Brendan Shair branches out

With his non-compete clause over, former Synovate boss Brendan Shair has revealed his new venture ShairViews Research and the hiring of senior staff is underway.Shair departed Hong Kong's leading research group in August last year, briefly taking a role with HSBC shortly after.His new venture, already with an office in Times Square, has managed to recruit a handful of former Synovate colleagues to senior roles.This includes Eddie Au, former associate director at Synovate who takes on the role of research director, with Synovate former associate director Ivy Cheung taking on the associate director role at ShairViews. Cheung will also be a partner in the business.The launch also comes amid an expected shake-up of the local research sector with rumour swirling about the take over of Synovate, part of the Aegis Group, by global research firm Ipsos.Ipsos has also been aggressively expanding its team in Hong Kong and across the region with Tony Wai its latest recruit as head of its Asia Pacific qualitative team.Shair said his agency would seek to focus on offering high-end research and would maintain a senior level of research executives."We want to make it easier and give answers to clients in the simplest of ways," he said.Last year two senior staff, Grant Beuzeval and Nicole Hessing, from the WPP-owned TNS struck out to launch Radar Global, specialising in computer assisted telephone interviews.