The Insights Career Network (ICN) is a community of marketing, consumer, user, and business research professionals who volunteer their tools, experience, and networks to help each other develop their careers.
The ICN was established by a diverse group of insights leaders who aimed to create a community where peers in the insights field support each other in focusing on their job search, developing new job-hunting skills, expanding their network, and taking ownership of their candidacy for any insights job.
Follow us on LinkedIn to learn about upcoming events and fill out the application for access to insider resources.
Meet the 2024 ICN Leadership Team
Member Services
Vice President Melissa Barrow, Fort Worth, Texas
Director Chelsey Popejoy, Denver, Colorado
Director Gabe McElwaine, NYC, New York
Research on Research
Vice President Kahren Kersten, Cary, North Carolina
Director Eugenia Archetti, Birmingham, Alabama
Director Randy Adis, Newtown, Connecticut
Education & Events
Vice President Melanie Solka, San Francisco Bay Area
Director Sarah E. Weber, Austin, Texas
Director Karen Krishfield, Los Angeles, California
Marketing
Vice President Kelvin Claveria, Vancouver, B.C.
Director Melissa Paluch, Falls Church, Virginia
Senior Executive Directors & Co-Founders
Brian Fowler, Alameda, California
Justin T. Hawkins, Chicago, Illinois
Maya Kantak, Los Angeles, California
Doug Keith, Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Senior Executive Advisors & Co-Founders
Stephen Griffiths, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Jacci Weber, Nashville, Tennessee
ICN Leadership Bios
Member Services
Vice President Melissa Barrow
Ft. Worth, Texas
Melissa’s passion for building the next generation of insights professionals stems from her diverse experience across supplier, vendor, and client roles. Witnessing layoffs, transitions, and corporate transformations firsthand allows her to connect with our members’ unique challenges. Driven by a desire to make a difference, Melissa began in social research, focusing on youth, educators, and undocumented populations.
This experience honed her methodological skills and instilled a curiosity that translates to her market research work with companies like Texas Instruments, Game Stop and 7-Eleven where she excelled in storytelling, relationship building, and championing integrity and respect. Melissa is energized by ICN’s potential and eager to give back.
Director Chelsey Popejoy
Denver, Colorado
Many people in market research end up there by chance, in contrast, Chelsey attended Penn State with the intent of a career in consumer behavior and research. What she didn’t expect was making the jump from Analyst to Sales and how well that would suit her career progression. In 11 years, her career has spanned roles on the vendor side focusing on pharma, insurance, CPG, financial services, and tech industries – with an emphasis on CPG in her current role at Buzzback. Chelsey specializes in consultative solution selling and client service, with the research and data analysis chops to not be “just the salesperson” for her clients. True partnership and adding value for all parties is her goal.
Director Gabe McElwaine
New York City, New York
After a decade in the music business, Gabe took the logical next step into the market research industry. For the past 18 years, Gabe has progressively moved from large data aggregators to focus more on the newer research technology platforms, where he has worked to build the go-to-market, sales, and client management functions & teams for some of the more innovative restech startups in the market. Currently, Gabe leverages his sales and client development skills in consulting for a variety of market research platforms and agencies.
Research on Research
Vice President Kahren Kersten
Cary, North Carolina
With a BA in Business Management (University of Leeds, UK), Kahren’s career began in London in 2007 as a market researcher in NPD, advertising, and CX. She sought opportunities to learn and apply an array of quantitative and qualitative tools and techniques, innovating on research methods as she progressed to leadership roles, winning new business in turn. During her time in the UK, Kahren worked at BrainJuicer (now System1 Group), denstu’s Vizeum UK, GfK NOP, and MarketCast, among others.
In 2017, Kahren moved back to the US to pursue an MA in Industrial and Product Design (NCSU) where she blended existing career knowledge with newfound design skills. In her final year, she worked full-time in Electrolux’s design team. After graduating in 2020, Kahren founded Experience Insights, a consultancy using mixed-methods research, journey maps, workshops, collaborative techniques, and wireframes/service mapping to holistically inform business strategy and design new customer experiences.
Director Eugenia Archetti
Birmingham, Alabama
Eugenia will be our lead on an imminent study we are conducting in partnership with Quirks. Every year we are privileged to learn from Quirks about the state of the industry and research professions, and this year, we are excited to be contributing some additional questions that will look more closely at the job seeker perspective. We will no doubt be greatly benefited by Eugenia’s vibrant and thought-provoking approach.
