Synovate has appointed Steve Lowery as group head of custom healthcare research in the UK, where he will be responsible for expanding the business. Lowery was previously at Kantar Health (previously TNS Healthcare) and has spent 14 years in healthcare market research. As well as his time at TNS, where he was head of research in the UK and most recently European client account director, Lowery has worked on the client side with Janssen-Cilag and Pfizer.

MMR Research Worldwide in the UK has hired Becky Loftus as associate director. Loftus specialises in automotive research and has experience on both the client and agency side, with Jaguar Land Rover and International Research Consultants respectively.

Ryan Woolley has been promoted to vice president and group director at US direct marketing agency Response Mine Interactive. His new responsibilities include providing the firm’s clients with strategic marketing insights. He was previously an account supervisor at the agency.

Perianne Grignon has joined US predictive marketing firm [x+1 ] as vice president of media strategy and chief marketing officer. She joins from Sears Holdings where she was vice president of media strategy and digital innovation. During her career, Grignon has also served as co-chairperson of the Association of National Advertisers’ Television Committee.

HCD Research in the US has appointed Joseph Cesaria as vice president of business development, where he will lead the agency’s media and consumer research group. He joins the firm from InsightExpress where he was responsible for developing and managing new business with clients including NBC Universal, MTV Networks, Warner Brothers, Disney, Meredith Publishing and Forbes.com.

The Marketing Research Association (MRA) has announced the nominations for its annual board of directors election, which will take place between 1 March and 1 April this year. Elisa Galloway of Galloway Research Service has been confirmed as the association’s president for 2010/11, and she will be joined on the board by president elect Ken Roberts, treasurer Kevin Lonnie and secretary Jill Donahue. There are still three ‘director at large – researcher’ and two ‘director at large – end user’ seats available. The nominations for the researcher role are: Scott Baker (Adept Consumer Testing), Michael Halberstam (Interviewing Service of America), Vaughn Mordecai (Discovery Research Group), Melissa Piper (Tammadge Market Research), Kathy Pilhuj (Scarborough Research) and Beth Teehan (Kantar Operations). The nominations for the end user seats are: Kathy Frankovic (CBS News), Dan Womack (Aflac) and Cathy Scott (Kimberley-Clark).