Tina Berry

Tina, a familiar face to many in the industry and veteran AQR member, died in July. Charles Kenny, with a little help from her friends, celebrates her life.

Tina was born in Glasgow in 1949 and moved with her parents, (her father, Bill, being a colonial civil servant), to Tanganyika in 1950. Her brother, Jim, was born in 1952, and the family moved all over the region with Bill helping to africanise the government of the newly-independent Tanzania. After 18 years Bill eventually moved to Bahrain for a further 18 years. Aged nine, Tina returned to Glasgow going to a number of schools before graduating in business administration (she ticked the wrong box on her university form!) from the University of Strathclyde. Parisian beginnings

At the age of 21, following an unsuccessful attempt to keep her French boyfriend in the UK by marrying him, she followed him to Paris and lived in penury for six months. She sold Encyclopaedia Britannicas, or rather told her only successful client that he could not afford it. Eventually, in desperation, she approached a good looking bi-lingual Frenchman and said she was desperate for a job. He naturally took her straight to a market research agency, Bernard Krief, saying that they could have his account provided they employ his friend Madame Berry. So began Tina’s long career in market research.

After two years, her marriage failed, she returned to London and joined Beecham, first under Rosemary Slee and then Wendy Jenkins. They taught her the tricks of market research from the client perspective and Wendy how to drink, at the time an important accomplishment for both client and agency personnel. Wendy and Tina also worked together for several years at another point in their careers, when Wendy was head of market research at Wyeth Consumer Healthcare and Tina was at The Planning Shop. They remained close personal friends until Tina’s death.

In 1977 Tina joined Saatchi & Saatchi at that most exciting time of that company’s development. She worked on, among others, Nivea, Cunard, United Biscuits and the Conservatives, whom she, a former treasurer of a communist trade union, helped to their momentous win in 1979 and for whom she acted for and advised for 21 years. Again very poor, (she had expensive clothes tastes, a flat and entertained prodigiously), Tina returned from holiday in 1978 to find that she was a planner with a doubled salary and a sports car. She loved planning, enjoying the rigorous intellectual demands of the job.

In 1985, following a two-year stint as a planner in Grandfield Rork Collins, where she started her 20 year relationship with Guinness, she formed her first company, Apropos (a very Tina name), providing independent market research and planning services. In 1987 she was the founder partner, with Kim Hughes, of The Planning Shop. Tina was nothing short of amazing. Finding that she was pregnant a few weeks after the start-up she carried on regardless. On giving birth to Tom she was back at work tackling a thorny research project the following day. Tina once said that she never felt so powerful as the time she breastfed her son while writing a report at the same time.

Another aspect of Tina's approach to market research was her thinking style. She managed what researchers all hope for, which is to suspend judgement throughout the data collection and then go through what can only be described as a magical process of assimilating an answer that could not be achieved by standard processes. Solutions would emerge after a few days out often transcendent to the problem in hand and offering insights hidden in the data.

Whether in the business or over a glass of wine at the end of the day, Tina enjoyed discussion and debate. She was always incredibly generous to others, believing that knowledge was there to be shared almost without boundaries and that, if you share with others, they will share with you and that was certainly true of her life. She used the techniques of NLP in her work (she had qualified as a master practitioner in 1996 at the same time as fighting breast cancer successfully).

In 2001, she changed direction again, becoming a Master Trainer of NLP and a full-time trainer, with a little market research and planning on the side. This was the most exciting and satisfying part of her career – she loved opening minds. She worked closely with her professional associations, the ICG, MRS and AQR, and developed the Excellence Project.

There was a great interest in using NLP in qualitative research at the time, and Tina, Mo Ressler and Joanna Chrzanowska put on an introductory day for AQR. As one of the principles of NLP is modelling excellence (analysing what excellent practitioners do in order to be able to do it oneself), Joanna made a casual remark that it would be great to do this for qualitative research. This inspired Tina to develop the AQR Excellence Project, analysing the styles of excellent research practitioners, and developing papers and training programmes. Although the effort was almost entirely Tina’s, it is a mark of how thoughtful she was that she always credited Joanna with the original idea.

They delivered a number of trainings based on the Excellence Project, and worked together on regular NLP courses for the MRS, which Tina always infused with her passion, even when having chemotherapy in the later years. Tina was always keen to share, and had contributed to several other AQR courses, including tutoring on the residential Foundation Course. Delegates who received her warmth and wisdom will not be aware that she was simultaneously giving a great deal of support to one of the other tutors, whose mother had just died.

