Management

Tod Johnson
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Tod Johnson has been Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The NPD Group and its predecessors since 1971. Considered an expert in his field for more than 40 years, Tod is a frequent speaker at marketing research and management conferences and has been widely published in research-oriented publications. His research expertise is in the areas of brand loyalty and brand equity.

Tod is a Life Trustee of Carnegie Mellon University, a former Director and Chairman of the Advertising Research Foundation, and Director and Founding Chairman of the Council for Marketing and Opinion Research.

Karyn Schoenbart
President and Chief Operating Officer

As President and Chief Operating Officer of The NPD Group, Karyn Schoenbart has direct oversight of all North American and European business units and business unit support, including retail, marketing, sales, and research sciences.

Karyn has over 25 years of experience in the marketing research field assisting Fortune 500 companies in the use of consumer and POS data to make more informed business decisions. Her experience spans both custom and syndicated research.

Karyn is on the board of CivicScience and was on the Board of Directors of CASRO, the Council of American Survey Research Organizations. She is a frequent industry speaker.

Tom Lynch
Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer

As Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer, Tom is responsible for technology, operations, administration, finance, human resources, and The NPD Group’s business unit in Asia. Tom’s management experience includes over 25 years in finance, operations, and transactions in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Tom joined The NPD Group in 1995 and served as CFO until 1998. From 1998 until 2000, he was the CFO of Media Metrix, NPD’s Internet tracking spin-off, where he led the company through three acquisitions and successful initial and secondary public offerings. For 2001, Tom was the COO of Prescient Markets, an online financial trading platform that was sold to SunGard Data Systems. Prior to joining NPD in 1995, Tom was a partner at KPMG Corporate Finance, Tokyo. Tom has an MBA from the London Business School, England and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from University College Dublin, Ireland.

Dennis Brown
Group President, Home, Consumer and Commercial Technology

Dennis Brown is Group President of The NPD Group’s Home and Consumer and Commercial Technology business, overseeing product offerings and expansion in these areas.  Before assuming these roles, Dennis served as President of the company’s Fashion division and Senior Industry Analyst for its Housewares, Home Improvement, and Appliances division. He joined The NPD Group in 2003.

Dennis has more than 30 years of marketing, sales, and general management experience. Before joining The NPD Group, he was Senior Vice President of World Kitchen, Inc., where he led the sales, distribution, and marketing departments for the housewares company. Earlier in his career, he was Chief Operating Officer for Krups North America and President of JBL Consumer Products.

Tim Bush
Group President NPD Asia, DisplaySearch, Solarbuzz & In-Stat

Tim Bush is Group President for the Asia Pacific region and General Manager of The NPD Group's Technology Analyst Business, which includes DisplaySearch, Solarbuzz, and In-Stat. Tim is leading the expansion of The NPD Group into new countries and markets in the Asia Pacific region based out of Hong Kong.

Previously at The NPD Group, Tim served as the Senior Vice President of Corporate Development, managing several significant transactions, including the acquisition of DisplaySearch. He has also served as President of the Home business unit.

Before joining The NPD Group, Tim held executive positions at ACNielsen, American Express, and Time Warner.

Steve Coffey
Chief Research Officer and Executive Vice President

Steve is The NPD Group’s Executive Vice President and Chief Research Officer.  With 30 years in the research industry, his expertise covers both marketing and media research methods, information product innovation, product management, analytics, operations, and client management.  In addition to The NPD Group, Mr. Coffey has held posts at Media Metrix, Nielsen Media Research, Nielsen Marketing Research, and The Pillsbury Company. 

An internationally respected expert in research methodology and research product design, he is best known for implementing highly innovative and successful large-scale research systems.

He is a public speaker and academic lecturer (principally at Columbia University in the City of New York on marketing and media research topics), has published numerous papers and articles on research methodology, and is a named inventor on three U.S. and international research methods patents.  He is a director and Board Chairman of the Advertising Research Foundation, and chairs the foundation’s Executive and Finance Committees.  Steve is an active member of the New York-based Market Research Club and ESOMAR global research organization.  He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Interactive Advertising (JIAD) published by the American Academy of Advertising. Steve holds a Masters degree in business from Columbia University in the City of New York.

Virginia Grande
Global Head of Human Resources

As NPD Group’s Global Head of Human Resources, Virginia Grande is responsible for leading all aspects of human resources, including all global people-related functions, recruiting, training, compensation, benefits, payroll, employee relations, and related policies.

Prior to joining the NPD Group, Virginia was the Managing Director and Global Head of Human Resources for the Securities Division of UBS. Before that, Virginia had a 25 year career with Merrill Lynch in a variety of senior positions including Managing Director and Global Head of HR for Corporate and Enterprise-wide groups, Head of HR for Global Investment Banking, CAO Global Investment Banking, COO for various investment banking groups and Senior Counsel for Equity Sales and Trading. Virginia has a J.D. from St. John’s University School of Law.

Avi Halutz
Chief Information Officer

Avi Halutz is The NPD Group's Chief Information Officer, responsible for overseeing all global Information Technology and Operations functions for the company. He leads the architectural design and systems development to support the company’s growth strategy, which includes the continuing rollout of leading-edge data management and delivery systems.  These comprehensive systems support NPD products for Store Level, national point-of-sale, consumer information, and Advanced Analytics.  Avi has significant expertise and experience in designing and creating complex, data-intensive systems and processes.

