Data Gurus

Aleksandra Bass joins Sima on the podcast today. She is the Vice-president of Product Management at Momentive (makers of Survey Monkey). Aleks has had an exciting career! In today's episode, she talks to Sima about her career journey, what she does at Momentive and various aspects of product management. How Aleks got to where she is in her career It took a bit of luck, some passion, and a lot of hard work for Aleks to get to where she is today in her career. She was passionate about how people think and make decisions, so she studied psychology. When she realized that applied psychology was not the right fit for her personality, she sought business applications for it, and market research was an area where she could use her psychology background to help business answer some core questions. Making changes Aleks worked for a research agency in Los Angeles and loved it. Unfortunately, she saw very little getting done with the data, and it frustrated her. So she switched from research execution on

Today, Colson Steber joins Sima on the podcast. He is the Co-CEO of Communications for Research and Co-CEO of Ag Access. In this episode, Colson dives into the origin of Communications for Research and his journey to becoming Co-CEO. He also discusses his passion for personal evolution and relentless learning and explains how he integrates his learning into his personal life and work. Communications for Research Communications for Research is a research logistics business. They provide services for recruiting and data collection. They are unique in that they have a proven process for getting to the research outcomes and doing whatever needs to get done. The history of CFR Colson’s Father started CFR 26 years ago. Colson, along with his business partner and co-CEO, bought the company six and a half years ago. The company could no longer continue operating as it had before. So they had to figure out how to make it work as a business. The company is now almost triple the size it was when they boug

Dr. Emmanuel Probst joins Sima on the podcast today. He is the bestselling author of Brand Hacks and the newly-published book, Assemblage. In addition to writing books, he is also the Global Lead of Brand Thought-Leadership at Ipsos. In this episode, he talks to Sima about his latest book and the changing narrative he has seen in brand purpose over the last several years. Books The second edition of Brand Hacks came out in September 2021. Assemblage: The Art and Science of Brand Transformation will be officially released on the 24th of January, 2023. Dr. Probst is considering writing another book in 2024. Curiosity and fulfillment Dr. Probst believes that curiosity is essential for finding solutions and becoming successful in the world of marketing today. He has found it fulfilling to learn from people from different cultures and professional backgrounds. He feels we can learn as much from those who started in the industry recently as we can from industry leaders with C-level titles and many years of exp

Sima is delighted to have Mark Stouse, the Chairman and CEO of Proof Analytics, joining her today to dive into his background, the years he spent building Proof Analytics, and the exciting work he is currently doing. Mark’s story Even though Mark understands data science, he is not a data scientist. He is a business leader who got hooked and wanted more after discovering the power of analytics. So he began climbing the hill. Business problems It takes a lot of effort to get a small amount of data. So Mark started focusing on business problems associated with analytics. He decided to adopt the role of a whisperer figure and began building that role within all the different global organizations he ran. Building a team  He had to spend millions of dollars each year, mostly on salaries, to build a team that could provide the latency needed for the various businesses. But it worked! A valuable discovery The huge and intricate mega-models that Mark and his team created were time-consuming, and business lead

Anita Watkins, the Global Head of Qualitative Research at Kantar, joins Sima today to talk about how she got to where she is and what she does at Qualitative. She also gets into current trends within the industry, offers guidance for coping with uncertainty, and shares some career advice. Anita’s journey After leaving college, Anita worked in sales and insurance sales. She worked hard and did well even though it was not her ideal job. Then, the company asked her to do some focus groups with the field sales force. After her first presentation, she realized that working in qualitative research might be a better fit for her personality type. She applied for a job with a small firm in the research space. She refused to give up when they told her she did not have enough experience, and they eventually gave her the job. The company went through many changes and mergers over the years and finally became Kantar, one of the largest research firms on the planet. Toward the end of 2017, Anita became Kantar’s Global H

