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Ipsos Public Affairs

Darrell Bricker
Chief Executive Officer
Ipsos Public Affairs
Toronto, ON

Darrell Bricker is Chief Executive Officer of Ipsos Public Affairs, the world's leading social and corporate reputation research firm with offices in 30 countries and a staff of 600 research professionals.

Prior to joining Ipsos (previously the Angus Reid Group) in 1990, Darrell was Director of Research in the office of Canada's Prime Minister. He was also a research consultant with firms in Ottawa and Toronto.

Darrell holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Carleton University (where he was a Social Science and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellow), and a BA and MA from Wilfrid Laurier University. He has been awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree by Wilfrid Laurier University, which named him one of their top 100 graduates in the last 100 years.

Darrell is a prolific author. He's written four national bestselling books, Searching for Certainty: Inside the New Canadian Mindset (with Ed Greenspon – Doubleday, 2001), We Know What You're Thinking (with John Wright – Doubleday, 2005), What Canadians Think About Almost Everything (with John Wright – Harper Collins, 2009), and Canuckology. (with John Wright – Harper Collins, 2010). Darrell's new book, The Big Shift (with John Ibbitson), will be a major hardcover release with Harper Collins in February 2013.

He is a popular public speaker who regularly engages with audiences around the world. He is interviewed frequently in the media, appearing on CNN, the BBC, Bloomberg, and Al Jazeera, as well as on all of Canada's major television and radio networks. He's written articles for publications as diverse as Canada's Globe and Mail and France's Le Monde.

Darrell is a passionate supporter of Canada's men and women in uniform. He serves by appointment of the Minister of National Defence as the Honorary Colonel of the Queen's York Rangers, Canada's oldest army reserve regiment. For his volunteer work with the military he has received a commendation from the Commander of the Army, and has been awarded the Diamond Jubilee Medal.

John Wright
Senior Vice President & Managing Director
Ipsos Public Affairs
Toronto, CA

John Wright is Senior Vice President and Managing Director of the Ipsos Public Opinion Polling Division and has been their media polling partner architect and spokesperson since he arrived at the company in 1989.

In the 1980's he was Vice President with an advertising and public relations firm and served in both the political and corporate worlds in government relations. In all, he's worked for almost 30 years on Public Affairs assignments for clients of every dimension—21 of those in public opinion research.

John has his own radio show on NewsTalk 1010 with one of the top political commentary panels in the country, has co-hosted Canada's business news network's (BNN's) daily market closing show SqueezePlay, has appeared on every major news channel—from CNN to Al Jazeera—and been quoted, literally, everywhere in print around the world.

His "outside of work" activities are diverse and extensive: he is the Honourary Lieutenant-Colonel of The Canadian Forces Ontario Regiment, Royal Canadian Armoured Corps, receiving the Commander Land Force Command Commendation in 2010 for his outstanding support of the Canadian Military, and is on boards of the Hincks Dellcrest Children's Mental Health Centre, the Canadian Journalism Foundation, The Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington and Canada Company and Cancer Care Ontario.

An Arbor award recipient from the University of Toronto, and former Ontario Legislature Intern, he's previously been a founder and now lifetime member of the Public Affairs Association of Canada, Vice Chair of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Studies, and member of the board for a diverse range of organizations – from Clarica Life Insurance to Alzheimer's, from Heart & Stroke to the Empire Club of Canada, and from the Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health to the Association for the Defence of the Wrongly Convicted and the Historica-Dominion Institute.

And in his free time, John has co-authored three national best-selling books with colleague Darrell Bricker: What Canadians Think About Almost Everything (2005), We Know What You're Thinking (2009) and Canuckology (2010).

Trent Ross
Senior Vice President
Ipsos Public Affairs
Washington, DC

Trent Ross has extensive experience in designing, conducting, and analyzing both quantitative and qualitative research projects on a local, national, and global scale in over 40 countries for top international companies including P&G, Nestlé, Microsoft, Coca-Cola and Boeing.

He has put his experience to work as the leading voice in developing the Ipsos 'present value' approach to reputation. At the heart of the Ipsos model is the view that corporate reputation isn't just something that you store away for a rainy day. Reputation has present value - it can help you improve your reputation today resulting in reduced headwinds, greater marketing efficiency, and an open dialogue with stakeholders.