Rare survivor

She met her husband, Charles Kenny, an accountant (she needed one!), at Saatchis in 1977, started to go out with him in 1982 and married him in 1984. They had two children, Christina born in 1985 and Tom in 1988. Following her final AQR away session in November 2010, she found that she had a cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer only found in one hundred women per year and which only one woman survives for more than a year. Tina was that woman and lived for a further two and a half years, undergoing four operations and three lots of chemotherapy. She still managed three major walking holidays, to ski, to keep a keen interest in the arts and to entertain her wide circle of friends, but her family were the most important part of her life.

Tina was a remarkable person, more interested in others than herself. She had a rare ability to make those she talked to open up as she was genuinely interested in them. She was a dominant, determined and remarkable spirit. She never shied away from a challenge and had a positive, vibrant approach to life. She leaves a wide circle of friends from every part of her professional and personal life.

Memories of Tina

Tina Berry, a familiar face and voice to many in the industry died in July 2013. We invited AQR members to send in their personal memories and hope, in the coming months, to mark her life with an event that celebrates her personality and her teachings.

Tina was inspirational. Always happy to share her vast knowledge. Caring and nurturing to those she trained. That lovely voice of hers that made you listen and she always listened to you too.

Rose Molloy

I had the pleasure of co-tutoring with Tina for two years running on the AQR Foundation Course. From her I learnt: that chiming bells quieten a crowd quicker than a holler, that being still is more effective than dashing, that listening properly is something to strive for. She was twinkly, kind, clever and it was an honour to have worked alongside her even for a few short days.

Chloë Fowler

When we didn't have to sit at a laptop, but we wanted to meet, we'd go for a walk, by the Thames, in Kew Gardens or Richmond Park. Although Tina walked quite energetically, the experience was closer to a walking meditation. There were beautiful and curious sights to marvel at, just in the architecture, or the planting, or the sky. There were books to discuss, musings on life and work, and long moments without conversation but with connection. Tina was always warm, genuine, interested and interesting. Always wanting to learn, too,and very modest about her teaching ability. I had to read out the feedback forms one by one until she was convinced the training had been more than just 'alright'.

Sometimes she looked and sounded a little fragile, with her persistent little cough, but that belied a huge amount of inner strength and determination. The year my mother died, not long before the Residential Foundation Course, she took charge, bundled me and all my stuff into her car, and drove us both to the venue, despite the snowy, treacherous conditions. And she was supportive for a long time afterwards, realising how it had affected me. Her huge empathy and compassion will stay with me always.

Tina walked her talk when it came to NLP and her beliefs. It wasn't just something she had learnt; it was something she applied to her life, and I believe it helped her stay so positive throughout her illness and face her mortality. Her enthusiasm for NLP was so genuine it had a healing quality. When we practiced the techniques I always felt uplifted, and I know that came from her inner core. Mostly though my memories of Tina are colourful:carpet bags, flowing trousers, bright hair, bright eyes - a kind of energy that I would like to draw or paint if I could express it somehow......and while it feels such a shame that energy is no longer in this world, there is also a sense of completion. It wasn't meant to be, and Tina being Tina, dealt with it.

Joanna Chrzanowska

So sorry to hear about this. Tina was a stalwart of qual and her enthusiasm and interest in innovation pushed the discipline in the UK.

Ailean Mills

My memory: 'sharing and laughter in Vancouver as AQR guests at the QRCA conference'.

Caroline Hayter

Sorry to hear this. Tina was one of those people who will always stay in your mind.

Elle Atton

I got to know Tina through the AQR Excellence project. The project was her idea and was borne out of her deep care for upholding quality in the way we conduct qualitative enquiry and It typified her way of thinking out of the box and bringing an original perspective which would enable us all see things afresh. I think of her as my own personal Rosetta Stone, she gave me a different way of looking and a better of way of learning and teaching. She did this in a style that was never self conscious and always generous; to be in her company was to feel inspired to go away and do better, to emulate the passion and commitment that she exuded.

Geoff Bayley

I met Tina very early in my career and was really impressed at how she combined fierce intelligence with warmth, humour and gentleness. She was always herself and never took herself too seriously. Tina never had to tell you how good she was because you just knew it. Over the years I came to know a woman who faced illness with great courage and strength. When she was in remission she lived in the moment, for the moment and knew how to be happy. I learned a lot from Tina –about work and life –as did many others. Our industry and our lives will be poorer without her.