Data Gurus – Episode 187 – Multiculturalism, with Adriana Waterston Adriana Waterston is Sima’s guest for today’s podcast! She is the Chief Revenue Officer and Insight and Strategy Lead at Horowitz Research. Multiculturalism is an important matter that has become a focal point for society in recent years. At Horowitz Research, they specialize in multicultural research. Adriana joins Sima today to talk about what they are doing at Horowitz Research. She also gets into the concepts of culture and multiculturalism and discusses various issues related to multiculturalism. The origin of Horowitz Research’s focus on multicultural research Back in the mid-1980s, when Horowitz was focused on helping the nascent cable industry, they addressed the question of who would pay for television when television was free. That brought to light that multicultural people- especially black and Latinx individuals, watched the most television and were willing to pay for it. Yet, at the time, cable companies redlined black and H

Sima is excited to have Andrew Cannon and Debby Schlesinger-Hellman, the Co-founders of the Art and Science of Joy and EQJOY, joining her today! Andrew and Debby are on a mission to empower people and inspire them to live more joyful lives! They use the art and science of joy to help individuals and companies elevate their personal and business success. In this episode, they talk about what joy is, what they are doing, and what inspired them to do it. Andrew’s inspiration Andrew’s inspiration for what he does comes from his journey to find purpose in life. He loved his career in the market research industry but needed to do more. His struggles led him to realize that he needed joy in his life. He also needed to use his talents and connections to bring joy to others. Debby’s inspiration We are all born with a certain percentage of joy in our DNA. Debby was fortunate to be born with lots of it. However, a few decades ago, due to circumstances, she started feeling less of it. About five years ago, she felt

Welcome to another interesting and informative episode of Data Gurus! Sima is delighted to have Nihal Advani, the Founder, and CEO of QualSights, joining her today! Nihal has been on an exciting journey since starting his first business. In today’s episode, he shares his story, gets into how he founded and pivoted his business, and talks about what they are doing at QualSights. Nihal’s story Nihal grew up in India and played tennis for the country. At eighteen, he came to the US to study and play college tennis. In his junior year of college, he was fortunate enough to be one of only ten people selected from more than 3,100 candidates to do an internship at Google. After graduating, he wanted to continue with tech. So he worked for Microsoft for five years and then decided to start a business. Getting selected as a Google intern Nihal got selected as an intern for Google for two reasons. One was that he knew Google inside out after spending an entire semester learning about all their various departments

Sima is happy to have Jim Longo joining her today! Jim is the Chief Strategy Officer and Co-founder of Discuss. Jim has had an amazing career in the research sector! He talks to Sima about his journey, how he got to where he is in his career, and the benefits of digital qualitative research. He also gets into the features they built at Discuss to improve efficiency and direct analysis. Jim’s background Jim got involved in qualitative research early on in his career. He joined Harris Interactive in 1999 when the internet was already going strong. They brought Jim in to digitize qualitative research. He wanted to introduce video because it allowed him to see people’s reactions and body language when in conversation. At every other organization he joined after leaving Harris, he continued to push for the ability to use video, even though the video quality was poor back then. Discuss Discuss is a tech company that understands qualitative research and has its roots in research. They work with brands, corporat

Welcome to another engaging and informative episode of Data Gurus! Sima is delighted to have Raj Bains, the CEO and Founder at Prophecy, joining her for today’s show! Raj started Prophecy five years ago and decided to build one big product to get data ready for analytics. He talks to Sima about his business and product and where he fits within the industry. Raj’s background Raj started his professional career in the early 2000s. He started with graphics, worked as a developer, got into power tools, and worked at Microsoft. After that, he joined a team at NVIDIA to build CUDA, which now gets used for Bitcoin mining. Then he moved into the data space and shifted from engineering into marketing and product management. While selling big data platforms and managing Apache Hive for the Hadoop Company at Hortonworks, he saw data users struggling to be productive with outdated tools. He solved that problem by building power tools to make it easy to get data ready for analytics very quickly. He has focused on doin