Trent has written extensively on the connection between reputation and the bottom line, the role trust plays in calculations of reputation, and on how corporations can optimize their CSR initiatives to improve their reputation. He has published several articles on the topic of corporate reputation and crisis management - including a paper that won for best case study at ESOMAR.

Nicolas Boyon
Senior Vice President
Ipsos Public Affairs
New York, NY

Nick Boyon is an expert in research on international public opinion and attitudes, corporate reputation and brand positioning. He has served the research needs of all types of corporations, media companies, advertising agencies, public relations firms, non-profit organizations, and the public sector the world over.

Since he joined Ipsos in 2005, Nick's responsibilities have focused on developing, executing and reporting studies that measure and track the reputation of companies among both stakeholders and the general public, and surveys designed to help organizations communicate with the public or with professionals about specific issues. Many of these surveys are the object of media releases or authoritative, publicly disseminated reports and some have been published in peer-reviewed journals.

Nick started his research career with Sofres in Paris and headed the international custom research practice of Roper/NOP World in NY and Hong Kong. He is a member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) and the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).

Mike Colledge
President, Canadian Public Affairs
Ipsos Public Affairs
Ottawa, ON

Mike Colledge joined Ipsos Reid in 1997 after more than 12 years of working within both social and economic portfolios of the Government of Canada. Mike's background and expertise covers all facets of public and private sector communications as well as government policy development.

Since joining Ipsos Reid, Mike has worked on hundreds of qualitative and quantitative studies and projects. The policy and program objectives that Mike's work has supported have ranged from encouraging people to donate blood or stop smoking to positioning and communicating the Government of Canada's annual budget.

Currently he works with most of the major Federal Departments as well as a number of large national associations and private sector clients. Mike provides advice and counsel to his clients on a wide range of public affairs, communications and policy issues. He helps clients conduct and use public opinion research to gain a better understanding of their target audience and to translate this understanding into efficient and effective policies, programs, communications strategies and marketing initiatives.

Clifford Young
Managing Director, Public Sector
Ipsos Public Affairs
Washington, DC

Clifford Young is the Managing Director of Ipsos Public Affairs' Public Sector practice in the U.S. His research specialties include social and public opinion trends, crisis management, political risk polling, and political polling. He has worked with a wide-variety of corporate, government, media, and political clients.

He currently oversees Ipsos' polling for Reuters, and is the spokesperson for Ipsos Public Affairs. He is a frequent writer and commenter on politics and public opinion in the U.S. and Latin America.

Cliff is also considered an expert on polling in emerging markets, as well as polling in adverse and hostile conditions. Before coming to Ipsos Public Affairs North America, Cliff was Managing Director of Ipsos Public Affairs Brazil where he started the practice for Ipsos.

Cliff earned his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa) and did his graduate work at the University of Chicago (Master of Arts and Ph.D.).

Chris Martyn
Chief Research Officer
Ipsos Public Affairs
Toronto, ON

Chris Martyn is Chief Research Officer with Ipsos Public Affairs and has over 25 years of experience in the public opinion and market research business in Canada and abroad. He is a specialist in survey design, methodology, and strategic analysis of research programs, particularly programs that are used to support public affairs, public communications, and information initiatives for both public and private sectors.

He began his career in market research with Decima Research in the 1980s where he advanced to the position of Vice President, followed by 10 years at COMPAS as a Senior Partner. Chris joined Ipsos Reid in 2000 as Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Public Affairs. He has a Master's degree in Political Science from the University of Waterloo.

John P. Vidmar
President, USA Public Affairs
Ipsos Public Affairs
Chicago, IL

John P. Vidmar heads the Public Affairs practice in the U.S. which conducts research for governmental agencies, corporate clients and not-for-profits. John has had a long career focused on designing and executing large scale, complex tracking surveys.

He has served as Head of North American Solutions (which included the branding and loyalty practices), Global Head of Performance Tracking and the head of the Public Sector Research Group. Prior to joining Ipsos, John was the Assistant Head of Data Analysis at the Survey Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois. He has been a consultant to both the NBC News Election Unit as well as the U.S. Census Bureau.

John has a Master's degree from the University of Chicago where he trained at the National Opinion Research Center and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois.