Nature Expands National Team with New Capability Hires

Strategic insights consultancy Nature bolsters qualitative consulting capabilities with new hires

Leading strategic insights consultancy Nature announces four new appointments to its qualitative function, growing the team’s national headcount to five following the appointment of Christine O’Keefe to lead the practice just seven months ago. This marks a major step in strengthening Nature’s qualitative capability, now fully embedded as a key pillar of its multi-disciplinary strategic insights offering. 

Nature’s recent growth extends beyond Qual, with three new hires also joining Nature’s consulting, strategy and operations teams – bringing the total new team members to eight across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

Nature’s Founder and Managing Partner, Chris Crook, said:

“These appointments reflect the enormous momentum we have as a business and the overwhelmingly positive response the market and our client base have had to us developing a full qual offering.

We’re delighted it’s already achieved the success it has, but sense this is only the beginning and that great things lie ahead as we continue to deliver best-in-class advice drawing on our multidisciplinary skills.”

Qualitative consulting practice

Stuart Malcolm has joined Nature Sydney as Senior Associate Director, Qualitative. Formerly Head of Agency at CrowdDNA and with a background at Fiftyfive5, Stuart brings deep cultural insight and qualitative leadership experience to the team.

Jemimah Gray has joined as Associate Director, Qualitative. She brings a strong track record in trends and strategic qualitative work from her time at TRA and Fiftyfive5.

Jed Larwood has been promoted to Associate Director, Qualitative. Jed has played a key role in the growth and development of Nature’s qualitative practice. 

Also joining the qualitative team is Lilia Blanari, who has come on board as Operations Lead, Qualitative joining from Pollinate. 

Broader team expansion

Briahna Certoma has joined Nature in a newly created Strategy Support role. She will work closely with Aliya Hasan assisting the strategy team to scale impact as demand grows.

James Shelley joins the Melbourne office as a Senior Consultant, bringing experience from Lewers and a strong background in end-to-end quantitative consulting.

Estelle Pack has joined as a Senior Consultant in Melbourne and comes from Kantar UK with a background in marketing science.

Millie Niere has joined the Melbourne team as a Consultant from Decision Design, further strengthening the team’s behavioural science lens within Nature’s growing consultant cohort.

Gabby Webb joins the team as Office Manager, bringing operational experience from Inventium and supporting team culture and coordination across Nature’s Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane offices.

The team’s expansion caps off a strong first half of the year for Nature, underpinned by high-impact work across brand, product and CX.

Nature also recently previewed highlights from the upcoming second edition of its Truths and Tensions cultural insights report at the Mumbrella Retail Summit and Mumbrella360. The report explores how contradictions in consumer behaviour are playing out across categories and offers fresh perspective on the cultural forces shaping decision-making today.

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About Nature

Nature is an award-winning strategic insights consultancy with offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. As the first B Corp certified insights business in Australia and New Zealand, Nature helps organisations make more informed business and marketing decisions through evidence-based insight. Now in its 18th year, Nature exists to inform tomorrow, drawing on deep expertise in understanding human nature and the nature of people. The business has been recognised as The Research Society’s Organisation of the Year (2023 and 2024) and B&T’s Research Agency of the Year (2018 and 2020).