Who We Are

Ipera was founded by Jane Walton and Stuart Catchpole in 2008.

Before then we had spent our careers delivering innovation success, employed in international consumer brand businesses – and learning from several spectacular successes – and a few failures (but none recently!)

Between us we have worked in every type of marketing and sales role as well as leading R&D and operations teams which gives us the breadth of experience to understand customers’ businesses quickly.

We have led and worked in Innovation teams which delivered hundreds of millions of pounds of value growth for businesses including Unilever, Colgate, Mars and Scottish & Newcastle.

We have been involved in over 70 product launches, in over 30 countries, working in all disciplines from insight via consumer marketing and R&D to sales.

Since establishing Ipera in 2008 we’ve combined our passion for insight and innovation with our broad business understanding to deliver innovation successes for customers, large and small including 5 of the world’s top 55 consumer product companies. And have won repeat business with almost all our customers.

Divider Jane Walton

Jane Walton

Before co-founding Ipera, I spent my career in insight and innovation roles where I was able to indulge my natural curiosity (some might say nosiness) about people.

I have an enduring fascination with consumers – what they do, why they do it, and how we can persuade them to change their behaviour – and have applied this to uncovering opportunities to grow existing brands, launch new brands and enter new categories.

Starting my career at Ford before 17 years at Colgate Palmolive and then joining Scottish & Newcastle as Group Director Consumer Insight and Marketing Excellence, I have worked across a wide range of products including personal care, soft drinks, oral hygiene, alcoholic drinks and household care.

I have extensive international experience, having worked in every continent except Antarctica!

Stuart Catchpole

Stuart Catchpole

Before co-founding Ipera, I had worked in almost every type of marketing and sales role leading customer and brand marketing, sales and innovation teams in Unilever, Mars, a BT start up and Scottish & Newcastle, where I was Group Innovation Director. I have worked with teams in Europe, Russia and the US and have also led R&D, customer service, business and production planning teams and worked at Board level with procurement, finance and production.

I combine this broad understanding of businesses and their culture with my inherent enthusiasm for insight and innovation to deliver tangible business results for customers.