Caroline Davey Takes Charge as Barb CEO

The organisation responsible for audience measurement, Barb, has revealed a number of senior leadership changes. At the same time, Caroline Davey has become the new Chief Executive, leading to a new era of the company's effort to update the measurement of audiences of not only traditional TV but also streaming services and video-sharing platforms.

Working mainly on operational matters and becoming Chief Operating Officer in 2024, she was officially made Chief Executive in March with the departure of Justin Sampson. Her vision for Barb is a change in audience measurement through improving data usage, offering various platform measurement, and building stronger relations with the industry players.

The leadership changes will see Khaled El Serafy promoted as Director of Data and Technology while Luca Vannini will be Director of Partnerships and Communications. Both execs have been instrumental in building Barb's data systems and its advertising measurement capabilities.

Key Highlights:

• Caroline Davey is now in charge as Chief Executive, having succeeded Justin Sampson
• Khaled El Serafy and Luca Vannini have been appointed to senior positions within the organization
• Barb will continue its push for innovation in audience measurement

Khaled, after joining Barb in 2023 as Head of Data Science, has been instrumental in developing the cloud-based Barb Data Hub, which went live in late 2025. At the same time, he is still in charge of Barb Panel Plus, a project that mixes huge datasets with Barb's audience panel to provide deeper and more trustworthy audience insights.

Vannini, who at the time was Head of Campaign Audiences, led the recent release of Barb Ads Hub. This tool allows advertisers to evaluate and improve their campaigns across different platforms. As part of his new position, he will manage stakeholder partnerships and also handle the company's external communications.

In the meantime, Sara Cheeseman will stay on as a Finance Director. Barb has also started the hiring process for a Head of Strategic Developments, a position that will be responsible for supporting the implementation of the organisation's innovation programme during the next two years.

Former Chief Executive Justin Sampson who is leaving will be with Barb as a consultant from September. He will direct the public-interest communications strategy of the organisation and at the same time, he will be advocating the need for an independent audience measurement across the industry.

Speaking on the appointments, Caroline Davey remarked that a stronger leadership team would enable Barb not only to continue its momentum but also to further its efforts in modernising audience measurement. The organisation's agenda includes enhancing the use of device data, maintaining their audience panel, broadening campaign measurement through Barb Ads Hub, modernising data distribution, and making audience reporting available for all types of video content.

Furthermore, Barb reiterated its pledge to collaborate with ISBA as well as other joint industry bodies for the purpose of enhancing cross-platform audience measurement for the benefit of advertisers whilst at the same time accommodating the changing needs of broadcasters, streaming platforms, advertisers, and the entire media industry.