TNS Boosts Thought Leadership Expertise with the Appointment of Jan Hofmeyr to Senior Global Role

NEW YORK, Aug. 25, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- TNS, the world's largest custom research company, today announced that Jan (Jannie) Hofmeyr will join the company in a senior global thought leadership role. Jannie leaves his current role at Synovate to take up his new position on the 1st December 2011. He will continue to be based in Cape Town and will report to TNS CEO, Eric Salama.

In this new role, Hofmeyr will be responsible for building TNS's approach to behaviour change and embedding this in every part of the TNS offer, enabling clients to change the behaviour of their consumers and customers. A key element of his role will be to innovate around TNS's Conversion Model thinking; Jannie will also be involved in developing and creating behaviour change expertise around the world and advising key client accounts.  

"I'm thrilled that Jannie is joining TNS. We recognise the importance of applying behaviour change thinking across our brand, stakeholder and social and political offers and there is no one better than Jannie to accelerate our thinking and help our clients to achieve their goals," said Eric Salama, TNS CEO. He continued, "Jannie is an extremely rare talent, combining outstanding thought leadership with a commercial and entrepreneurial approach.  He has rejoined TNS in this new role to make Conversion Model thinking a much more significant part of our offer."

"I've had some great years at Synovate. However TNS has offered me an unrivalled opportunity to take marketing research forward and develop strategies that help clients to build their businesses," said Jan Hofmeyr. He continued, "The research resources of TNS - and the broader Kantar Group - are unsurpassed. This is an exciting new role."

About Jan Hofmeyr

Jan Hofmeyr joined Synovate in 2006 and became a member of the executive board in 2010. He was responsible for developing their brand equity and customer loyalty offers.  Prior to that he invented the Conversion Model™, ran the Customer Equity Company (which was sold to TNS in 2000), and was a senior political advisor for the African National Congress during and after the first democratic elections in South Africa.  He is the co-author (with Butch Rice) of Commitment Led Marketing and the author of numerous, award-winning papers on brand equity.

About TNS

TNS advises clients on specific growth strategies around new market entry, innovation, brand switching and stakeholder management, based on long-established expertise and market-leading solutions. With a presence in over 80 countries, TNS has more conversations with the world's consumers than anyone else and understands individual human behaviours and attitudes across every cultural, economic and political region of the world.

TNS is part of Kantar, one of the world's largest insight, information and consultancy groups.

Please visit www.tns-us.com for more information.

About Kantar

Kantar is one of the world's largest insight, information and consultancy groups. By uniting the diverse talents of its 13 specialist companies, the group aims to become the pre-eminent provider of compelling and inspirational insights for the global business community. Its 28,500 employees work across 100 countries and across the whole spectrum of research and consultancy disciplines, enabling the group to offer clients business insights at each and every point of the consumer cycle. The group's services are employed by over half of the Fortune Top 500 companies.

For further information, please visit us at www.kantar.com.

SOURCE TNS