She brings over 15 years of experience and has held various research roles across consultancy and corporate sectors, spanning qualitative, quantitative, UX research, brand, and advertising. She believes research is an active empathy practice that fosters a deep understanding of people and bridges the gap between brands and their customers to create a better world.
Director Randy Adis
Newtown, Connecticut
Randy will be spearheading another one of our upcoming research initiatives to understand the state of hiring in 2024. This work will build on a 2023 ICN study advancing our understanding of the hiring process and current conditions; things have changed some since Q1 2023. We are fortunate to have Randy’s astute and strategic thinking on this one! He brings over 25 years of experience in consumer insights and market research. With expertise that spans a wide array of qualitative and quantitative methods, he has held leadership roles at Unilever and PepsiCo on the client side, and more recently at Olson Zaltman and Product Ventures on the agency side. He’s passionate about staying ahead of the curve and using his expertise to design effective research roadmaps and deliver compelling results.
Education & Events
Vice President Melanie Solka
San Francisco Bay Area
Melanie is a marketing and insights executive with a robust background in driving growth across diverse industries. With a blend of Fortune #1 to startup experience across client, agency and supplier companies, she brings a wealth of expertise in global marketing, market research, consumer insights, product innovation, and digital marketing.
She has established and led insights functions, translating research into impactful strategies, products, and services, and has spearheaded numerous multi-million-dollar initiatives: Go-to-market launches of Sam’s Club’s digital ad products; retail strategy initiatives at Nintendo; leading insights teams at Circana, Ipsos, and Nielsen for CPG, technology, and media clients.
Director Sarah E. Weber
Austin, Texas
Director Karen Krishfield
Los Angeles, California
Marketing
Vice President Kelvin Claveria
Vancouver, British Columbia
Kelvin’s research tech industry journey began in 2013 with a social media marketing role at Vision Critical (now @Alida). Learning from research leaders like Dr. Alexandra Samuel and Ray Poynter, he built their social media presence and established their blog as a valuable resource.
Promoted to Content Marketing Manager in 2015, Kelvin collaborated with executives and customers to elevate Vision Critical’s thought leadership. In 2018, he joined Rival Technologies and Reach3 Insights, founded by Andrew Reid, to help the industry move to conversational, mobile research. Now, he drives demand for both companies through integrated marketing programs, increasing brand awareness and revenue.
Impressed by the talent and dedication of researchers, Kelvin volunteers with ICN to contribute to the industry and its community.
Director Melissa Paluch
Falls Church, Virginia
Senior Executive Directors & Co-Founders
Brain Flower Services
Brian Fowler | Strategy Consultant, Brain Flower Services
Brian’s career began with a decade as a full-service research practitioner and progressed into business intelligence and market/ing research for brands, research agencies, and multimode platforms. The data, people, and process skills learned in that foundation and an MBA, prepared him to lead one of the original multimode survey software platforms, CFMC/Survox, through a decade of intense innovation and dramatic change for the company and the industry.
Concurrent with his corporate and consulting careers, he has served as a volunteer elected officer with more than a dozen nonprofit organizations, including 25+ years of service with chapters of the AMA, IA/MRA, and AAPOR. He has mentored dozens of fellow insights and marketing professionals, co-produced more than 140 networking and educational events, and garnered several awards.
His clients -often entrepreneurs, startups, and nonprofits – rely on his services to get to market, stay competitive, and build effective marketing, research, and business operations.
The ICN is one of the most accessible and effective career support groups because of our incredibly supportive community. Researchers are naturally and professionally curious, empathetic, and supportive and that’s a significant reason for this career community’s effectiveness. Many of us have faced hurdles in entering or advancing our careers and some of us have benefited from mentors who steered us in little ways that made big differences. It can be devastatingly lonely when you are fighting for your life. Don’t go through it alone – the ICN community will help.
— Brian Fowler
Justin Hawkins | Marketing Research Leader, Kimberly Clark
Justin is a highly collaborative and empathetic consumer insights business partner who thrives in ambiguity. He is trained in moderating, facilitating, storytelling, and design thinking, and has experience leveraging jobs to be done to ensure consumer relevance. Justin has been involved in developing at least 3 new brands from opportunity identification/selection to launch and has a proven track of influencing senior leadership teams with actionable insights rooted in qualitative and quantitative consumer learning.
