Data Gurus

On this episode, Sima is joined by Anouar El Haji, Founder and CEO at Veylinx, a behavioral insights platform for answering critical business questions during all stages of product innovation. Topics discussed include: - Anouar’s background and career path. - The evolution of economics from being strictly theoretical to being scientifically tested. - The inherent bias in conducting hypothetical surveys as market research. - Measuring demand by studying subjects with a financial stake tied to their answers. - Why the good nature of humans is detrimental to conducting scientific research studies. - The ways AI could completely change the market research space without the industry proactively adding safeguards. Resources:  https://veylinx.com/ Thanks for listening to the Data Gurus podcast, brought to you by Infinity Squared. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review to help get the word out about the show, and be sure to subscribe so you never miss another insig

Sima is delighted to talk with Gordon Allott today! Gordon is the President and CEO of BroadPeak Partners LLC, the company that developed the K3 software. Today's discussion takes a slightly different turn as we introduce Gordon, who is working on various aspects of data. The work done at BroadPeak brings a fresh perspective on the use of data in today's digital age. So, join us as we delve into Gordon's journey and learn about BroadPeak's unique approach to data integration and analysis! Gordon's bio Gordon Allott is the president and CEO of BroadPeak Partners, developer of the K3. K3 is software that takes data from anywhere, allows users to transform, filter, and unify through an intuitive UI, and send it anywhere. Before founding BroadPeak, Gordon was a consultant and attorney in the financial sector. That included advising a wide variety of bulge-bracket banks and hedge funds on derivatives trading. Gordon led the energy trading and risk groups for Sapient, delivering trading projects for Duke,

Sima is happy to have Venkat Venkataramani joining her for today's episode of Data Gurus! Venkat is the CEO and Co-founder of Rockset.  Venkat shares his background, dives into the benefits of real-time data analytics and cloud-based infrastructure, and discusses the interesting work they are doing at Rockset. Biography Venkat Venkataramani is CEO and Co-founder of Rockset. In his role, Venkat helps organizations build, grow, and compete with data by making real-time analytics accessible to developers and data teams everywhere. Before he founded Rockset, he was an Engineering Director for the Facebook infrastructure team managing online data services for 1.5 billion users. These systems scaled 1000x during his eight years at Facebook, serving five billion queries per second at single-digit millisecond latency and five 9s of reliability. Before joining Facebook, Venkat worked on tools to make the Oracle database easier to manage. Venkat’s background Before he founded Rockset, Venkat managed onli

Sima is delighted to have Henry Hays joining her on the podcast today! Henry is the energetic and inspiring Co-founder and Disruptor at Henry Hays Consulting. In this episode of Data Gurus, Henry dives into the concept of disruptive innovation. Biography Henry spent most of his adult life in sales and sales leadership- mainly in pharmaceuticals and biotech. He started in the late 1990s and had the good fortune to get promoted to several different roles where he gained a good sense of the business. His break came when he was recruited away from a comfortable job by his professional mentor, and he literally said “yes” before even learning what he was supposed to sell! Within five years, they had grown the company (Avanir Pharmaceuticals) to the point where it was acquired. That gave Henry resources and choice, so he chose that point to step away from the hamster wheel pace. It happened at the time when the first few Blockbuster Video stores began closing, which was crazy for Henry. So he dove head-firs

Alon Chen, the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Tastewise, joins Sima today to share his career journey and dive into what they are doing at Tastewise. Biography: Alon Chen is a Co-Founder and serves as Chief Executive Officer at Tastewise. He is the developer of an artificial intelligence-based food intelligence platform designed to assist food and beverage businesses and brands. The company's platform works with food brands, manufacturers, ingredient companies, and flavor houses, including Nestlé, PepsiCo, Givaudan, Campbell's, and Kraft Heinz, to enhance new product development, build marketing strategies, and accelerate sales in retail and restaurants, enabling restaurants, hospitality groups, and food brands to make smarter decisions for a healthy, sustainable, and delicious future. Alon’s journey Alon was born and raised in Israel. He started his first business at fifteen, building and selling computers. His first real job was at Google, looking after the search quality for Hebrew a

Today, Pedro Almeida, the CEO and Co-founder of MindProber, joins Sima on the podcast to share his background and discuss the innovative work they are doing at MindProber.  Pedro’s background Pedro studied social psychology with a strong emphasis on market research. As an undergrad, he worked as a research assistant at a small cognitive neuroscience lab and he later did an internship in social psychology. After graduating, he became a market research consultant while also pursuing his research on electrophysiology. His field of interest was effective processes, emotion, and populations with emotional impairment. Pedro did his Master’s in experimental social psychology. He has always combined his two passions of applied psychology on the one hand and the business side of things on the other. Social psychology Social psychology is an experimental field. It looks at social cognition and processes, and how people make social inferences and process social information. That sometimes has to do with soci

Reed Cundiff, the newly-appointed CEO of Sago (formerly the Schlesinger Group), joins Sima to talk about how he got to where he is in his career and the exciting journey ahead of him. Reed’s story Reed cut his teeth as a marketing analyst. He spent about ten years tracking the enterprise resource planning industry and then moved to Microsoft, where he ran global insights for almost twelve years. After that, he had the opportunity at Kantar to head an integrated team that initially ran the North American business and later all of the Americas.  Becoming the CEO of Sago After managing the insights team at Kantar for a long time, learning a lot, and going through multiple business cycles, Reed jumped at the opportunity of becoming CEO of the Schlesinger Group, now known as Sago.  What attracted Reed to Schlesinger? Three things attracted Reed to the idea of running Schlesinger. The first was that he felt there was a lot he could learn from his role as a stand-alone CEO and from looking at the i

Sima is happy to have Tim Clover, the CEO and Founder of Glow, and Sherry Frey, the VP of Wellness at Nielsen IQ, joining her on the show to dive into how consumers think about the planet, sustainability, and societal responsibility. About Tim Tim left management consulting almost ten years ago to start Glow, his research technology business. He started Glow to make it easy to get the consumer mindset into the boardroom, remove the layers of complexity using some automation throughout the process, and tie everything together. Tim has had a wonderful journey over the last few years and is very happy to work with Nielsen! What Sherry is doing at Nielsen IQ At Nielsen IQ, they refer to total wellness because consumers think about wellness in terms of their personal health and wellness, the health of the environment, and social responsibility. So they built a team at Nielsen that focuses on helping clients better understand the opportunities in the sustainability and social responsibility space, how t

Cliff Courtney, the President and CEO of Courtney180, joins Sima on the show today.  Cliff’s journey Cliff comes from a marketing-driven background. He believes marketing is a good background for all companies. Specifically for him because he has worked predominantly in chief strategy officer roles in Omnicom agencies and then in chief marketing roles, also for Omnicom agencies. As a result, he had good scope for go-to-market plans and how to execute and sell them. Challenges The biggest challenges Cliff ever faced were how to de-commoditize the commoditized brands. (In other words, how to differentiate certain commonly-found items from other, similar items.) Another challenge he faces is that most brands are challenger brands that are competing with companies with bigger budgets and footprints and more impact. So to win these days, he has to be cagey and very smart when optimizing his media messaging.  The expanding sphere of influence of the CMO The sphere of influence of the CMO has expan

Today, Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, the Global Executive Vice President of Enterprise Growth for the RepTrak Company, joins Sima to discuss the history and measurement of reputation. They dive into what reputation is, what shapes it, how to measure it, and its consequences. Stephen’s background Stephen was born and raised in the UK, and he has been living in the US since the end of the 1990s. He trained in science for many years and geared himself toward becoming a doctor. But just before he was about to go to medical school, he changed his mind for personal reasons and moved into the realm of branding and reputation.  He spent his formative years in the agency world. He joined the RepTrak Company eight years ago. He applies many of the skills he used in the agency world to what he does now at RepTrak.  Stephen’s current focus Stephen currently focuses on the premise of reputation, what it is, what drives it, and how it can help elevate the success trajectory of companies. Reputation The conce

Today, Sima joins Gary Laben, the former CEO of Dynata, and Jason Sobel, Head of U.S. Advisory, Evercore Partners, for a panel discussion hosted by Dynata on reinventing and reinvesting.  Sima’s background Sima is a research practitioner. She worked on the supplier side early in her career and had some experience on the client side at IBM, understanding how people use information. Then she worked at the NPD Group before becoming an entrepreneur. She currently does advisory services and investment banking through Oberon Securities and has a podcast. Jason’s background  For the last 25 years, Jason has been doing investment banking, mergers, and acquisitions in information media and marketing. Before that, he was a singer and songwriter.  Common threads that exist amongst companies that thrive in the current environment and any rapidly-changing environment. Sima feels that leadership and employee experience are critical to activate, motivate, and inspire people to produce good quality work. Si

Today, Sima joins Mike Delaney, the Managing Partner of Court Square Capital Partners, and Gary Laben, the Former CEO of Dynata, on a panel discussion to discuss various issues related to the insights and marketing industry. What is the biggest obstacle and gaps you see for the insights and marketing industry moving forward? Sima thinks that the biggest challenges are getting used to all the change and managing all the available data. One of the biggest changes Gary has seen is how talent has been disrupted over the last few years. That has created an entirely different environment for acquisition, retention, growth, and development.  How are best practice companies dealing with how to work from home and culture? Gary believes that the values of a company define its culture. Mike believes that culture is singularly the most important thing that defines who will win in the marketplace. He has dealt with many leaders who feel that being in the office is essential for building a culture. Howeve

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