Full Biography
Angus Reid is the Executive Chairman of Vision Critical, a Canadian global technology company that specializes in tools and services for marketing research and polling. Vision Critical is one of the fastest growing technology companies in North America and Canada’s most prominent, domestically owned, player in global market research solutions. In mid-2012 the company had 500 employees and over 600 clients worldwide, including one third on the top 100 brands.
Prior to Vision Critical, Reid was CEO of the Angus Reid Group – a company he founded in Winnipeg in 1979. When it was sold to Paris based Ipsos in 2000 it was Canada’s largest research and polling company. Reid was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, and received his early education in Vancouver. He earned a B.A. and an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Manitoba, and in 1974 he received a Ph.D. in Sociology from Carleton University in Ottawa. Over the past four decades Angus Reid has been the recipient of several awards and honours including a Canada Council Doctoral Fellowship, the National Health Research Scholar Award, the Davidson Dunton Award for Carleton University’s graduate of the year, the Entrepreneur of the Year Award (Services Category), and the annual award of distinction from the Canadian Public Affairs Association. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Manitoba (1996), Simon Fraser University (2002) and Carleton University (2008). In 2010 he was inducted into the Canadian Marketing Hall of Fame. In 2012 the Canadian Sociology Association created the “Angus Reid Award” for outstanding practitioners in applied Sociology in Canada. A speaker, commentator and author, Dr. Reid has delivered hundreds of addresses to professional and business audiences in Canada and around the world. In 1996 Doubleday published his Canadian best-seller; Shakedown: How the New Economy is Changing our Lives. The Angus Reid poll (a division of Vision Critical) features regular reports on public opinion trends. Angus Reid online polls on emerging social and political trends are regularly featured in the US, the UK and Australia. In the 2010 UK general election Angus Reid polled for The Economist. Angus Reid was the founding chair of the Canada Center advisory board of the Washington based Woodrow Wilson Center. In addition he has served on the board of the Public Policy Forum, the Rick Hansen Institute and the CKNW Children’s Fund. In 2003 Reid created the Angus Reid Foundation which supports higher education and health services in Canada. More recently Reid founded that Canada Monarcha Foundation to bring a Canadian presence to charitable activities in Mexico. Angus Reid lives in West Vancouver with his wife Margaret. http://www.visioncritical.com/about-us/angus-reid