The campaign is on! From 3 to 16 February, the members of Esomar, the world’s largest market research association, will be voting to elect their new Council, the organisation’s governing body, for the 2025-2028 term. There are 2 candidates vying for the presidency: the Belgian Tom De Ruyck, and yes, a Frenchwoman, Anne-Sophie Damelincourt! She talks to Market Research News about her motivations and her vision of the key challenges and priorities for Esomar.

MRNews: The campaign for the renewal of the Esomar Council has been launched.Voting will take place between 3 and 16 February 2025.You are a candidate for the President position for the 2025-2028 term.Why are you running? What are your motivations?

Anne-Sophie Damelincourt: I was elected three times to the Esomar Council between 2015 and 2020, and I was also Treasurer of the organisation from 2019 to 2020. I’ve been working in the Data, Insight and Consulting industry for 25 years (end-client and agency sides). I therefore have an excellent knowledge of our market and its challenges at a global level, and I also know Esomar very well, how it works, as well as the people who work there and its local representatives. In particular, I’ve spent the last six years on the Board working with Joaquim Bretcha, the Managing Director. We can form a very fine team to drive the directions that will be implemented.

As an active member of Esomar, I have always believed in the decisive role of this organisation in representing, promoting and defending the interests of our profession and our sector, both globally and more locally. The complex and profoundly changing ecosystem in which we operate offers us magnificent prospects if we seize the right opportunities, and above all if we succeed in transforming ourselves and taking action.

More personally, I’m a good listener, committed, determined, dynamic and action-oriented. I have a strong attachment to my profession and a keen sense of human relations, teamwork and service.

So naturally I want to put my vision and experience to work for an organisation and its members, to make them stronger.

What do you see as the main challenges for Esomar and the resulting priorities for the organisation?

Esomar is a large organisation with over 12,000 members worldwide. It focuses on acquiring and sharing knowledge, connecting through its network, defining its Standards with its Code of Conduct, and promoting them.

In my opinion, the main challenges facing Esomar are, in a relatively classic way, exogenous and endogenous. They are obviously linked to the rapid evolution of our industry with the explosion of Data and then today with Artificial Intelligence, turning our practices and our capacity for action upside down. From an endogenous point of view, Esomar’s main challenge is linked to the nature, structure and size of its community. It is not easy to make ourselves attractive and relevant to 12,000 members from different geographical areas and age groups, with very different expectations. The risk, in the long run, is of not taking sufficient account of the personal and professional concerns of its members, of being distant.

My priority is to put Members back at the heart of this organisation. We are the champions of ‘Customer Centricity’, we shout it loud and clear, and we are incapable of applying it to ourselves! Putting Members back at the centre means redefining our benefits and our added value as a professional association. My claim, ‘EMPOWERING YOU’, fully expresses this idea.

What does Esomar need to capitalise on? What does Esomar need to change?

Esomar’s business model and all its value are based on its Members, so it is on its Members that the association should capitalise. 3 years ago, I led a global working group on Esomar’s Value Proposition. An interesting concept came out of it: the idea of ‘Give Back’. In other words, ‘by joining Esomar and accessing its community, I receive tangible benefits to contribute to my personal and professional development’.

If I am elected President, I undertake to enhance the interests of its Members, in particular by supporting the transformation of players in the Data and Insight industry, by being as close as possible to their business concerns. I’m thinking in particular of innovation, by facilitating partnerships with tech players through workshops, competitions,…

I invite you to find out more about my application, objectives and action plan on my blog (annesophie-damelincourt.com) and on the Esomar website.

Do you have a special message for the French community?

I’d like to thank the French community, and more broadly the French-speaking community, as well as the entire Esomar community, for their trust and long-standing support. It’s thanks to this strong group that I’ve been able to develop my business and meet some fascinating and passionate people. To be elected President and to serve our community is a just return of things and takes up the idea of ‘Give Back’ described above. I’d particularly like to thank Isabelle Fabry, who has been involved for many years, for her unfailing support and action, as well as Jennifer Picard and Céline Astruc, our French Representatives.

Of course, I would also like to thank the people who have officially supported my candidacy, and in particular Dan Foreman, Esomar former-President.

Thank you for your confidence and for your vote.