Mario van Hamersveld studied economics and sociology at Rotterdam University. He is Director of van Hamersveld MC specialising in international marketing, management and research. Prior to his present role, he was Marketing Development Manager of the Consumer Electronics Division of Royal Philips in Amsterdam. He served as management consultant in the strategy team and was Manager Marketing Research and Support for the Consumer Electronics Division. He has also held other marketing and research positions with Philips at a corporate level over many years. He has been engaged in a variety of international management, marketing training and development activities and contributed to various international publications. He served on the board of a number of non-profit organizations and governmental bodies. He has been active in ESOMAR as Council Member, 1990–1996, President, 1996–1998 and Acting Director General (2001–2003). He is Editor-in-Chief of “ResearchWorld”. In September 2005 he was awarded the ESOMAR Excellence Award for Standards of Performance in Market, Opinion and Social Research, the “John Downham Award”.

Cees de Bont is trained in economic psychology. He obtained an MSc from Tilburg University in 1987 and a PhD from the Delft University of Technology in 1992. After fulfilling his military obligations at the Royal Military Academy (KMA) and after working as an assistant professor at Tilburg University for two years, Cees joined Philips Design in 1995. At Philips Design, Cees was the founder of the Human Behaviour Research Centre.

In 1997, Cees moved to one of the product divisions of Philips (Domestic Appliances and Personal Care) to become responsible for the discipline of market research and strategy.  In 2002 Cees de Bont was appointed Professor of Marketing at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. This part-time academic responsibility was combined with the professional work for Philips. In 2005 Cees de Bont moved to Delft to become the dean of the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at the Delft University of Technology. This faculty is one of the leading academic design schools worldwide. In his role as Dean, Cees de Bont is integrally responsible for the faculty (340 employees).