Gongos, the North American arm of InSites Consulting, announced that Chris Robson (pictured) and Scott Laing, partners at Deckchair Data, have joined forces with the company. Alongside this merging of entities, Robson and Laing are named Senior Directors, Data Sciences at Gongos, bringing a combined 55 years of experience to the organization across the data strategy, advanced quantitative, behavioral, and market research disciplines, as well as deep expertise in the technology, healthcare, and financial services sectors.
As leading members of Gongos’ expanded data sciences group, Robson and Laing strengthen the company’s ability to deliver on customer centricity across research, strategy, and implementation work, as well as reinforce Gongos’ consultative excellence, namely a focus on business challenges and translation of outcomes for B2C and B2B clients. The two will also serve as mentors to Gongos’ data science analysts and data engineering talent, further growing their ability to work with unstructured, transactional, and high volume/velocity data.
“Our clients’ data challenges are growing increasingly complex as is the ability to translate data science into meaningful decisions. With the addition of Scott and Chris, our ability to guide clients from method to business application grows even stronger,” said Camille Nicita, Managing Director, Gongos (a part of InSites Consulting).
Robson is an acknowledged expert in research methodology and data science, and a frequent speaker on advanced methods at industry conferences. He strongly believes in the importance of solid methodology combined with a laser focus on the business problem.
Prior to founding Deckchair, he was Chief Innovation Officer and Head of Research Science for ORC International (now Engine Insights). Before that, he was co-founder of Parametric Marketing, a boutique analytics and methodology consultancy. Earlier in his career, he managed a global team of over a hundred software developers at Hewlett-Packard.
“Over the past few years, we’ve seen a rapid shift in the research industry towards integration of all forms of data,” said Robson. “By joining Gongos – who share our consultative approach – we’ll be able to build upon our success with Deckchair and offer more clients access to a fuller spectrum of exciting capabilities.”
Laing brings substantial experience in all areas of marketing with deep experience spanning startups to Fortune 500 companies. Prior to co-founding Deckchair, he served as Senior Vice President and major account manager in the Financial Services practice at ORC International.
Upon joining ORC in 2013, he assumed leadership responsibility for ORC’s Marketing Research product development. He’s also served as Director of Market Development at WebCriteria (acquired by Coremetrics, now IBM) and spent eight years with Hewlett-Packard in analytical marketing and product management.