Dan Coates, President
Dan started his career twenty years ago as a data analyst in Vancouver, Canada's most beautiful city. Abandoning the idyllic pleasures of the Pacific Northwest, Dan has since lived and worked in Toronto, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Dallas, and now New York. While Dan has worked for big companies such as SPSS (now IBM) Burke, The Angus Reid Group (now IPSOS-Reid) and Millward Brown, his passion lies in bringing new businesses to life. To date Dan has been a founder of three companies: Planetfeedback (now Nielsen Buzzmetrics), Eppointments, and SurveyU as well as an early participant in Polimetrix (now YouGov USA) and Globalpark (now QuestBack). He wakes up every morning, eager to see Ypulse reach its full potential.
Ali Driesman, Director of Insights & Inspiration
Ever since her days as a Red Bull Student Brand Manager while attending Brown University, Ali gravitated towards the power and impact that the Millennial generation held at its fingertips. In her various Marketing roles at Microsoft, she quickly found her sweet-spot on the Student Marketing team with an expertise in youth marketing. She drove marketing campaigns, launched offers in market, and led Worldwide student competitions; always diligent to ground herself in the research for these initiatives. She sees Millennial marketing as an opportunity to be bold, innovative and saucy and this is what keeps her coming back for more. At Ypulse, her role continues to tap into the creative inspiration from youth culture to amplify your market research and insights in style.
Jake Katz, General Manager
Jake Katz is charged with curating the “big picture” both within client projects, as well as managing the growth of Ypulse’s overall menu of offerings. Katz has a passion for decoding pop culture, and has worked with a variety of brands — from Nickelodeon to MTV to NBCUniversal — to help them get ahead of emerging trends and cultural shifts. He lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and is a proud member of the “Avocado of the Month” club.
Casandra Liggin, Director of Business Development
Casandra has always had an interest in understanding and meeting client expectations from her early days as an Account Executive at various media firms to her more recent role as a Director at a technology company within the market research industry. She is passionate about inspiring clients to grasp the Millennial mindset that will carry their business into the future. Casandra lives in Brooklyn and enjoys discovering new ways to fall in love with NYC all over again.
Scott Mahoney, Research Analyst
Scott studied Mathematics at The College of New Jersey, and quickly realized that he was more interested in the applications of Mathematics and Statistics than pure Mathematics. This led him to work with survey data at Weill Cornell and to complete his Masters in Applied Statistics at CUNY – Hunter College. Now at Ypulse, he enjoys teasing out insights on Millennials. He currently lives in NYC and enjoys returning to his native Jersey Shore when he can.
Coby Mire, Lead Analyst
While studying marketing at Louisiana State University, Coby discovered his passion for researching and analyzing consumers. Shortly thereafter, he took a trip up the Mississippi River to St. Louis, where he interned with Maritz Research and went on to complete his Master of Marketing Research degree at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Now at Ypulse, he enjoys digging into cool facts about the ever-changing Millennial generation. A new resident of New York City, the Big Apple has become his home and playground, but true to his Louisiana roots, he still enjoys cooking gumbo and cheering on his LSU Tigers.
Nicole Tarantino, Research Manager
Nicole has honed her research skills and mastered online focus group moderation through managing panels for clients such as MTV and Vh1. Being a Jersey Italian transplanted into Manhattan, Nicole has a strong voice that resonates well with Millennials. Her insights into the generation stem from being a quintessential Millennial herself, and as they say, “It takes one to know one!” She is on top of what's hot with today's youth and is always looking for what’s next. Before joining the Ypulse Research team, Nicole studied marketing at St. John’s University and got her foot in the door of market research as an intern here at Ypulse.
Mel Tchalim, Lead Developer
Mel studied Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University but has since been using his many other skills to maintain Ypulse's various panels as well as develop and launch new tech initiatives. He enjoys nerdy things and cat things, which thankfully have a pretty big overlap.
Tracy Tomasso, Chief Operating Officer
An Ohio native, Tracy graduated summa cum laude in Engineering from The Ohio State University. Her formative years include establishing Procter & Gamble's internet services, serving as VP Technology & Operations at Cincinnati-based startup PlanetFeedback.com (acquired by Nielsen Buzzmetrics), serving as VP Strategy & Operations for T-Mobile Europe, managing Finance, Operations and Technology as COO of New York based RichFX, and building Globalpark North America. When not tinkering with spreadsheets and process diagrams, you'll find her watching her beloved Buckeyes drive to victory.
