BEATON RESEARCH + CONSULTING - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- CRM and Digital Marketing Lead
Amanda joined the Beaton family as our CRM and Digital Marketing Lead 2023.
Digital marketing is Amanda's, second love. With more than a decade's experience in all things online and veins that run with full sugar cola, Amanda will turbo-charge the delivery of Beaton's digital ambitions. She is responsible for digital strategies, marketing automation, CRM management, and ensuring Beaton's insights reach the audiences we want to help grow.
Amanda comes to Beaton having successfully co-founded a boutique SEO firm during the COVID-19 pandemic, where she helped small businesses improve online traffic and inquiries, particularly in the legal and B2B industries. She kicked off her career in brand management 20 years ago and, having been there at the birth of digital marketing as we know it today, has helped many businesses digitally transform and helped build them from the ground up in an online-only world.
Amanda's first love is wildlife, specifically birds, and if your guard is down, she will happily tell you all about them without you asking. When she is not driving Beaton's online marketing, she can be found volunteering at WIRES, Australia's largest wildlife rescue organisation.
David advises Beaton's clients on the application of strategic insights that professional services firms derive from our suite of information and research products. Having been a former client of Beaton, he is well placed to assist clients identify where evidence can inform and enhance strategic decisions.
Drawing on extensive senior leadership experience in Queensland's largest professional services firms, BDO and McCullough Robertson, David also advises clients on business strategy, partner performance management, pricing and regularly facilitates strategic planning conferences.
A Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia and Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, David holds a BCom from Griffith University and a Certificate in Financial Markets from FINSIA.
George has guided Beaton's clients through a wide variety of strategic decisions in his 30+ years as an adviser and researcher.
His background in business school teaching combined with his work in professional services firms, public and private companies, universities and governments gives him deep insights into the challenges and opportunities that leaders and their organisations face.
George's management experience includes founder and executive director roles in consulting, communications and marketing research firms, and professorships in leading universities in Australia and South Africa.
He holds MBBCh, MBA and PhD degrees. George was a senior fellow in the University of Melbourne business and law schools for 30 years and was the inaugural chair of the College of Law program board for the Master of Legal Business innovative suite of qualifications.
George has authored two books on the legal services industry:
NewLaw New Rules - A Conversation About the Future of the Legal Services Industry in 2013, and
Remaking Law Firms: Why & How with Dr Imme Kaschner in 2016.
Job Titles:
- in 2015 As Research Manager
- Research Lead
After working as a survey statistician in Southeast Asia for ten years, Grant joined Beaton in 2015 as research manager.
At Beaton Grant is responsible for managing the production of Beaton's multi-faceted large tracking project. Each year this tracking project asks thousands of c-suite and in-house professionals, senior and line managers about their experience and perceptions of professional services firms in law, built & natural environment consulting, management consulting, accounting and IP.
Grant provides advice on survey design, weighting, fieldwork management and statistical analysis. Being an expert in SPSS, Python and R, he helps the team draw conclusions from complex quantitative data and making the findings accessible to our clients' c-suite leaders.
He graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a BCA (Hons) in Economics and Massey University with a Masters in Science (Statistics).
Beginning his career in research in 1999, John has worked across a wide range of industries. His research has driven positive outcomes for major corporations and not-for-profit organisations and in policy development and public health. John has extensive experience in B2B research, having managed large scale research programs from both the inside and as a consultant to some of Australia's largest businesses.
At Beaton John works closely with our partners to understand clients' core research needs and translate them into research projects to inform their decision-making. As part of our research team, John is involved in research design, project management, data analysis, reporting and innovation.
John's passion is using the craft of research to build actionable insights that drive meaningful change. He brings a pragmatic approach, balancing the real-world challenges of research with rigorous scientific method to achieve optimal results for clients. He draws on a wide range of technical quantitative research skills to discover, build and communicate a coherent narrative for clients; he is skilled at finding the story in the data and bringing this story to life.
John holds a BCom with first degree honours and a PhD from Deakin University in Victoria.
Jon's passion is in helping Beaton's clients deliver profitable growth for their businesses.
He is a recognised client specialist and adviser to professional services and works with a wide range of businesses from small to large.
His focus is helping his clients to delight their clients.
He combines Beaton evidence and insight with his own 25 years of track record in client experience, strategic advisory, training and coaching.
Prior to joining Beaton in 2019, he had 10+ years in senior business development leadership roles with Beca and PwC, New Zealand's two largest professional services firms. While General Manager of Business Development at Beca, Jon was proud to be associated with the firm's serial success in the Client Choice Awards. His experience prior to that with ANZ Bank and in the global drinks industry gives him a unique level of business insight and a strong understanding of how businesses operate.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- IT Manager
- Manager
Jordan Webb has been a consultant and manager of information technology and communication (ICT) for more than 25 years, serving a variety of companies, both large and small.
