Executive Director of the Psychometrics Centre
Custom Programmes Team
Vesselin Popov is the Executive Director for the University of Cambridge Psychometrics Centre, a multidisciplinary research institute specialising in Big Data, online behaviour and psychological assessment.
Vess is responsible for the Centre’s commercial partnerships and oversees a range of projects to increase the understanding and use of Big Data analytics in business and the community. Through his role in the Custom Programmes team in Executive Education, he identifies areas where psychometric techniques can deliver the most impact for clients and supports the integration of the Centre’s innovative assessment portfolio into programme design and delivery.
He has provided research support and strategic consultancy to some of the world’s most powerful brands (e.g. Hilton Worldwide, Barclays UK, Nissan, Porsche, Wrigley Global, Ubisoft and Time Warner) and has extensive agency-side knowledge through relationships with Edelman, Grayling, Mindshare and others. As coordinator of the Apply Magic Sauce project, Vess also advises startups on commercial implementations of data science and predictive tools, combining technical knowledge with an awareness of the privacy and intellectual property implications of different strategies. More recently, Vess’s business development activity has grown in the areas of internal threat detection in financial services, adaptive testing and social recruitment in human resources, and new forms of data for the evaluation of credit and insurance risk.
A Law graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, Vess applied his skills in several areas prior to joining the Psychometrics Centre in May 2013, from digital music to public internal financial control. He has since authored several industry reports, including The Smile Back Project Report (with Wrigley, 2016), the Trust & Predictive Technologies Report (with Edelman, 2016) and The Psychology of Entrepreneurship (with Barclays UK, 2015). When time permits, Vess also works towards journal publications with academic colleagues in the University and elsewhere (see Facebook as a Social Science Research Tool: Opportunities Challenges, Ethical Considerations and Practical Guidelines (American Psychologist, 2015)).
Contact details
Vesselin Popov
Executive Education
Cambridge Judge Business School
University of Cambridge
Trumpington Street
Cambridge CB2 1AG
UK
Tel: +44 (0)1223 769322
