Alan comes to Happen having spent much of the last 10 years helping organisations get smarter at innovating. He brings with him a background in management consulting, having worked across financial services , utilities, oil, technology services and government. He's helped organisations with everything from cost-reduction in a stationery department to team-building in R&D,and has helped shape the knowledge and innovation-led future of part of the Middle East. Alan also has wide-ranging experience of facilitating groups of all shapes, sizes and, in a couple of cases, other languages.

Becki has worked with some of the world’s leading brands including Sky, Virgin, Procter & Gamble, Samsung, E45, Merck, Sony BMG and Sainsbury’s. An honours graduate in Psychology and Marketing Management, Becki has been fascinated with the study of human behavior from an early age. Having started her career working for public relations consultancy Hill and Knowlton, Becki developed and implemented creative communication campaigns and strategies across FMCG, health care, beauty and technology accounts.

Ben has spent his career in marketing starting at GreyWorldwide advertising agency. Working internationally across brands including Mars, P&G and GSK Ben gained enormous experience before moving into a more creative/planning role between their New York and London office. After Grey Ben worked at Euro RSCG before a high-profile role on the adidas and Haagen-Dazs accounts at TBWA, again working across Europe.

Caroline’s passion is turning ideas into value and making new things happen. She was Managing Partner at innovation consultancy, Synectics, where she helped people from world-class organisations to innovate, to develop their creative thinking abilities, to create high-performing teams, and to build leadership skills. She has over ten years experience in senior marketing roles in sectors that include publishing, music, video and wine. During this time, she led many successful strategic brand initiatives, which resulted in new product launches and significant sales growth.

Chris began his career running dance music events in Australia while he completed a business marketing degree. Upon graduating, Chris worked as a brand manager at L’Oreal and after a year, moved to London and began working in marketing at Sony BMG. Following Sony BMG, Chris joined marketing agency Geronimo, where he project-managed an exciting array of integrated creative marketing campaigns for various clients, including Direct Line Insurance.

Costas is one of the founding partners of Happen and for almost fifteen years has worked across the globe in many areas of innovation. He has continuously pursued the balance between technology, consumer need and business relevance, driving for the innovative leap to achieve all three.

Dan has spent his career working as a 'suit', come strategist, come business developer in a number of London's finest agencies. He has worked with clients such as ABN AMRO Bank, Procter & Gamble, Heinz and ICI developing integrated brand strategies, leading and winning pitches. Dan now helps spread the Happen message to attract new clients.

David has spent his career at the leading edge of insight and consumer marketing. He has published widely in the area and is a frequent conference speaker. Prior to creating Happen he was a Partner at Synectics for 8 years and Managing Director of Synectics’ European and International business for 3 years. During this time he led the development of 5 offices and created significant advances in the Synectics methodology, particularly in the area of insight-led innovation.

Fiona is a highly experienced Food Product Developer who has worked in food manufacturing, retail and food service. As Head of Food Product Development and Direction for Marks and Spencer Fiona was responsible for introducing innovative market leading ranges such as Cook, Connoisseur Christmas, Gastropub, Eat Well and Speciality Foods.

Fred brings to Happen over twenty years of business and strategic marketing knowledge and experience. Upon graduating from Arizona State University with a BS in Marketing, Fred soon assumed product marketing management responsibility for several business-to-business products. This included the successful introduction of a PC Computer-Aided Design software program from a division of IBM.

Freddie has a Masters degree in Chemistry from the University of Oxford. Coming from a background in science and research, he nurtures not only an innovative, structured and rigorous approach, but also a hunger for creativity and product development. On successfully completing his last two years of study in a single year he has demonstrated the ability to keep multiple balls in the air under the highest of pressures.

With over 12 years experience in global market research Hans is one of the true pioneers in the industry - he was amongst the first implementing online data collection on a global scale (1996-’98) and experimenting with customer dialogue marketing (2001) and co-creation techniques (2006). Initially driven by personal curiosity, Hans is an avid student of all aspects of human behaviour.

Huntley’s a regular member of the Happen team and his particular passion is working with our food clients.  He always gives people a warm welcome to the Hub and is a keen volunteer whenever there are any leftovers to be cleared up after workshops.

Huntley also has a keen nose for any new market opportunities.  He can be seen here at a recent Happen Trend Blueprinting session getting interested in how the trend for ‘pet pampering’ might play out in the future.  

Co-founder of Happen, Mark has over 12 years experience in the marketing and innovation arena. Passionate about consumer insight and leveraging untapped opportunities for brands and companies. Mark has considerable experience of creating innovation programmes which deliver impact on the bottom line.

Martine launched happen in Australia in June 2008. She has been an innovation consultant for over 7 years and previously headed up the Australia and New Zealand team for an international innovation consultancy. She has extensive experience in facilitating innovation projects – encompassing consumer connections, insight programmes, ideation and implementation. She is also a highly experienced training in all these areas.

Oliver started out early as an entrepreneur; selling large shoes via the web, renovating holiday properties in France and Turkey as well as launching the site genderchecker.com, earning him coverage on CNN, The Financial Times and BBC Breakfast - all before leaving university. A recent Oxford graduate with an honours degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, Oliver was recruited by Happen at a workshop for Twitter.com which we ran at the Said Business School.

Having previously worked at Procter & Gamble as a Marketing Manager and a Sales Team Leader, and at Nestle Rowntree as Head of Brand Marketing, his Innovation passion is the business end of bringing new products/services to market. His mantra is to always start with the end in mind, with winning consumer, shopper and retailer propositions.

Phil is a market research professional with over 17 years experience. He has developed and led research programs in complex categories across the globe. Phil has a proven record of ensuring research findings are translated into insights and clear implications that drive brand strategy, positioning/communication and product innovations.

Samantha originally started out as a graduate trainee with WH Smith. From here she moved to Marketing, Sales & Research for a variety of large blue chip companies, in particular Canon UK, and Scottish and Newcastle before moving to agency side research. Sam has joined the Winkle team from the start and will be browsing user-groups, phone books and lifting rocks to identify, track down and recruit the consumers & lead-users we most want to speak to for our clients. If she can't get you the respondents you are looking for, no one will!

Sara thrives on working on a diverse range of challenges, usingenthusiasm, experience, curiosity and inventiveness combined with pragmatism to get the job done! It might be helping teams invent new products or defining the strategy that will drive the profitability of their business. She is a self professed information junkie, and loves being able to connect diverse goings on to advance a brand’s strategy and find insights into its consumers.

SJ joined Happen having already worked with an enviable array of clients including Coca-Cola, Aviva, KFC and Unilever both as a trainer and facilitator of insight-led innovation projects. Since joining Happen, she has been instrumental in making new things happen for a wide-range of global brands such as Ministry of Sound, Shell, and Bacardi as well as working on a number of Reckitt Benckiser brands including Cillit Bang, Dettol, Harpic and Clearasil.

Vijit is Chief Executive Agent of Happen’s Hub in India in addition to being a member of the global team. Based out of India and the UK, his experience spans award-winning commercial launches, the ‘heady days’ of the e-commerce revolution, development of mission-critical products and services, managing a high-profile social enterprise, ventures and consulting.

Wayne brings a wealth of experience in Marketing, Insight, Design and Retail having spent the past 7 years in senior roles at Marks & Spencer. Prior to his arrival in the UK, he spent 10 years in various senior marketing roles working for some of the word’s largest and most respected organisations, including N.Z. Dairy Foods (Anchor), Saatchi & Saatchi and United Distillers (now Diageo). In these roles, he was responsible for brand strategy, communication, packaging, consumer promotions and NPD.