Prior to joining The NPD Group in October 2007, he was Vice President, Technology, Marketing Information, and Retail Systems for Time Inc., where he successfully led the build-out and implementation of  the systems and infrastructure for efficient processing of large volumes of data, as well as the establishment of comprehensive Business Intelligence and Decision Support Systems based on Time's extensive databases. Before that, he was with Citibank's Global Card Products Group, where he designed and created management information systems.

Michel Maury 
Group President, Europe

Michel Maury oversees The NPD Group’s growing portfolio of consumer and retail point-of-sale tracking businesses in 11 countries, including France, U.K., Germany, Italy, and Spain. In this role, he also manages NPD offices and staff across Europe. Services in his purview cover the beauty, foodservice, sports, and toys industries.

Before joining The NPD Group in 2008, Maury was Managing Director of Central Europe for IRI, with responsibility for leadership and management of their business units in France and Germany. Prior to that, he was President and CEO of IRI France. Maury began his career at the number-two retailer in the world, Carrefour, where he held several positions of increasing responsibility.

Susan Pechman
Chief Marketing Officer
 

Susan Pechman is The NPD Group's Chief Marketing Officer. With more than two decades of strategic and management experience, her expertise covers all facets of integrated marketing, including branding, market research, advertising, direct response and CRM, public relations and online marketing.

Before joining The NPD Group, Susan was founder and general manager of Cone Interactive in New York City, a highly regarded marketing and PR practice in Silicon Alley, where she was the chief marketer for the launch and evolution of numerous B2B and B2C brands including HomeScan, ScanAmerica, MCI/News Corp’s iGuide, iVillage, About.com, Shop.org and Exchange.com.

Susan is also experienced in product development, and leadership of new organizational divisions in marketing, and client services and sales.

Randall Smith
Group President, Food/Automotive/Canada/Latin America

Randy Smith manages The NPD Group’s Foodservice, Food & Beverage, and Automotive businesses in the U.S., as well as NPD’s operations in Canada and Latin America. He has 25 years of experience in the marketing information field, featuring significant multi-national roles in the retail tracking, consumer panel, and custom research segments of the industry.

Prior to joining NPD in February 2005, Randy served as President and Chief Operating Officer of NFO WorldGroup (then one of the world’s largest survey research firms). Before that, he spent 18 years at Information Resources, Inc., where he was a Group President with responsibilities ranging from client service to leading its worldwide data collection/data processing functions to managing all of the firm’s businesses outside the U.S.

Tom Stigler
Chief Sales Officer
 

Tom Stigler is executive vice president of sales for The NPD Group, Inc.  Tom joined NPD in 2001 and is responsible for NPD’s worldwide sales and sales operations, as well as the Financial Services, Public Sector, and Connected Intelligence business units.  

Tom's 30 year career began at IBM Corporation where he held numerous sales and executive positions over twelve years.  He then joined Hitachi Data Systems as a district manager and subsequently co-founded Digital Lava, a California-based software and services start-up.  As the company’s vice president of sales and business strategy he built Digital Lava’s sales team and led three rounds of financing, culminating in a successful IPO in 1999.  Prior to joining NPD, Tom served as senior vice president of sales and business development for WebSideStory, Inc., where he built the company’s first enterprise sales team prior to its IPO. 

Don Unser
Group President, Retail Business Group

Don Unser leads The NPD Group's recruitment, product, and business development efforts for its panel of retailer partners. The panel consists of more than 900 retail stores, representing 150,000 doors worldwide. NPD's retailer partners provide sales data for the firm's point-of-sale tracking services.

Prior to joining The NPD Group, Don was a 20-year veteran at Hewlett-Packard and held a variety of positions with the company. While at HP, his responsibility spanned the retail, online, and contract outbound sales channels across 13 categories, 100+ partners, 20,000 outlets, and contract stationer branches throughout the U.S. Don managed the company's relationship with all U.S. retail outlets and oversaw sales, finance, marketing, and operations of the company's consumer product portfolio.

Don holds an MBA from the University of Tampa and a BS in Business Administration from University of Central Florida.

Rupert Walters
Group President, Beauty, Entertainment, Fashion, Luxury Goods, Sports, Toys, and Video Games

Rupert Walters returned to The NPD Group in mid-2006 and leads NPD's business in a diverse set of industries, including beauty, fashion, luxury goods, movies, music, sports, toys, and video games.  He also is part of NPD's Business Strategy Committee and is involved in several strategic planning initiatives.

Rupert was NPD's President and Chief Operating Officer from 1993 until 2001, when he became President and Chief Operating Officer of Ipsos North America with the sale of NPD's custom research business to Ipsos. He has also served as CEO of Chemical Bank's Mortgage Banking Business (now JPMorgan Chase) and CEO of Popsicle, a division of Sara Lee. Earlier in his career, he focused on marketing and sales at General Foods (now Kraft), Time Warner Cable TV, and J Walter Thompson. He has an MBA in Marketing from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.