Team Bios
Agencies are built by people who are committed to doing great work on behalf of clients. We have worked together for over ten years as partners and collaborators to dig deeper and create lasting impact for brands.
Ben
Allen
Founding Partner
Ben is an award winning researcher and brand strategist who has worked across industries to deliver insights that lead to top-line growth. He loves tricky problems and re-examining the decision-making context to discover new opportunities.
Prior to founding Labrador he worked at W+K, Publicis, Sterling Brands, TATTOO and THINK Conservatory. In doing so he developed a broad range of career brand experience; launching, refining and guiding brands such as Teen Vogue, AXE Grooming, HP, Cirque du Soleil, Microsoft Surface, Old Navy, Levi’s, Discovery Networks, Oprah Winfrey, Red Bull and many more.
Lizzie
Laundy
Contributing Partner/Digital Lead
Lizzie has almost 10 years experience as a strategist, researcher, and advocate for the consumer. With a penchant for digging into the lives and minds of people, she brings a background in social science to the commercial world – uncovering user insight and helping clients apply that learning to deliver business results.
Initially trained as a business anthropologist using ethnography to help designers create experiences, she has a deep appreciation for explorative qualitative methodologies. In recent years, excited by the access technology provides to get a closer look into people’s worlds, she has embraced digital tools as an optimized platform for learning. She now heads up Labrador’s digital research team offering a unique and refreshing approach to connecting with consumers with brands to deliver insights.
Sonya
Adams
Fieldwork Specialist
Sonya’s full time job as a child was carrying around 7” records to show and tell and letting her classmates know of her latest band obsession. She turned this passion into a whirlwind career in the music business, beginning as a teenager. Working as a music publicist, tour and artist manager, and the door person who seized all of those fake IDs, she became the third degree of separation between the movers and shakers in the music, art, fashion and film world.
Her unique contribution to Labrador as specialist recruiter has also included trend spotter, cultural attaché, script doctor, gal Friday, and getaway driver.
Nathan
Punwar
Video Specialist
Nathan Punwar is an editor and photographer, as well as a director of short films, music videos and video installations. Ready to travel, he is rarely without a camera and some editing tools. Moving freely between documentary subjects, narrative storytelling, and visual art, his work has been shown at The New York Film Festival, Slamdance, and many others.
At Labrador he works to comb through countless hours of video and conversations to bring research to life in a way that works from the conference room to the boardroom.
Lisa
Leckie
Contributing Partner
For two decades, Lisa has passionately pursued design and brand research, user experience strategy and innovation planning. Today, her focus is in helping companies better apply consumer insights to meet the needs of their market through brand and product strategy, and qualitative/ethnographic research that brings to life the human experience.
Her expertise spans consumer and b2b technology, retail, clothing, financial services, entertainment, health and personal care with an emphasis on families, moms and teens, social media/ads, and internet of things experiences. Her work is strongly influenced by a deep passion for good design and includes global experience with brands such as Gap, Discovery Channel, eBay, Allied Domecq, Instagram, Twitter, Walmart and the San Francisco Aids Foundation.
Margaret
Mariani
Contributing Partner
Margaret spent more than a decade working as a brand strategist at some of the country’s best creative advertising agencies such as McKinney and GSD&M. She understands creative development and respects the creative process. Her client experience includes Fortune 100s to smaller companies, branding firms to advertising agencies. She’s an active and proud member of QRCA, Insights Association, EPIC, and WIRe and teaches college Juniors and Seniors Advertising Research at USF.
Julia
Devetski
Contributing Partner
Insight director, design strategist and award-winning creative leader, Julia strives to unearth cogent truths and new perspectives through engaging conversations.
Beginning her career in anthropology, fashion and humor, Julia has spent 20 years building strategic creative relationships with clients as far-ranging as Mayo Clinic to Mars and Peace Corps to Procter & Gamble. With a penchant for concept ideation, voice and naming, positioning, and new product/experience development, she has a writer’s ear for storytelling and a creative director’s eye for visual impact.
A RIVA-certified moderator for over 10 years, Julia is honored to work alongside curious clients globally, and at home in Chicago. Her dynamic qualitative methods and insight strategies are designed to inspire marketing, innovation and creative teams toward new thinking.