Welcome to another interesting and informative episode of Data Gurus!   Sima is excited to have Florian Kahlert, the Chief Data, and Innovation Officer at Telmar, joining her on the show today. Florian recently sold his company, Helixa, to Telmar. In this episode, he gets into the benefits of the integration between Helixa and Telmar and discusses competition, data protection, data sharing, and privacy. Florian’s story Florian has been oscillating between data and ad tech, and the research side of the industry throughout his career. He has worked at several different companies over the last two decades. He ran Helixa until it got acquired by Telmar at the end of last year. Helixa There are two parts to how Helixa fits into the overall data landscape: Transforming data (observational data, social data, etc.) into understanding what people’s interests are. Fulilling the need within the industry for accurate and detailed personas and definitions of audiences, segments, etc., that go beyond demographic

Welcome to another interesting and informative episode of Data Gurus! Sima is excited to bring you the second part of the live discussion between herself and four other industry leaders that took place earlier this year at SampleCon. This episode might give those who did not make it to SampleCon this year an idea of what the conference was like, and hopefully bring a fresh perspective to those who were there. You will hear Sima lead an informal and unscripted discussion with Ryan Barry, Steve Schlesinger, Katie Gross, and Armen Adjemian. They share their opinions on various topics and discuss their concerns for the industry. Ryan Barry is the President at Zappi. He oversees their commercial operations, operations, and product and engineering groups. Steve Schlesinger is the CEO of Schlesinger Group. He focuses on strategy, acquisitions, and developing the business for the future. Armen Adjemian is a co-founder and CEO of DISQO. He is involved with strategy and marketing. Katie Gross is Chief Customer Of

Welcome to another interesting and informative episode of Data Gurus! Sima is excited to bring you part of a live discussion between herself and four other industry leaders that took place earlier this year, at SampleCon. For those who did not get to SampleCon this year, this episode will give you an idea of what it was like. You will hear Sima lead an informal and unscripted discussion with Ryan Barry, Steve Schlesinger, Katie Gross, and Armen Adjemian. They share their strong opinions on various topics, including leadership, talent management, company culture, respondent experience, and more. Ryan Barry is the President at Zappi. He oversees their commercial operations, operations, and product and engineering groups. Steve Schlesinger is the CEO of Schlesinger Group. He focuses on strategy, acquisitions, and developing the business for the future. Armen Adjemian is a co-founder and CEO of DISQO. He is involved with strategy and marketing Katie Gross is Chief Customer Officer at Suzy. She oversees sale

Welcome to another engaging and informative episode of Data Gurus! Today, Sima is happy to have Wes Michael, the Founder and President of Rare Patient Voice, joining her! Wes founded Rare Patient Voice in 2013 to give patients and caregivers with rare diseases the opportunity to voice their opinions in research studies. In this episode, he explains what prompted him to start Rare Patient Voice. He also talks about how he has grown the business and what they do. Wes’s story After graduating, Wes worked for a computer consulting company that did surveys. Then he returned to school to get an MBA and learn about statistics. After that, he worked at General Mills for a few years and learned about market research. He then moved to McCormick, a spice company in Maryland. A big change There was a change in the healthcare world in the nineties when direct-to-consumer ads were made legal. Wes moved into that world when he joined Kantar Health (then known as Migliara/Kaplan). He dealt with companies like Merck, Pf

Welcome to the Data Gurus podcast! Sima has selected some interesting and educative past episodes of Data Gurus for you to enjoy in the last few weeks of August. She will return in September with new guests, fresh content, and a few surprises! Today’s episode is a replay of episode 155 with Lilah Raynor, the Founder, and CEO of Logica Research. In this episode, Lilah talks to Sima about a research project she did with a team from the IDEA Council and discusses an ongoing study she is involved in, called The Future of Money. Lilah’s background Lilah comes from a financial services background. Before founding Logica Research, she managed the research team at Charles Schwab. Founding Logica Research Lilah founded Logica Research about fifteen years ago. It was initially called Koski Research. She started her company to provide excellent client service for clients who preferred working with small boutique research firms. Over time, they have become more niche-focused on financial services and fintech. Mak

