Meet the team: five minutes with Kelly

At Angelfish, one of the things we pride ourselves on most is the people in our team and the relationships we build with our clients and participants - we believe it’s something that really sets us apart as a user research recruitment partner! As we know so much about you, we thought it was only fair that you have the chance to get to know us a bit better too - so please allow us to introduce our “Five minutes with” series of blogs. Each time, we’ll grab (you guessed it!) five minutes with a member of the Angelfish team and ask them a few questions so you can find out a bit more about what makes our wonderful team tick. So first up, let’s kick things off with our Head of Consumer Research, Kelly Barnard…

Why did you decide to pursue a career in market research?

I studied Social Sciences (BSc) at Cardiff University and have always had a fascination with psychology and understanding people. I originally wanted to pursue a career in the Probation Service as I had a real interest in criminology, however, after deciding against this I happened to come across a role within market research recruitment and I’ve never looked back! Having worked in healthcare market research for a number of years prior to joining Angelfish, I learnt a great deal about the importance of quality and accuracy within recruitment by working to very specific briefs for large pharma clients. Now having worked in consumer market research When the opportunity arose at Angelfish to lead project delivery, I jumped at the chance and found that consumer research is definitely where my heart lies!

What’s your favourite part of the job?

As cliche as this might sound, for me, it really is the people! Whether it’s interesting respondents who brighten your day just by speaking to them or being able to have a good chat and a joke with our lovely clients, the people are the thing that makes this job so special. I’m also really lucky to be surrounded by a like-minded and equally enthusiastic team. We always joke in the office that it’s like some kind of vortex and we don’t know where the time goes each day - obviously because we are having so much fun!

Tell us about an interesting project you’ve recently worked on and why you enjoyed it

We’ve been running a client list project recently for a large retailer who is looking for a small number of respondents to be the face of their AV/computing campaigns for their website/social. This required a complex, multi-stage recruitment process as we needed really specific respondents who were very confident and relaxed on camera that would represent the different categories well. Part of the recruitment process was managing and reviewing video applications of the respondents chatting and giving a room tour in their home; the response was incredible and I must admit I teared up a few times watching the videos as I felt so privileged to be watching this insight into their lives and how amazing it was that they were so happy to share it with us! 

What about a challenge you've recently faced and how you solved it?

Recently, a lovely client of ours came to us with a challenge concerning a charity MROC we were recruiting. They were incredibly busy with a number of different staff on holidays, so they needed extra help moderating and reviewing the content on the MROC to ensure the respondents were correctly answering all the tasks. We came up with the solution that Angelfish would take on an increased responsibility for engagement management; this involved reviewing all respondent posts daily and being able to probe where necessary to ensure all the questions were answered adequately. For this to be feasible, we worked with our client to ensure the team fully understood both the objective of the study and each task. The result was 95% engagement out of a sample of N=60 over 17 days which was absolutely fantastic!

Quickfire round

Tea or coffee?  Coffee

Winter or summer? Summer

Cat person or dog person? Both, but as I have a cat I’ll go with that!

Heels or flats? Flats for sure! Although years of sensible dead flat shoes have now given me collapsed arches and swollen ankles - how unfair!

Favourite film? Oh lord, probably Disney’s Cinderella - the opening music alone makes me cry and wish I was five years old again! 

Favourite song?  ‘Africa’ by Toto - an absolute tune that never gets old!

Who inspires you and why?  That’s a really hard question because different people inspire me in different ways every day! If I had to pick someone who has shaped me and I continue to aspire to in life, though, it would be my late Godmother. After suddenly being widowed at age 48, she devoted the rest of her life to helping others through voluntary work and chairing numerous clubs and committees. The ultimate testament to creating positives out of a pretty life-changing negative! 

Thanks, Kelly! Stay tuned over the next few weeks as we introduce all of our team - next up we’ll spend five minutes with our Project Manager Jade. 

Until then, if you want to find out more about how we do things here at Angelfish, why not download our Flexible Approach to Fieldwork guide? From how to brief your fieldwork agency to our top recruitment tips and expert validation advice, it’s packed full of everything you need to get the best out of your market research. Download it here.