Team

The Seratti Group is a coalition of independent individuals dedicated to providing research with integrity
and consistency. They include senior, seasoned researchers, interviewers, and analysts who have
experience working together.

Karen Seratti

Psychologist
Seratti Group founder
Global ethnographer
Wannabe golfer
SF Giants season ticket holder

Full Bio

Traci Ayer

Brand strategist
Marketing tactician
Communications ace
Avid skier
Coffee addict

Full Bio

Gretchen Beck

Market research enthusiast
Devoted to quality control and assurance
Numbers geek
Frequent concert goer
Sushi lover

Full Bio

Paula Julian

Global research specialist
Grand Effie award winner
Developer of a new methodology
Eager chef
Aspiring beach bum

Full Bio

Henrik Moeller

Qualitative polymath
Research nomad
Assiduous insight seeker
Gastronomic bon Viveur
Inspired percussionist (seeks band)

Full Bio

Jim Thomas

Market research expert
Lifelong learner
Connector
Storyteller
Former bartender

Full Bio

Jason Wolos

Filmmaker
Creative storyteller
Film & video instructor
Foodie
Animal lover

Full Bio

Steve Wood

Account planner
Creative director
What-if-er
Instagramographer
Eclectic reader

Full Bio

Josie Yau

Market research specialist
Multi-language moderator
Training facilitator
Qualified GT3 & F3 car racer
Middle East & China trader

Full Bio

Karen Seratti, PhD

Dr. Karen Seratti is an experienced and innovative research professional and academic who focuses her practice on eliciting insights from her clients’ customers. Karen founded The Seratti Group, a San Francisco-based research and consulting firm, to help clients better understand their customers’ expectations in both traditional and online channels. Her expertise lies in helping clients craft more intuitive and engaging interactive products and online experiences for their customers. She has worked with a diverse and well-known client list comprising, in part: Red Envelope, Starbucks, Hasbro, LeapFrog, Sprint, Hallmark, Disney, BEA and John Laing Homes.

Karen is passionate about the enhanced opportunities for customer engagement and satisfaction the Internet offers. As a busy small business owner and mother of two small children, she experiences first-hand the time-saving efficiency superior online interactions can provide in daily life.

Prior to forming The Seratti Group, Dr. Karen Seratti co-founded an interactive research and consulting firm in San Francisco, Noise to Signal. The company helped clients develop effective and compelling interactive customer experiences by combining a holistic approach to market and customer research with the latest technological measurement and assessment techniques.

Before Noise to Signal, Karen was the Assistant Director of Research and Strategic Planning for American Century Investments. While at American Century, Karen was instrumental in repositioning the firm’s brand, as well as designing and implementing customer research studies which informed the development of the company’s website, the first to offer transactions via the World Wide Web. Karen also developed one of the first Internet attitudinal and behavioral surveys, the results of which were quoted in the Wall Street Journal for several years.

Karen has been published and cited in a variety of academic and industry publications, and has taught at the university and secondary level for several years.

Karen holds a doctorate in Psychology, a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology and a bachelor’s in Communication. She has been a member of the American Psychological Association since 1989 and the American Marketing Association since 1995. She is a member of the Creative Problem Solving Institute and the Qualitative Research Consultations Association.

Karen lives in San Francisco with her husband and two twin boys. She loves to read books from the New York Times bestseller list and spend as much time as possible each year in Lake Tahoe.

Traci Ayer

Traci is a seasoned consultant with nearly 20 years of experience in brand management, marketing strategy and communications, as well as hands-on expertise in general management. Traci has worked with organizations ranging from large corporations to startups to nonprofits to help them develop business and marketing plans, launch new products and communicate more effectively.

Prior to starting her independent practice, Traci served as principal at Tiller LLC where she consulted with Fortune 500 companies and nonprofits to design marketing platforms built to bolster the brand and the bottom line – all while advancing the public interest. Before Tiller, Traci was vice president and head of brand management at Deutsche Bank where she was responsible for setting strategic direction for the U.S. retail asset management brand, as well as managing the advertising, sponsorship and marketing research programs. Traci has also worked for leading financial services companies, Allstate and Invesco.

She served on the board of Houston Children Give Back, a nonprofit she co-founded to create philanthropic opportunities for children.

Traci earned a BA in Political Science and Journalism from Texas A&M University and a MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business.

Gretchen Beck

Gretchen Beck has over 25 years of experience, managing all aspects of the research process, from study design and questionnaire development to data collection and analysis, as well as with a series of diverse issues including Customer Satisfaction, Market Segmentation and Brand Tracking. Her projects have spread across a broad range of industries including consumer goods, industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, office products healthcare and restaurants. Gretchen has supervised Customer Satisfaction studies for clients in multiple countries and locations in North America, Europe and EMEA.

Gretchen focuses on client service, establishing partnerships with the clients she serves. She also builds and maintains solid relationships with vendors to facilitate timely delivery of reliable data.

She holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Paula Julian

Paula is a qualitative and quantitative specialist with over 25 years creating brand strategies proven to result in bottom-line profits. Skilled in a variety of sophisticated multi-method problem solving approaches. She has held senior roles in national and global advertising agencies including Bozell, Ackerman McQueen, and RAPP; and extensive experience the financial services, insurance, energy, telecom, and CPG categories. Clients include Fidelity, UCB, Scottrade, Mutual of Omaha, State Farm, GEHA, Entergy, Duke Energy, AT&T, DIRECTV, Charter, Time Warner Cable, Pepsico, Frito Lay, and Tabasco. She completed her doctoral studies at University of Missouri.

Henrik Moeller

Hands-on expert with a passion for digging in and solving client issues as a designer, moderator and analyst of research that informs strategy development, customer segmentation, brand plans, marketing, new product development, market scoping and more.

Clients value Henrik’s ability to crystallize their business objectives and hypotheses into a clear, actionable sets of research objectives executed proficiently across qualitative and quantitative methods, ethnography / behavioural analysis, ideation / creative workshops, psycho-quantitative and hybrid methods.

Nearly two decades of client service in FMCG, Finance, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Finance and Industry imbue Henrik’s intuitive eye for relevant findings and valuable insights. Clients regularly recommend Henrik for his naturally efficient, relevant client interactions and his unbiased, open approach to contributing to clients’ project- or management team efforts.

Henrik lives in London but conducts and oversees research across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.

Henrik speaks four languages and moderates in two (English and German). One of those four languages is music, although this is frequently the subject of debate with other musicians, who tend to submit that drumming isn’t much of a language, however expertly done. They obviously haven’t heard of West Africa’s famous drum languages. Or Buddy Rich.

Jim Thomas

Dr. Thomas has spent about half his career in advertising, marketing, and research companies and about half in the corporate insights and market intelligence. Jim is a gifted storyteller, with the ability to breathe life into found insights. He has been described as a person who can take complex situations, make sense of them, and take decisive, well-reasoned action. He is known for bringing innovative, yet practical solutions to organizational and market challenges.

With a solid foundation in applied psychology and having worked with some of the most recognized and successful brands in the world, Jim has honed his craft with hands-on experience in multi-unit retail, B2C and B2B financial services, telecom, healthcare, academics, home delivered goods, insurance, and chain restaurants. Most recently Jim held a global role with a major pharmaceutical company. He was one of the primary connections between research & development and the marketplace. His role included pre-launch and launch involvement with EPA, FDA, and USDA products early-stage development to the marketplace.

As adjunct professor Jim has taught undergraduate classes in advertising, industrial/organizational psychology, statistics, marketing, and marketing research, at the graduate level classes included marketing, strategic management, and research. Jim’s education includes roots in a rural country school in the Midwest and concluded with a doctorate in Psychology.

Jason Wolos

Jason Wolos is a producer, director, and cameraman who runs Fine Dining Video Productions and Indie House SF. He has produced, filmed, and worked on numerous projects for major corporations, global brands, film festivals, and independent productions. His work has screened on platforms from the Sundance Channel to 60 Minutes to Netflix, many film festivals, and around the globe. His recent independent feature film, Trattoria, starring Tony Denison (Major Crimes, The Closer) and John Patrick Amedori (Hindsight, Gossip Girl) was released worldwide on VOD and DVD in 2013. He currently has two scripts in development and a video podcast in production.

Steve Wood

Steve Wood is an account planner with a creative director inside. Or if you prefer, a creative director with an account planner inside. In his view all effective creative is strategic. And all strategy is creative. And strategy begins with an astute sense of the marketing landscape, the business objective and an illuminating insight into the target audience, which is often, but not always, a consumer. His goal in account planning is to craft a brief that turns authentic insight into a launching pad for relevant, compelling creative development. His creative background contributes to writing inspiring briefs. He works at the intersection of all marketing disciplines: research, data analytics, creative, media, metrics, and whatever is sure to come next. His role is to bridge and connect sometimes opposing forces in productive ways. Steve’s experience covers B2B and B2C, with brands from McDonald’s to Wal-Mart, Capital One to USAA, Hostess to Thrifty Car Rental. He has a M.S. in Rhetoric & Writing from The University of Tulsa.

Josie Yau

Josie has over 20 years of experience in both qualitative and quantitative research. She has moderated groups in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Dubai in Mandarin, Cantonese and English. Josie has researched products and services across multiple industries including IT & computing, telecommunications, banking and finance, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), luxury products, retail, entertainment, tourism and real estate. She has worked with some of the world’s most respected and iconic brands — Apple, Intel, Fitbit, Hershey, Johnson & Johnson, Turner Entertainment, Starbucks, Ritz Carlton, and Sheraton.

Josie speaks English, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese Chinese and Italian. She earned a Master in Psychology at the University of Sydney and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Statistics from Macquarie University in Australia.