaps her most notable achievement came when she was promoted to Field Document Inspector at one of Bechtel’s nuclear powerplants.
Her interests today are varied and far-reaching: family, photography, the Arts, all things cashmere, design objects (she has a truly beautiful collection), and public broadcasting programs including Antiques Roadshow, Escape to the Chateau, and The Last Tango in Halifax.
Ramona graduated from Texas A&M University with a BS in Biochemistry and began her career researching synthetic DNA (as in ‘artificial genes’) behavior. A few years down the line, she decided to hold on to the “researching” bit but felt moved to shift her focus to consumer behavior research. Small wonder she found her way to ConsumerDNA. She went on to obtain her MBA from Southern Methodist University and now has over 25 years of experience in consumer insights, working with a wide assortment of clients in virtually every industry.
She doesn’t like to play favorites with her research but she particularly enjoys attitude & usage studies, product concept tests, and brand performance studies on both an ad-hoc and multi-year tracking basis. Ramona has extensive experience working directly with clients to customize their analyses with consumer insights that address their business needs.
Clients will find Ramona’s work featured prominently in:
Ramona is a third-generation Texan, born and raised in Dallas. She now lives in Richardson, Texas with her husband Darian. Ramona and Darian have visited over a dozen countries and plan to expand that number.
Alex handles both the front and back ends of the digital experience here at ConsumerDNA. By training, he is equal parts web-developer and UX/UI designer, however his expertise in social media marketing & advertising is 100% self-taught, honed through the hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funding he has personally managed and churned into profit via Facebook and Instagram.
Born in Fougères, France, Alex moved to the US at the age of 13. It was in this same year that he learned his first coding language and launched his first business. Since then he has founded four additional companies, including a web design firm, several minimalist jewelry brands, and a multi-million dollar fashion label. He approaches his work with single-minded focus and when a problem arises, Alex doesn’t rest until its solved. He is an extremely productive and efficient member of our team.
In his client-facing work, Alex specializes in several areas:
Alexandre has lived all over the world and is fluent in four languages: French, English, Spanish, and Thai. He’s spent the last 6 years living, learning, and working remotely from Thailand and his location in the opposite hemisphere allows our project work to proceed literally around-the-clock. He enjoys reading non-fiction in his free time, as well as informal philosophical discussions with friends. An amateur biohacker (give that a Google), Alex is passionate about fitness, health, and wellbeing.
