Who we are

Work with senior professionals at every stage of your project. The people you meet at the initial meetings will be the same people working with your team, making recommendations and presenting reports.

Susan Abbott

Susan Abbott is the principal customer experience strategist and researcher at Abbott Research & Consulting.

Susan advises ARC clients on business strategy, marketing strategy and implementation. She is a skilled moderator and facilitator, who readily creates rapport across a wide range, from executives to students.

Her long-standing passion for creating superior customer experiences is balanced by strong business and analytical skills. Susan's background as a general manager in the financial services industry included senior roles in retail management, planning, sales and marketing.

Prior to forming ARC, Susan led the marketing-research practice at a consulting firm focusing on technology utilization in the financial services industry. She is a former vice-president of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, one of Canada's leading financial services firms.

She is a member of the Marketing & Research Intelligence Association, the Qualitative Research Consultants Association and the Association for Psychological Type.

Susan has an MBA from the University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business and an Honours BA in Psychology from Queen's University. She has advanced training in marketing research methodologies from the Professional Marketing Research Society and is qualified on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator MBTIŽ

You can read Susan's blog at CustomerExperienceCrossroads.

Principal Associates

We maintain a network of skilled professionals that participate in larger transformation projects, as well as a variety of marketing research fieldwork suppliers.

Suzanne Bergeron

Suzanne Bergeron brings significant experience in facilitating change and transformation projects to ARC clients.

Previous projects with ARC have included employee research, creating high-engagement change management interventions and planning workshops, as well as coaching individual executives. Other experience includes qualitative research with employee groups, cross cultural consulting and post-merger integrations. Industry experience includes financial services, petroleum retailing, energy production, pharmaceuticals and the public sector.

Suzanne holds a Bachelor of Arts from St. Francis Xavier University and has advanced training in Human Resources Management at McGill University. She is also knowledgeable in Appreciative Inquiry methodology.

Kristy Duncan

Kristy Duncan is a specialist in financial infrastructure with a particular focus on everything to do with payments and evolving payment policy. She is knowledgeable about cross-border movement of funds and electronic infrastructure.

Previous projects with ARC have involved developing needs assessments for client technology requirements. Other experience includes managing multi-stakeholder development projects, vendor assessments and new technology market assessments.

Kristy holds a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Industrial Engineering from University of Toronto. She is a registered Professional Engineer, as well as a Certified Cash Manager.

Herb Koplowitz, PhD

Herb Koplowitz brings expertise in organization-structure design to ARC clients. Previous projects with ARC have included restructuring roles in retail bank branches and designing new group organization structures to support integrated delivery. He has also participated in employee best practices research, as well as conducting training workshops on organization structure concepts and interviewing techniques.

Herb has a long-standing interest in services organizations that goes back to his prior career as a marketing researcher. Herb has a PhD in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts and a BA from Cornell University in Mathematics and Philosophy. He has taught organization design at York University in Toronto and is Past President of the Industrial and Organizational Psychology Section of the Ontario Psychological Association.