Fenton succeeds founder Frédéric Charles Petit on Oct. 15. Petit said on Oct. 8 that he intended to leave the role.
Toluna appointed Amy Fenton as chief executive officer, effective Oct. 15. She succeeds founder Frédéric Charles Petit, who led the consumer insights and market research technology company for 25 years.
The board led the succession process, announced on Oct. 8, in consultation with Petit and with support from an executive search firm to identify his successor. Petit will remain a significant shareholder and continue serving on the board as a senior adviser.
Fenton has more than 30 years of experience in insights and analytics. She joins Toluna from MarketCast, where she served as CEO and a board member. Before becoming CEO, she held the roles of chief operations and analytics officer and chief insights and analytics officer. Prior to this, she was chief client officer, North America, at Kantar, and chief client officer and chief marketing officer, North America, at Ipsos SA (Euronext Paris: IPS). She spent 25 years at Nielsen in leadership roles across North America, Europe and Latin America, after starting her career at Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG). She has served on the Advertising Research Foundation’s board of trustees since 2021.
Toluna Chairman Bruce Haymes said the board sought a leader with deep industry and client knowledge, and with experience transforming a research business through technology and AI.
Fenton said her priority is spending time with clients and employees to understand their priorities. She said Toluna plans to use human insight and AI to deliver predictive intelligence for real-time decisions.
Board begins CEO succession
Toluna stated Petit intended to leave the CEO role once the board named a successor. Petit said it was the right moment for new leadership. He and Fenton worked through a handover meant to keep strategy, client commitments and daily operations running without disruption, the company said.
AI research tool nears rollout
Toluna launched Bina, an AI-based research workspace, on Oct. 2. The platform enables users to conduct real-time conversations with synthetic personas - AI-generated respondents designed to simulate human responses in research settings.