In addition to managing all of Beaton's ICT requirements, he ensures the reliability and dependability of our systems and designs solutions to meet the varying needs of our clients, directors, partners, researchers and mamagers. His responsibilities range from cybersecurity to staff training and everything in between.
A highly-regarded technology expert, he is known for his attention to detail and is renowned for his ability to explain, demonstrate soothe, and troubleshoot for both technophiles and non-techies alike.
Job Titles:
- Board Director at the Kennedy Foundation for Journalism
- Content and Communications Lead
Kate is an award-winning journalist and the wordsmith behind all kinds of Beaton content including blogs, emails, newsletters, and marketing material. Her unique skills were developed during years of working with some of the most notoriously difficult interview subjects: lawyers.
Kate graduated from UNSW with bachelor degrees in both media (majoring in journalism) and law (second-class honours), and she previously worked at the NSW Law Society's membership trade publication LSJ. There, she was Associate Editor and journalist for six years. Her work earned recognition by media industry awards including the Mumbrella Publish Awards and the NSW Council for Civil Liberties. While at LSJ, she interviewed George Beaton on several occasions and joined Beaton after developing a relationship with the team on previous freelance writing projects.
Kate's communication skills span multiple platforms, from hosting in-person events and presenting to camera, to writing news and longform feature articles, to writing media releases and conducting public relations. She has earned certificates in radio and TV presenting at the Australian Film Television and Radio School and has published bylines in national newspapers including The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian. She is a regular host at high-profile business conferences and in 2019 presented a panel alongside former Prime Minister Julia Gillard at the International Bar Association Conference in Seoul, South Korea.
Kate is a board director at the Kennedy Foundation for Journalism, and a co-founder of the Equal Pay for Equal Play campaign that one day hopes to see equal prize money for women in government-funded sport
Libby works with Beaton's clients to help them win, retain and grow business and deliver value to their clients in sustainably profitable ways. She creates order out of chaos, works at both strategic and operational levels, combines creativity with strong analytical skills and big picture thinking, sets clear priorities and readily engages stakeholders at all levels.
Libby has been instrumental in designing and executing major marketing, pricing and client service programs and winning significant competitive bids to corporates and governments. In addition, she has trained and coached in legal, consulting engineering, patent attorney, accounting and consulting, and financial services firms. Her approach is based on sound research, evidence and analysis and grounded in practicality.
Libby has held senior leadership roles in marketing and business development, pricing and legal project management. She commenced her career as a lawyer and worked as a management consultant with an international firm and her own consultancy.
Libby has an LLB from Monash University, an MBA from the Melbourne and London Business Schools, is a Fulbright Scholar, and a graduate of the AICD.
Since joining Beaton in 2010, Marc has worked across various parts of our business including our M&A and strategy consulting practice Beaton Capital, our events arm Beaton Live, our professional services focused incubator Beaton Ventures and our client ratings and reviews platform Firmchecker.
Today his role in the Beaton research team sees him manage our transactional feedback platform, Beaton Debrief, as well as coordinating the expansion of the Client Choice Awards to enable small-to-medium professional services organisations to enjoy all of the benefits that taking part brings.
These responsibilities see him working with clients of all sizes across all stages of their client feedback journey. Marc takes great satisfaction in helping guide and support our clients through this process, whether with a firm starting out from scratch or one looking to supplement or improve upon an existing framework.
He graduated from the University of Strathclyde with a BA (Hons) in Finance and the University of New South Wales with a Masters in Financial Analysis.
Matthew is focused on helping Beaton's clients grow and succeed. He works with them to find and retain quality clients, improve client experience, strengthen brand equity and build growth opportunities. Matthew uses insight gained from Beaton's extensive market research to provide clients with practical strategies and develop programs with measurable outcomes.
Prior to working with Beaton Matthew held sales, marketing and business development roles in professional services and higher education. He led international teams at Mercer and DLA Piper and was Chief Marketing Officer at RMIT University and La Trobe University.
The Australian Marketing Institute has recognised Matthew with the Chief Marketing Officer of the Year (Vic) award, the Customer Experience Marketing award (National), the Consumer Insight Award (Vic) and the Internal Marketing Award (Vic).
Matthew holds a BA from Melbourne University, LLB (Hons) from Bond University and MBA from RMIT University. He is admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor in the State of Victoria. He recently completed the Cambridge University "Strategic Thinking for the CXO" course.
Paul consults with Beaton's clients to help them develop superior growth strategies and programs, using Beaton's suite of market, client and competitor information products and research insights.
He helps firms build executional capability and performance, set KPIs, track performance, highlight opportunities and issues, and refine their programs.
Paul has led successful change programs using this approach, both as a CMO within professional services firms and as a consultant to firms.
Prior to consulting Paul spent 20 years in international sales and marketing director roles in both B2B and B2C, including Ashurst, Mallesons, Mars, British Airways and Bacardi.
Paul has a BSc (Hons) from Reading University, UK and an executive MBA from Darden business school, West Virginia.