Anne Hastings

My thoughts on Tina: always so positive, collaborative, committed to furthering our industry, fun-loving, great company, pushing the boundary, sharing, and stimulating. Without a doubt we are all poorer in her absence.

Julia Spink

Curiously, although I didn't know Tina very well, I have known her since 1968 or thereabouts as we were at Strathclyde business school together. I don't have any particular memories of an eventful kind, save to say that the beautiful things that have already been said (much on the ICG Network) is how I found her to be. She took delight in teasing me about my failure to attend lectures on a particular course and somehow managing to pass nonetheless - as much a surprise to me as it was to her. I think the last time we were together was at Barcelona AQR/QRCA in 2008.

Roddy Glen

For me, Tina Berry will be remembered as a force for life. Afire with ideas, committed, calm in the eye of the storm and hilariously funny. She changed how I think and taught me more than I deserved from her own experience. I'm glad to have known her and sorry at her passing.

Audrey Anand

Sad news indeed. She was a real character.

Katharine Parker

Tina was the one I overheard being described, by one of the young attendees, as 'the little bit hippy one' among the four of us tutoring on the Residential Foundation Course. And her little bit of hippiness was one of her captivating and charming characteristics.

In a slightly mystical tone she would open proceedings each morning by doing something – rooted in NLP – called 'installing the learning mood' which often involved moving around , to get the mood in the muscle, as she would say; a little bit of chanting or poetry recitation, to open our vocal chords and model confidence, as she would say; and, as I recall, a bit of laughing and shaking...the reasons for which have deserted me - but I think they were something about making sure life stayed frothy and amusing and we didn't take ourselves too seriously.

Ah, how very wise this lovely lady was. For someone so modest, grounded and quietly intellectual she had a unique charisma and an ability to tear down the vanity, shyness or inhibitions from pretty much anyone she encountered.

And Tina, now you have left us too soon, my plan to ask you to explain quite what the laughing and shaking was for, is foiled.

But I think I'll continue to borrow shamelessly from your book of NLP tricks anyway. Whatever the exercises were for, they certainly work. Indeed, when I'm coaching, teaching or facilitating, I often 'model Tina' (as NLP would have it...) and always have a wry inner smile when I think of my endearing friend 'the little bit hippy one'...

Rosie Campbell

When I think of Tina I think of sun, warmth, laughter and strength. She was a joy to talk – and argue – with, and the world is a poorer place without her.

Louella Miles

I have known Tina for a long time. I first met her when she was at Beechams, spending about 15 months with her prior to joining Saatchis in 1977. She then followed me there. At the time we were a small group and had no ties, i.e. BC (before children). Later, as an independent consultant, I saw her often at ICG and AQR events. The words I would use to describe her are: fun, extremely positive about everything, wise, thoughtful, clever, articulate – a woman who gave a lot of her time to others. She was also a great teacher and communicator. I have lots of fond memories of her, lots of laughs and I received a lot of good advice from her.

Janet Kiddle

As qualitative researchers, our friendship was kindled when we discovered a mutual passion for communication and learning, aka NLP. Tina showed her remarkable ingenuity by securing perhaps the first and only one word client brief. She coaxed her BT client into commissioning a project on the BT brand, exploring its sensory modalities.

We were to do free association depth interviews simply asking respondents: how do you see, hear, feel BT and how does it smell, taste, etc. Tina found a way to weave magic into a mesmerising presentation. That reminds me that at one stage of blue sky thinking she planned to launch an NLP consultancy in the name of Wizard.

We ran NLP workshops for the MRS over several years and were quite rigorous with each other, debating how to improve on the smallest of course details. Every year we would mount a pre course meeting. “What if we..?” For me it was really an excuse to spend as much time as possible with her. Delegates loved her warmth, sincerity and vivacity. Never retiring but unerringly modest, Tina’s quest for self development kept her work fresh and vital. We last worked together in December 2012, in between bouts of her chemotherapy treatment, but you would never have known fragile her state of health. Her MRS evaluation comments read:

Really practically good and down to earth!
An informative speaker, excellent.
Very informative, gave lots of practical advice.
Gave interesting insights and practical tips.
Seamless transition between the two trainers.

She refused to let her illness define or limit her. The saddest thing is that, though I have some lovely photos, and even though I’m a researcher who is forever recording and hoarding, I have no Tina tapes. How I miss the earthiness of her gurgling voice and that giggle.

Mo Ressler