SUZANNE WALKER has joined Hall & Partners | Open Mind as an associate director within the quant team with a focus on the firm’s Engager brand measure. Walker, who will be based in Melbourne, previously had spells with Research International in the UK and Research International/TNS in Australia.

Customer engagement technology firm Alterian in the UK has appointed DON PATRICK as senior vice president of its managed services division. He joins the firm from customer relationship marketing agency Merkle where he was chief operating officer and previously had a spell with JP Morgan Capital Corporation as vice president.

GEORGINA LAKELAND has joined customer interaction software firm Portrait Software where she will lead the firm’s Australian marketing analytics team. She previously worked at NetMap Analytics where she focused on analytics and data mining in the fraud detection, law enforcement and intelligence and audit sectors.

Insight Research Group has bolstered its UK team with a trio of new appointments. LORNA BEDFORD has joined the firm as senior research executive and CHRISTOPHER HOMER and ALEXANDRA HO join as research assistants. Bedford was previously a senior research executive at Genactis and Homer and Ho are recent graduates.

JOHN DiSTEFANO has joined BtoB magazine in the newly created role of research director, where he will be responsible for developing sponsored and custom research. He previously led custom research activities at publisher McGraw-Hill Construction.

ABI Research in the UK has appointed AAPO MARKKANEN as industry analyst for consumer mobility. He was previously a research analyst at IHS Global Insight where he focused on the European telecoms industry.

RDSi in the UK has appointed CAROLINE HUGHES as a senior research executive at its Leeds office, AIMEE GIBSON as a research assistant in London and ANDY FRAZER as a research assistant in Leeds. Hughes was previously at the Audit Commission and RBA Research while Gibson and Fraser are recent graduates.

US-based video and online measurement agency Visible Measures has hired MARC SCHRAER as senior vice president of sales and account management. Schraer was formerly team manager for agency sales and account management at Google-owned ad management agency DoubleClick. The firm has also appointed KURT ABRAHAMSON, CEO of social media and ex-director of the content media group at Google, to its board of directors.