Senior Leadership

Anna Welch
President

Anna Welch is President at MRI-Simmons, where she leads the overall direction and day-to-day operations of the company. She and her team are responsible for driving product innovation, growing revenue, and maintaining brand equity in the consumer insights space.
Prior to MRI-Simmons, Anna spent over 10 years at GfK MRI in senior roles within the research, data innovation and executive teams. Previously, she held marketing and research roles at Harris Interactive, Kaplan College, and Domini Social Investments.
Anna holds a BA degree from Ohio State University and an MS in Social Research from Hunter College.

Mike Drankwalter
Chief Revenue Officer

As Chief Revenue Officer, Mike is responsible for leading the sales and service team for MRI-Simmons commercial organization. Under Mike, the MRI-Sales Team has multiple vertical category focuses including Advertising Agencies, Media Companies, Brands, Universities and Data Partnerships.
Mike has had a long history at MRI where he began his tenure as an Account Executive and then ran the Media Sales Team before ascending to the Head of Sales for the organization.
Mike enjoys partnering with client to ensure that they get maximum value out of MRI-Simmons' services, and he consistently strives to provide a first-rate customer experience. Prior to MRI, Mike worked as a Research Manager for The Cable Advertising Bureau and Katz Media. Mike graduated with a BA from The SUNY Oswego.

Karen Ramspacher
SVP, Innovation and Insights

Karen Ramspacher is SVP of Innovation and Insights at MRI-Simmons, where she leads the product team, analytics & insights, and custom solutions.
Karen began her media career as an account planner at boutique ad agencies, then worked in TV/OTT research at Oxygen, Fuse, and Pivot/Participant Media. She has presented at many conferences including CES, ARF, and Media Insights, and is involved in many social causes.
She holds a BA degree from Wellesley College.

Josh Pisano
SVP Product Strategy and Innovation

As Senior Vice President of Product Strategy and Business Development, Josh Pisano plays a pivotal role in the continuous evolution of MRI-Simmons' product portfolio. With a heavy background in technology, and over two decades of experience in media and marketing, Pisano conceptualizes and builds solutions that expand MRI-Simmons' consumer truth set beyond traditional use cases, and into key growth areas like advanced advertising and digital / programmatic activation.
In 2019, Pisano launched ACT, MRI-Simmons' digital activation solution. Since then, he has prioritized making MRI-Simmons data seamlessly available in all environments, while maintaining the high-quality, representative and privacy-compliant data assets the brand is known for.

Risa Becker
SVP, Research Methods

Risa Becker is SVP Research Methods at MRI-Simmons where she is responsible for the overall methodology for MRI-Simmons' national consumer study. She and her team design field and media measurement methods, set research standards and policies, conduct R&D and oversee the Issue Specific and Starch AdMeasure products.
Risa joined the MRI team in 1999, managing content development and day-to-day research operations. She holds a B.A. degree from SUNY-Binghamton and a J.D. from American University, Washington College of Law.

Jim Collins
Executive Vice President, Research

James H. Collins is Executive Vice President, Research for MRI-Simmons where he focuses on data integration and related initiatives. Prior to joining MRI-Simmons in 2006, he held senior software development and technology positions at Simmons Market Research Bureau and Scarborough Research.
Holding a doctorate from Temple University he has taught at Temple University, Baruch College of the City University of New York and New York University.

Alan Resneck
Chief Financial Officer

Alan Resneck, CFO at MRI-Simmons, is a CPA and with over 25 years of experience in finance and accounting. His most recent position was CFO at AlphaImpactRx, a primary research firm to the pharmaceutical industry, which was recently sold to IMS Health. His other experience includes executive-level finance positions at Trion, Inc., XOS Technologies, People 2.0 and V-SPAN.