Our team
The people behind the evidence
Decades of retail measurement in one accountable team.
SMRC is led by researchers with decades in Gulf retail measurement, and delivered by a field and analytics team we train and hold to a single standard.
Leadership
Senior researchers, hands on every programme
Thomas John
CEO and Founder
Thomas has more than 30 years in market research, including 18 years at MEMRB as Operations and Country Manager across the UAE and Oman, then leading GfK’s Retail and Technology division in Oman as Country Manager. He founded SMRC in 2017 and leads a team of around 20 across retail audits, census and CX research.
Reji Nair
Operations Manager and Team Lead
Reji brings 24 years in market research, specialising in retail audits and ad-hoc studies. A former Data Acquisition Manager at both MEMRB and GfK, he has run retail audits across the UAE and led multiple full-country universe censuses in FMCG and durables across the UAE and Oman.
Chithra Vinayan
Client Service Manager
Chithra has more than 10 years managing client insight for B2B and B2C brands, leading client relationships, CX programmes and mystery-shopping projects, with deep tourism-sector experience. She holds an MBA from the United States.
Archie Thomas
Research Executive
Archie works across UAE full-country census and the firm’s data and IT, and is the team’s CAPI (Survey to Go) and Shopmetrics specialist.
Field and analytics
The engine behind the insight
Our field force is 100% our own, GPS-tracked with mandatory photo and time-stamp on every visit, with a multi-language field capability matched to your audience. Teams are ICV-registered and MoHRE-compliant.
Work with a team that owns its evidence
Tell us what you need to understand, and we will put the right people and the right method on it.
