Paul joined JRA Research 12 years ago – a period which has seen considerable change within the business.
As a management graduate from Sheffield Hallam University, his career in market research began way back in 1993. He joined Mall Research Services a division of Business Blueprints, the leisure and retail consultancy based in Sheffield. Here he cut his teeth conducting feasibility studies for European leisure/retail destinations and ran customer/retailer research at shopping centres throughout the UK. Much of this work was based within marketing departments providing Paul with invaluable 'clientside' and hands on marketing experience.
After a year at Sheffield Business School where he gained a Postgraduate Certificate in Marketing, Paul joined JRA as a Senior Research Executive. In addition to this research role, Paul was the first Quality Manager, guiding JRA through the intricacies of MRQSA [BS7911] and ultimately ISO9001 accreditation. At that time JRA Research were amongst the very first UK agencies to gain these quality standards. In 2000 he was made a Director with key responsibilities for business development and international clients.
Following the departure from the business of the founder Nigel Rhodes in 2002, Paul took over as Managing Director. This ultimately lead to a management buyout of the business 2 years later.
In recent years the expansion of the business has seen the opening of a new state of the art call centre, significant growth in qualitative research and more recently the broadening of our offer into business research. 2009 was a very busy year for JRA with 3 senior appointments helping to significantly strengthen the management team.
Paul lives with his wife and 3 children in an old farmhouse in the heart of the Peak District. This provides the perfect base to enjoy rock climbing, mountain biking and walking. An ambitious mountaineer, Paul hopes to one day achieve a lifelong ambition to climb in the Himalaya. Watch this space!