Colmar Brunton has promoted Jacqueline Ireland to the position of chief executive officer, replacing Harry Papafloratos, who passed away earlier this year. She was previously managing director of Colmar Brunton Auckland.
I first met Harry in the late ’70s when he applied for a job at Survey Research (now called Research International). He was fresh out of university, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Despite his unpronounceable name, there was something about him that I liked and he was hired for his first job.
Colmar Brunton has long been dabbling in the field of customer service research, most recently in last year’s Distinctive Customer Experiences Survey, which showed, slightly surprisingly, banks were the best-performing sector. Now it’s taking its findings to a wider audience and teaming up with Fair Go for a regular monthly section that identifies New Zealand’s “customer service champions”.