Kyle Findlay
Head of Data Science and Knowledge Creation
Cape Town Area, South AfricaMarket Research
I am the Head of Data Science and Knowledge Creation at the TNS Global Brand Equity Centre (GBEC) in Cape Town, South Africa. The GBEC is a centre for innovation and thought leadership across TNS globally. Amongst other things, the GBEC develops and supports brand and communications thinking and solutions within TNS. I have been intimately involved in the development of solutions such as the ConversionModel and models of consumer influence. My team has also played, and continues to play, a key role in the development of TNS' technology-enabled research infrastructure, methodologies and product offer. We have been integral to the creation of TNS' big data- and social media-related offers both from a technical perspective (development, infrastructure, etc.), a theoretical perspective (natural language processing, social network analysis, etc.) and an offer perspective (brand tracking, campaign tracking, etc.).

I have a passion for understanding complex systems such as the human mind, society, business and nature, and I love sharing this understanding with others through writing and presenting. I have a strong desire to bring the hard sciences to bear on the question of why people do what they do. This passion has encouraged me to delve into specific scientific areas such as neuroscience, network theory and big data techniques, producing award-winning papers along the way. Over the past several years, I have worked with many of the largest companies and brands in the world in a variety of areas and continue to do cutting-edge work with many of them.

I am published in several journals and industry magazines and I have presented papers and hosted expert Q&As at conferences around the world. I am also the recipient of multiple awards, including a WPP Atticus Award and the MRS Silver Medal Award, and twice I have won both the Gold and Silver Awards for Best Paper at the South African Marketing Research Association's (SAMRA) annual conference.