Meet the team
We’d love to meet you!
Our team has decades of experience and careers that span across the globe. We’ve worked for global consumer brands, through to central government and exciting new software start-ups!
Natasha McDonough FCIM
Founder & CEO
Natasha McDonough has had a strategic marketing and insights career spanning 25 years and across three different continents. She spent four years working within the early dot.com space in Los Angeles and spent time working in Sydney on global accounts including Sony, Australia.
She has supported the likes of The CBI, British Chambers of Commerce, the NHS and the Environment Agency and uses her global, and national experience every day through the transformational work she does at MMC.
In 2022, Natasha won a silver award for Business Services at the Best Business Woman Awards, and in 2019, got MMC into the Top 50 Places to Work in the North East due to the culture and flexibility that she has embedded at MMC.
Alongside her ‘day job’ at MMC Research & Marketing, she is also a Vice President for the North East Chamber of Commerce, and Board Member of a UK Football Charity, The Foundation of Light.
London, born and bred, Natasha spends time working on client projects across the UK and US, but calls Sunderland home, having relocated in 2007 and enjoys living on the North East coastline.
Vicki Shouksmith
Director of Operations & Research Strategist
Vicki is an experienced market research strategist and operations specialist, with an extensive experience within housing, health, tourism and regeneration sectors. Her client experience includes Sunderland City Council, Hartlepool Borough Council, Sunderland BID, Healthwatch South Tyneside, Sunderland BID, LeedsBID, Channel 4, BBC, Exterion Media and Northumberland National Park and Foundation of Light.
Prince 2 qualified, Vicki ensures all MMC’s projects run on time and on budget. She is a highly experienced at designing and running large quantitative survey campaigns. She also has obtained the Foundation Certificate from the Market Research Society.
Alice Broomhall
Quantitative Researcher
Alice has over 20 years of market research experience across a range of sectors including professional services, finance, public sector, healthcare, utilities and consumer goods and retail. Alice has vast experience at designing surveys, analysing complex sets of data and turning them into easy-to-understand reports and presentations.
Alice has experience of working for a diverse range of clients, from IKEA, to the British Heart Foundation to Newcastle Hospitals Charity and Sunderland BID.
Rachael Owen
Qualitative Researcher
Rachael has over 20 years of qualitative research experience across a range of public policy areas and private sectors. She has extensive experience of delivering qualitative research to inform policy and programme development for local government and central UK government departments such as the Department for Education, Department of Health, Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office. Rachael has also worked on research projects in the finance, charity, retail and utilities sectors. During her time at MMC since 2020, she has worked on projects for clients including Film Hub North, Sunderland BID, Sunderland Council and Business Durham.
Rachael has extensive experience of public consultation events, process and impact evaluations, behaviour change research and communications testing. She has interviewed a broad range of respondent groups, including vulnerable groups, children, older adults, businesses, stakeholders, academics and prisoners.
Rachael gained her Masters in Policy Studies at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, and now represents MMC nationally and remotely from her home in South Wales.
Katherine Miller
Desk Researcher
Katherine specialises in desk research for MMC. Whether it is a deep dive into market sizes, reviewing opportunities and trends through to competitor investigations – and analysis – she unearths information and answers questions that clients don’t even realise they have!
Her career has spanned over 20 years and mostly consisted of extensive legal and business research experience through her time working in law firms, researching legal and business development projects.
Sophie Peel
Client Engagement Manager
Having worked in business support organisations for most of her career, Sophie has cultivated an extensive and eclectic mix of business knowledge, skills and a network which spans across many sectors and industries.
Whilst her knowledge extends to the full suite of business functions, Sophie realised that the fundamental area businesses were mostly overlooking was the need to ensure quality research was undertaken, analysed, understood before effective solutions were implemented to ensure business success. Hence, this is why Sophie jumped at the chance to join MMC Research.
Sophie is incredibly well networked! If Sophie doesn’t spot an opportunity that MMC can support with, she’s always the one to link professionals together for the greater good!
Rachel Whitley
Marketing Manager
Rachel is our resident employer branding and marketing specialist and has a natural flair for bringing a company’s overall brand to life.
Through perfectly crafted marketing strategies, she’s an expert in getting the right message in front of the right person in the right tone, using insights to inform her approach.
Prior to joining MMC, Rachel was the head of talent for global software company, Salecycle. During her time there, she built a global team through creating and growing a strong employer brand and also put them at the number one spot for a UK tech company to work for.
Lisa Scarratt
Executive Administrator
As Executive Administrator, Lisa ensures that all organisation related to MMC Research & Marketing’s client projects run smoothly. This is underpinned by her qualifications in project management, including Six Sigma, EPPM and APMP.
Lisa manages the recruitment management of all our qualitative projects and is responsible for MMC Research & Marketing’s data compliance and quality assurance. Lisa’s corporate background includes 22 years at BT and found her home now at MMC Research & Marketing in 2022.
Stacey Adams
Evaluation Specialist
Stacey brings over 20 years of extensive evaluation experience, spanning the charitable, public health (NHS), and local government sectors. Across her varied roles in the third sector and public sector, she has consistently focused on promoting wellbeing, addressing health inequalities, and working in deep collaboration with diverse communities.
Prior to joining MMC, she was the Chair of an Equality Advisory Panel, has vast experience of youth work, managing a sexual health programme for The LGBT Foundation, supporting unwaged carers and overseeing therapy and advocacy services.
She also serves as the voluntary Deputy Chief Executive for It’s OK – a charity campaigning around mental illness.
Stacey is a passionate advocate for co-production, believing that community voices must be central to any strategy or service development.