Dr William Thomson - Director of Economics

William is responsible for directing the economics business at Experian. He plays the leading role in developing and maintaining the existing suite of macro, regional and local area forecast products and services. He acts as Experian’s chief economist as well as the director of forecasting. William has worked for many years to help some of the world’s leading private sector organisations understand how economic change will impact on their business portfolios. William joined Experian from IHS Global Insight, where he was Managing Director of European Economics. Prior to that, he was Vice-President of European Fixed Income Research at Merrill Lynch. He has worked for a number of years in the economic forecasting industry, and also in the public sector at the Department of Trade and Industry and in the risk-management division of the UK Export Credit Agency (ECGD). He holds economics degrees from the Universities of Essex in the UK and Connecticut in the USA.

Dr Eric McVittie - Research Director
Eric has extensive experience of regional and local economic modelling and forecasting, gained over 20 years of academic and commercial research. At Experian, he directs the development of regional forecasting models and provides leadership on Experian’s various regional and local forecasting services. He also provides technical direction on a broad range of research projects, which apply advanced economic modelling and forecasting techniques to provide insight into issues facing leading businesses and policy institutions. Before joining Experian in 2006, Eric was Head of Economics at the University of Plymouth. He holds a Doctorate in Economics from the University of Strathclyde, a leading centre for regional modelling in the UK, and has published on regional modelling and policy in leading UK and international academic journals.

Sunita Bali - UK macroeconomics
Sunita runs the team that produces Experian’s macroeconomic and sectoral forecasts for the UK and Irish economies. She recently joined Experian from Rabobank, where she was a UK economist and currency/money markets analyst. She also worked as a country and industry economist at Global Insight and as an energy economist at WEFA.

Sadia Sheikh - Regional forecasting

Sadia heads up Experian Economics’ Regional Planning Service and has final responsibility for all products related to UK regions and cities. She is responsible for product innovation and the application of economic methods to business solutions. She has considerable experience in commercial and residential real estate markets and works closely with real estate clients across Europe and the UK. Sadia has also held overall responsibility for projects involving the application of econometric modelling techniques and other quantitative methods to understand regional and local economic development for public sector clients across the UK. She regularly fronts Experian economics’ key services to internal and external stakeholders and has also often been quoted in print and recorded media, such as the Financial Times, Sky News and BBC Radio. Sadia joined Experian in 2008 from Cambridge Econometrics, where she fulfilled a similar role. Sadia holds a Master’s degree in in Economics from the University of Oxford.

Mark Britton - European regional forecasting
Mark is a key member of our Economics team, responsible for the running of Experian’s European Regional Forecasting Service. Through his work on this service, Mark has gained in-depth knowledge of regional and local economic modelling techniques, which he has applied to product developments and a wide variety of consulting projects, including scenario analysis. Mark also contributes to Experian’s macroeconomic forecasting services, taking a lead on national-level and regional economic developments in Italy. Mark joined Experian in 2005 after gaining a first class honours degree in Economics with Geography at Loughborough University.

Rebecca Snow - European regional forecasting
Rebecca has been a key member of the European Regional Forecasting Service team since 2001. She is responsible for overseeing data collection, forecasting and the reports that make up the service. Rebecca takes a lead in developing our European regional forecasting capabilities and manages the maintenance of the regional model. She spends a large amount of time aligning European regional data to client defined growth scenarios and is also involved in the economic assessments of local regional economies across Europe. Rebecca joined Experian after gaining a first class degree in Economics at Kingston University.

James Hastings - Head of UK Construction Forecasting
James has specialised in research and analysis of the construction industry for the past 18 years, both at the National Economic Development Office and as a founder member of Construction Forecasting and Research. He is now head of construction futures at Experian’s Business Strategies Division and currently sits on the DTI’s Consultative Committee on Construction Industry Statistics. James is also the UK representative of the Euroconstruct consortium.