Richard serves as Chief Commercial Officer for Cint, with a focus on expanding the company's customer and supplier base. He leads Cint's demand-side, sales and customer success teams (across EMEA, Americas and APAC), alongside its global supply team and the marketing team.

Prior to this role, he served as Chief Operations Officer, initially joining the company in 2009 to set up its operations in London. Before joining Cint, Richard was part of the executive team at Ciao Surveys, a pioneering firm in the online access panel industry, and eventually led the company to a successful sale to Microsoft Inc. He began his career at CAP Ventures (now InfoTrends Inc.) working as a strategic IT consultant, after earning his degree in human resources and international marketing. Richard represents Cint at global conferences, including having presented papers at the ESOMAR Congress and at MRS events. Thornton has also served as a trainer for MRS workshops. He lives in London with his wife and two sons.

He is a keen traveller with a passion for sports (both watching and participating) and he has a mainly unrewarding time of following his beloved West Ham United around the country.