Building brands from the insight out

Dave joined LRW, a Material Company more than 30 years ago and is the long-time Chairman and CEO. Along with defining the vision and mission for Material, Dave is an expert strategist with a passion for innovation and nurturing senior level talent. Under Dave’s leadership, the company has grown from a $5MM local market research provider to a $300MM+ marketing services company with clients in more than 40 different countries. In 2015, Dave led a growth capital funding round from Tailwind Capital, a private equity firm focused on high-growth middle market companies. 

 In 2015, Dave also delivered a TEDx talk in London on creating real change through virtual reality and was named a Tech Visionary by SURVEY Magazine’s Technology Trendsetters for his work with AppliedVR®, the leading medical virtual reality company working to help solve America’s opioid crisis. Dave advises emerging entrepreneurs at USC’s Marshall School of Business, plays an advisory role to the UCLA Dean of Social Sciences, and is an active member of Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO). Dave is an avid tennis player and lives in Los Angeles with his wife. He has been married nearly 40 years and adores his three adult children, their spouses, and his five young grandchildren.

Cathy became CFO of LRW, a Material Company in 2014. As an international chief financial officer with more than 20 years of experience, Cathy has helped double LRW Group’s revenue since joining. She specializes in restructuring, M&A, and business integration in both public and private equity-backed companies and is always on the lookout for mission-aligned talent and companies that can help drive growth. 

Prior to joining the company, Cathy was global CFO for Added Value and European CFO for Millward Brown. Cathy grew up outside of Chicago and now lives in New York City with her husband and two cats. She loves to travel and has lived in Italy, Greece, and the United Kingdom.

Jeremy became president of LRW, a Material Company in 2018. He now oversees day-to-day operations of the Material Perspective Division, responsible for overall business strategy, operations, innovation, talent, and client delivery across all insights and analytics capabilities worldwide. He takes special pride in delivering growth for our incredible employees and clients.

Jeremy joined the company in 2008 as a research director and co-founded the Pragmatic Brain Science Institute®, harnessing behavioral science and technology to provide companies competitive advantage. He is a key advisor for other innovations including our digital analytics, social analytics, and marketing and data science capabilities.

Originally from New York, Jeremy now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son. He likes to stay active through a variety of fitness activities, including yoga and cross training. His favorite exotic vacation spots include Morocco, Tulum and Belize.

Gareth serves as President of the Material Company Action Division, spearheading strategy initiatives across our strategic planning, branding, marketing, and digital groups to drive growth, encourage collaboration, and ensure the combined team’s success. Gareth is also Co-Founder and CEO of Kelton, a Material Company. Before founding Kelton in 2003, Gareth was a political journalist, commentator, and a war reporter in Iraq. 

Gareth was born in India, grew up in London and Washington, DC and has lived in Chile. He currently lives in Los Angeles. He’s an avid runner, basketball player, reader, debater, and father of three children. Gareth is also the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors at A Place Called Home, which provides academic tutoring, psychological counseling, arts, dance, sports, college scholarships and vocational training for at-risk youth in South Central Los Angeles.

Rachel joined Material in 2019 with 20 years of experience in marketing and media under her belt. As President of the Connections Division, she finds innovative ways to deliver the company’s extensive range of services to meet the marketing and research needs of top-flight clients. She also supports M&A efforts and identifies new opportunities for the company to expand its marketing services portfolio. She is well known in the marketing world as founder and former CEO of Pitch, Inc., a full-service creative advertising agency in Culver City, California. At Pitch, she re-imagined traditional ad agency services for some of the largest brands in the world, including Burger King, Roche, Westfield, Netflix, Pepsi and Waldorf Astoria. 

 Rachel has been featured in Ad Age’s 40 under 40 and Business Insider’s 30 Most Creative Women in Advertising. A Jersey girl at heart, Rachel now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons. 

Sandy oversees enterprise wide IT and Talent for Material. In her role as COO, Perspective, she leads a number of central operations teams including Global Data Collection, Integrated Production Services, Workplace Solutions, Design, Marketing and Communications. Sandy is passionate about fueling business through strategy, operations and culture. She has been a champion of culture and inclusion efforts at Perspective since joining the company in 2017, and plays a lead role in integration efforts for newly acquired companies.

Sandy is an innovator and thought leader with broad expertise in market research, entertainment, and digital content. She has extensive experience in business strategy and operations at NBCUniversal, The Walt Disney Company, and Discovery Communications. Prior to joining LRW in 2017, Sandy was president of Sprout, NBCU’s children’s TV network and on demand platform. Sandy is an advocate for young children, with prior board level roles at the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia and Cradles to Crayons, an non-profit that distributes items to families in need. She is an active member of the LA Advisory Council for Common Sense Media, an advocacy group and resource for parents that helps families navigate a changing media and tech landscape. Sandy holds an MBA in marketing and B.S. in biology from Loyola University, Baltimore.

Jen leads the Talent organization at Material and is responsible for enterprise wide human capital management. Since joining the company in 2018, Jen has transformed the Talent function at Perspective, architecting a holistic upgrade of systems, process and people to modernize the overall employee experience from talent acquisition, onboarding, performance management, and development. With an expanded scope at Material, Jen is guided by her passion for creating an exceptional employee experience, driving business results, and fulfilling the promise of Material’s opportunity culture.

With over 25 years of leadership experience at both large and publicly-traded companies as well as small, high-growth startups, Jen’s background spans the fashion retail, advertising and entertainment/digital media sectors at iconic organizations like Barneys New York, American Eagle Outfitters, Liz Claiborne, and Interpublic Group (IPG). Jen attended boarding school in New Hampshire and then undergraduate school at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. Jen is a third generation Angelino who is deeply connected to the community. For the past 15 years, Jen has been involved with Friends of the Family, a family and child resource center serving disadvantaged families. Jen lives in LA with her husband and two children.

Susan leads operations across Material’s Action Division, and is responsible for identifying and implementing strategies to improve how we work. With professional roots in talent and people strategy, she’s focused on creating solutions that empower humans and enable creativity and collaboration. She has led large-scale strategic initiatives across Material, including guiding the integration of multiple acquisitions, partnering across IT and data security advancement initiatives, overhauling back-end research operations, orchestrating staff resource management, and has led the design, build-out, and launch of multiple regional offices.

A native Californian who has spent time living on both coasts, Susan started her career in sales and marketing with CEB, Inc. (now Gartner) in Washington, D.C., and has worked as part of Talent and Marketing teams at global brands including Red Bull and The Walt Disney Company. Susan joined Kelton Global in 2010 and helped establish the company as a widely recognized insights agency before assuming a larger role with Material.

Susan received a Bachelor’s of Business Administration in Finance at The College of William and Mary in Virginia. In her spare time, Susan loves to travel, spend time with family, and tackle an ever-present interior design project.