Having managed research across multiple continents and living abroad for several years, Justin truly has a heart for influencing across markets. Justin currently works at Kimberly-Clark where he leads US front-end innovation research for the company’s adult and feminine care businesses
Maya Kantak | Senior Manager, Market Research & Insights, ZipRecruiter
Maya is an award-winning consumer insights leader leveraging the power of the consumer voice to drive revenue and profit growth for industry leaders and beloved brands, including Honda, Del Taco, Disney Parks, and currently ZipRecruiter. During her 8+ years in the industry, and 3+ years in senior leadership roles, she has successfully spearheaded actionable, custom research projects to drive commercial strategy, brand building, product launches, and more.
As a passionate insights leader, Maya uses her platform to support, encourage, and educate other researchers trying to navigate the space. Recently, Maya has dedicated time to helping create opportunities for insights professionals through her co-founding of EPIC Insights, and her advisory roles for Michigan State University and Insights in Color.
As a second-generation researcher, I know firsthand the impact early guidance can have on a career. I learned advanced analytics at a very young age and met folk in the industry I still look up to today. It’s not always easy to first facilitate these connections though, especially in our newly digital-first world. I hope the Insights Career Network will bridge that gap, and provide access to this wonderful MRX community for all to benefit.
— Maya Kantak
Doug Keith | President, Future Research Services
Doug Keith has more than 25 years of experience in the research industry, doing both qualitative and quantitative work. Doug trained as a focus group moderator at the Burke Research Institute in Cincinnati, OH, and has conducted qualitative and quantitative research for a variety of clients across industries, with a focus on technology and media & entertainment. Prior to moving into consulting, Doug served as a Vice President/Account Executive in the Media & Entertainment Group at TNS, where he worked at the highest level with clients in the fields of media, telecommunications and IT. Doug has been a panelist and speaker at the IAB Audio Agency day, a featured speaker at the ARF Re:Think Conference, and the Giant Screen Theater Association worldwide conferences. He completed a degree in Journalism at the University of South Carolina and obtained his MA in mass media and communication from Temple University. He is currently a member of IA and QRCA.
Vice President of Member Services: Melissa Barrow
Vice President of Research on Research: Kahren Kersten
Vice President of Education & Events: Melanie Solka
Vice President of Marketing: Kelvin Claveria
Senior Executive Advisors and Co-Founders
Stephen Griffiths
Research Director,
Post Cereal
Research Director, Post Cereal | LinkedIn
Stephen is fascinated by helping organizations use customer understanding to unlock growth. Stephen unwittingly began his insights career as a mall interviewer in high school and has been in consumer insights for 10+ years with Nielsen, P&G, General Mills, and UnitedHealth Group. His passion led him to co-found Epic Insights, a networking organization for client-side insights professionals. Stephen can be found interviewing insights professionals on Digging For Insights, the leading client-side insights podcast founded in 2019.
I remember fighting with self-doubt as I struggled to get a job as a new college graduate in the Great Recession. It wasn’t until years later as an MBA student and hiring interviewer that I learned how to present oneself as a job candidate and really leverage career connections. I’m hoping the Insights Career Network can provide the resources and community that I wish had been there for me 12 years ago.
— Stephen Griffiths
Jacci Weber
Senior Insights Manager
Mars Petcare | LinkedIn
Jacci is an award-winning, multi-disciplinary marketing leader who strives to put the consumer at the forefront of all decision-making. While Jacci initially discovered the Marketing Research industry by accident via Google search, she’s enjoyed dedicating the last 10 years to helping client-side firms launch new products, optimize customer experiences, deploy consumer learnings, and drive financial results.
Jacci currently works at Mars Petcare leading US consumer research for the IAMS brand. Prior to joining Mars, Jacci led consumer insights and brand licensing teams at The Wendy’s Company. Jacci is a proud graduate of the Master’s of Science in Marketing Research (MSMR) program at Michigan State University and has served as an advisory board member for that program since 2013. Her passion for insights – particularly in mentoring early-stage professionals – has led to speaking engagements with national conferences, universities (including Michigan State University, The Ohio State University, and the University of Iowa), and podcasts.