Welcome to the Data Gurus podcast! Sima has curated several illuminating and informative past Data Gurus episodes for you to enjoy in the last weeks of August. She will be back again in September with fresh content, new guests, and a few surprises! Today’s episode is a replay of episode 147, in which Sima shared Part 1 of Investing in Research, a panel discussion about agencies from the WiRe (Women in Research) Conference that took place last year. The discussion is hosted by Nikki Lavoie, and experts Sima Vasa, Sherry Fox, and Elaine Riddel join her to talk about a prominent myth circulating in the insights industry. According to that myth, only tech and SaaS-based companies receive investment funding. In this discussion, the panel of experts clarifies why that myth is false and explains how service-based companies can start accessing investment funding. The experts  Sherry Fox is a career Global Insights Strategist focused on health care. She is well-versed in strategic brand development and regulator

Welcome to the Data Gurus podcast! Sima has curated a series of interesting and informative past episodes of the podcast for August. She will be back again in September with new guests, fresh content, and a few surprises! Today’s episode is a replay of episode 170 with Adam Jolley, the EVP and General Manager of Americas for Paradigm Sample. In this episode, Adam talks to Sima about how leadership has had to change over the last two years as a result of how the world has changed since the pandemic. Adam’s background It was a shock for everyone when the pandemic hit. It was also a big shock to Adam’s career because he had quit his thirteen-year job as President of a stable company a few months before. At the time, he was navigating what to do for a career. He was also considering whether to get into leadership or be an individual contributor. Having to change If Adam had started with Paradigm immediately after quitting his old job, nothing would have changed, and he would not have gotten any better at wh

Welcome to another informative episode of Data Gurus! Sima is excited to have Devora Rogers, Chief Strategy Officer for Alter Agents, joining her today to talk about the book she recently co-authored with Rebecca Brooks, called Influencing Shopper Decisions: Unleash the Power of Your Brand to Win Customers. Devora’s book In the book, Devora and Rebecca connect their journeys, careers, and their boss’s journeys with their historical perspectives to show people how market research has evolved, why it is the way it is today and things we need to rethink due to the way the world has changed. Motivation Devora and Rebecca have worked together as research partners since 2008. Early on in their working relationship, they began working on proving how emerging media was and would continue impacting purchasing decisions because that was not clear at that point. They wanted to give marketers a sense of the roles social media, mobile, or digital out-of-home were going to have on their marketing efforts. Google Fou

Welcome to another informative episode of Data Gurus! Sima is excited to have Jason Telner join her on the show today! Jason is a Senior User Researcher within the CIO organization at IBM. His primary purpose is to use various methods to improve the employees’ experience with the apps and tools they use and improve their overall workflow and work experiences. Improving the lives of employees Jason’s role at IBM focuses on improving the employees' lives in terms of their day-to-day productivity, how they relate to the company and the tools they provide. He does that using surveys, user interviews, and collecting data to see how that can improve the design of their entire experience. A unified experience At IBM, they feel that having a unified experience benefits the employees, and the company's response to things in the environment, like Covid or global crises. They have a website for employees to find information, figure things out around their careers, and have a more unified experience. Jason’s journe

Welcome to another fascinating episode of Data Gurus! Sima is happy to have Rick Kelly, the Chief Product Officer of Fuel Cycle, joining her on the show today! In this episode, Rick explains how he got to where he is today and discusses Fuel Cycle’s unique approach of linking with multiple API partners to offer different capabilities for specific communities to utilize and positioning itself as the Salesforce for communities. Bio: Rick is currently the Chief Product Officer at Fuel Cycle, where he has worked since 2014. Before his tenure at Fuel Cycle, he worked at an early-stage health tech startup, taught political science, and worked in market research. Outside of work, Rick volunteers with the bleeding disorders community and obsessively learns about food and cooking. How Rick got to where he is in his career Rick started his career in market research by accident. When he left grad school in 2009, the company he was going to work for went insolvent. So he got referred to a sample company and started