President’s Report – February 2025
The big news this month was the election of the new President and Council. I extend a massive congratulations to the successful candidates and our deep thanks to all the candidates for making it such an inspiring election, leading to one of the highest percentage turnouts for many years.
The new President Anne-Sophie and her Council will take office at the start of April and will serve for three years.
As Past President, I will remain on the Council for one year, assisting Anne-Sophie and her new team.
The ICC/ESOMAR Code
Another big piece of news is the new ICC/ESOMAR Code, which is currently out to consultation. The ICC/ESOMAR Code is one of the primary benefits of ESOMAR, bringing a global set of standards to a challenging and dynamic world. The new code should be adopted at an ESOMAR General Meeting later in the year and then we will be calling on the industry to adopt and promote it.
Council Meeting
The most recent Council meeting was a virtual meeting on 26 February and started with the Council welcoming Anne-Sophie, who attended as a guest of the current Council. Anne-Sophie will join all the meetings (Council and Execo) between now and April. The new Council’s first meeting will be in Amsterdam on 14 and 15 April.
The Council voted to thank the Elections Committee for the way they conducted the election and to request a report to help identify any improvements that should be made to the Election Rules. The next elections are three years away, so it is important to make the decisions now.
One of the key reports presented to this Council meeting was on the Digital Transformation, a major project that will enable ESOMAR to provide better services to members and help our team to work more efficiently. This Transformation is something you will be hearing a lot more about over the next two years.
The Council received the usual Finance, membership, and events reports. The plan of events for 2025 is very exciting and includes a much wider range of countries than we have been able to manage before, and we received the encouraging news that the number of tickets sold for the LatAm conference in Peru in April are ahead of our targets – so make sure you don’t leave it too long. The Finance report at the February meeting is typically the least informative of the year as it only covers the figures for one month (January), but I am glad to note that the numbers all looked to be in the right region.
The Council voted to change the voting status of new Council members who would otherwise have limited voting rights. The changes to the ESOMAR Statutes a couple of years ago altered the definition of who could vote in ESOMAR General Meetings and Elections. This has led to the paradox that somebody can be elected a member of Council, they can propose resolutions to General Meetings, but they might be personally unable to vote (if, for example, they were a Corporate Designated Member or a YES member). Therefore, the Council has voted that from April onwards all members of Council will be upgraded to individual member status and have the right to vote in General Meetings and Elections.
Joint ESOMAR/TRS/ADIA event in Sydney
I was delighted to represent ESOMAR at a joint event in Sydney on 20 February. The event was jointly organised by ESOMAR (represented by our Rep Sally Joubert), TRS (The Research Society) and ADIA (Australian Data and Insights Association). The evening comprised me talking about global perspectives on the future of insights and market research in 2025, Garreth Chandler from TRS briefing on the latest in AI-powered insights technology and Andrew Maher from ADIA updating the room about the changing landscape of privacy laws in Australia.