Honeycomb Strategy names new strategy director and senior strategy consultant

Keanu Giummarra and Benjamin Barlow have taken on the roles of strategy director and senior strategy consultant, respectively, at Honeycomb Strategy.

The announcement:

Leading market research and behavioural science agency, Honeycomb Strategy, today announced the appointment of two strategists to its senior research team – Keanu Giummarra as strategy director and Benjamin Barlow as senior strategy consultant, amid strong client growth and expansion plans.

In the newly created role, Giummarra will be the project lead on many of Honeycomb’s strategic quantitative projects across APAC reporting into managing director, John Bevitt, while Barlow joins the company’s qualitative research team reporting into senior strategy director, Sonja Ryals. Giummarra brings nearly a decade of strategy and quantitative research experience to Honeycomb, across various agencies and industries. He comes to Honeycomb from a 12-month stint as a research director at Jigsaw Research in the UK. Prior to this, he worked at strategic insights consulting firm, Nature, as an associate director, and at analytics service, Solucio, as a management consultant. Giummarra is also an experienced football coach, holding various roles across the A-League, National Premier League Australia and Football Australia.

Barlow joins Honeycomb from The Lab Insight & Strategy, where he started as an intern in 2021. For the past three years, he has been a Consultant at The Lab, working across a range of sectors including retail, FMCG, sport and financial services.

The appointments come as Honeycomb launched a brand refresh, as it renews its commitment to harnessing innovative research and behavioural science to solve real-world business challenges for its clients. This is the first brand refresh for Honeycomb Strategy since its 2016 inception and follows strong client growth, with recent work spanning diverse industries.

Honeycomb Strategy founder, Renata Freund, said: “2025 is shaping up to be a significant year for Honeycomb and both Keanu and Ben are a critical part of our business plans. We want to ensure we’re always bringing the latest and greatest thinking to Honeycomb – appointing senior team members with experience globally is an intrinsic part of our growth strategy.

“Keanu is an outstanding addition to our senior quantitative team, bringing extensive expertise and proven capabilities that will enhance our client partnerships. We’re thrilled to welcome his wealth of experience and skills to Honeycomb.

“Ben is a quick thinker, a well-rounded moderator and has grown quickly during his time in the industry. He rounds out our ability to deliver best-in-class qualitative research and behavioural science to our clients.”

Commenting on his appointment, Giummarra said: “It’s wonderful to be back from the UK and taking up a senior role in the Honeycomb team. From my initial meeting with Renata, I felt a strong cultural alignment with the business, particularly its high-performance culture. I’m excited to see our research team thrive and grow this year.”

Barlow said: “It’s an honour to continue to hone my market research skills at a leading agency like Honeycomb. Over the past few years, I’ve been able to develop my qualitative research toolkit across multiple projects; I’m looking forward to strengthening my skills at Honeycomb and learning from some of the best and brightest in the industry.”

The new appointments follow Honeycomb Strategy’s recent B Corp Certification following a rigorous two-year vetting process. B Corp businesses are those that meet high standards of social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency.

Honeycomb joins just a handful of research companies in Australia who are B Corp certified and the agency is hoping to lead by example and encourage others in the industry to become B Corps.

Honeycomb also recently launched its Digital Insights Series, bringing groundbreaking thought leadership to the market, focused on supporting brands in the core verticals of tech, digital services and retail. Part 2 of the latest study Omnichannel Advantage: Capturing Market Share in the Digital Age, is set to hit the market late this quarter.

Source: Third Avenue Consulting

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topics Benjamin Barlow honeycomb strategy John Bevitt Keanu Giummarra Renata Freund Sonja Ryals

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