Elsa Thirion-Venter (Director) Elsa Thirion-Venter has 28 years research experience in various fields of research such as psychological evaluation and test construction, survey methodology and media and communication research. She started her career at the Human Sciences Research Council as a researcher in the Human Resources group. She later moved to MarkData as a Survey Manager. In 1993 she was appointed as a Research Manager: Television and later on Research Manager: Special Projects. In 1996 she moved back to MarkData as a director. She holds a MA Psychology from the University of Pretoria, 1991 and a MBA from UNISA, 1999. She is currently enrolled at UNISA for her Doctorate in Consulting Psychology. She is author and co-author in excess of 100 research reports.

She is a registered research psychologist at the Health Professions Council. She is also a full member of the Southern African Marketing Research Association (SAMRA) and has been on the Pretoria branch management until 2004 and again from 2009. She is currently chairperson of SAMRA Pretoria branch, treasurer and was the 2010/2011 Chairperson of SAMRA National. She is also a SAMRA Accredited Researcher.

She lectured Marketing Research at the Graduate School of Business in 2002 and she was a facilitator for the University of North West’s MBA course in Statistics and Economics in Pretoria from 2002-2005. She currently lectures statistics and co-ordinates the media module for the Research Psychology Masters degree at the University of Pretoria.