WIRe Accelerate Leadership

WIRe Accelerate modules are instructed by leading Industry professionals, many of whom own their own business. Students will have the opportunity to learn and connect with them directly, building an expanded professional network to leverage down the road.

Accelerate instructors and panelists

Priscilla McKinney

CEO, Little Bird Marketing

Priscilla McKinney, CEO of Little Bird Marketing, is a popular keynote speaker, prolific blogger, podcast host, industry innovator and diversity champion.Best known for making waves in the digital marketing industry, Priscilla has been featured on numerous podcasts, is the President of American Advertising Federation Heartland and has received numerous design, entrepreneurship and industry awards. Along with her expert team, she developed the SOAR System - a proprietary process designed to create sustainable lead generation for busy leaders so they can have confidence in the growth of their company without losing focus on their other responsibilities.Priscilla personifies creativity, entrepreneurship and authentic leadership – inspiring others to truly carve out their own path of success in her uniquely funny, no-nonsense and slightly irreverent way. Oh, and don't give her caffeine. She doesn't need it.

Jane Attale

VP Sales Operations EMEA and APAC Cint

Jane is responsible for Cint’s Sales Operations for EMEA and APAC. She works with Cint’s key Sales teams to optimise commercial sales strategy, key account management, sales efficiency/effectiveness and maximise strategic customer partnerships. Jane has more than 15 years of experience working in the market research sector, specialising in innovation of sales, operations and CRM. Jane likes to be at the forefront of using technology to push the market research industry and combine existing technologies with new. She has spoken at a number of worldwide events and conferences, including WIRE, Quirks, Research and Results and ESOMAR Congress. Jane holds a B.A. in business studies, is a qualified transformational coach advocating the next generation of women in Sales and is based in London.

Elaine Rodrigo

Chief Insights & Analytics Officer at RB

Elaine is doing her 'dream job' at Reckitt, as Chief Insights & Analytics Officer. Known for her strong drive for impact, Elaine found her 'Why' evolving over time to be about People and Purpose. Today, she feels privileged to work on Reckitt’s efforts to drive positive societal impact and business growth via unlocking consumer behaviour change.

With more than 20 years of FMCG experience, Elaine has transformed insights functions across Reckitt, Danone, and Mondelez/Kraft Foods, and currently sits on the Board of a Swedish tech start-up. 

A passionate champion of women's empowerment, Elaine feels strongly about diversity and inclusion. Starting from how she manages her own team, to building progressive company brands. She is the proud mother of two beautiful daughters, and committed towards raising them to be confident, forward-thinking women.

Su Embree

Chair-person and CEO, DHM Research

Inspired by People, Values, and Impact. Believes in supporting change agents and disruption of old models. Motivated to close the gender pay gap. Will hustle to increase diversity in leadership positions.

Melanie Courtright

CEO, Insights Association

Melanie serves as the Chief Executive Officer at the Insights Association. As the leading voice, resource and network of the marketing research and data analytics community, the Insights Association helps its members create competitive advantage by investing in quality standards, legal and business advocacy, education, certification and direct support that enables our members to thrive in an evolving industry and drive business impact.

Melanie has spent more than 25 years designing, executing, and interpreting research for agencies and corporations, and is an industry voice in market research for quality, trends and the next generation of data collection. Known as an expert methodologist, she started her career at a full-service research firm in Dallas where she spent ten years developing her strong research background. She then followed that with a decade specializing in all forms of digital research including online, mobile and social. Melanie has successfully developed and launched leading sampling platforms, routers, methodology best practices, panels and research products.

Melanie contributes to standards and codes of conduct, is heavily involved in chairing and speaking at industry events, and is an award winning writer, researcher, and voice of data quality and best practices.

Heidi Dickert

Founder, Heidi Dickert Consulting

Heidi Dickert utilizes over 20 years of international consumer, technology and B-to-B marketing and research expertise to help companies research, develop and launch new product offerings in a variety of innovative market arenas. Past clients include: MarketTools, ICOM/Alliance Data/Epsilon, Clorox, Autodesk, MMetrics/Comscore, Microsoft, Yes to Carrots, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, and Visa.

Between 2011 - 2014, Heidi took on the responsibility of leading an international market research team across six different operating units responsible for servicing the Visa account globally as the SVP, Global Account Director for the Kantar group.

Before launching Heidi Dickert Consulting in 2007, Heidi Dickert specialized in building and maintaining healthy panels and sampling programs that serviced Fortune 500 customers. In addition, Heidi leveraged new product development experience to create and launch several new products while at MarketTools including MarketTools Mobile, MarketTools Hispanic Reach, and MarketTools Health & Wellness.

Heidi also led both new and established brand research groups and supported Latin American and US Hispanic product development for the flagship laundry brands at Clorox. In this role, Heidi gained extensive experience in conducting hundreds of concept tests, ad tests, product tests and multivariate analyses.​

Earlier in her career, Heidi created and implemented market research programs in Europe and Africa for companies such as DHL Worldwide Express and SC Johnson. She taps into her knowledge of international markets to assess and strategically develop new products that meet the international needs of clients around the world.

Heidi earned her Bachelor’s degree at University of Wisconsin –Madison.

Learn more at http://www.heididickert.com.

Indie Blackwell

Executive Vice President, EMEA at Cint

Indie joined Cint in January 2019, with extensive experience in commercial leadership and strategic roles, primarily within consultancy and data & insights. She has acted as a change-agent within the information services industry for nearly two decades. Having had a number of senior commercial positions during her career to date at the likes of Frost & Sullivan, where Indie spent 12 years culminating in managing and growing the EMEA region and working within the C’Suite of tier 1 accounts (both industry verticals and financial services), Ascential Plc (Planet Retail) and Dun & Bradstreet. She is a passionate advocate for diversity in the workplace and has chaired many leadership and women in workplace initiatives. Having worked alongside global brands, Indie understands the ever-growing importance of “the Voice of the Customer”, and it’s strategic imperative to the C-suite. She is excited to be part of an industry that is transforming and innovating to address “The Age Of The Customer”.

Shazia Ginai

Chief Growth Officer, Catalyx

Shazia Ginai is the Chief Growth officer at Catalyx, a leading edge strategy & insight agency, leading global growth strategy for the business. A creative and curious insight and marketing professional with a passion for people and leading insight to action. She has a track record of successfully building and leading insight capability and embedding this into organisations to drive action across multiple markets and functions. Prior to working at Catalyx, she worked across the luxury fragrance and skin care brands at P&G after which she created and led the global insight function at ghd.  Most recently Shazia was the CEO of Neuro-Insight in the UK, managing the growth of the business and overseeing projects across a range of media and industries. Shazia has a passion for truly actionable insights and empathetic leadership and is a strong advocate for equality and inclusion.  Shazia Board Chair for CORe (Colour of research) and a member of the Market research society D&I Council. She also has a passion for driving awareness and research into menstrual health, actively volunteering for Endometriosis UK.

Julie Kurd

VP, Sales and Revenue at Chadwick Martin Bailey

Hi, I'm Julie, VP Sales & Revenue, a Speech and Debate judge, a mom of college age kids. I mentor both formally and informally, although I call it dual-mentoring because it always goes both ways. Our industry is expanding and there's loads of opportunity for you to present, network and find your path. My goal is to share the joys of the journey. I'm known for helping to keep the strategic goals in focus (reframing context, minimizing distraction), for asking questions and for witnessing the greatness in others and often amplifying it, as appropriate :)

Tiama Hanson-Drury

Chief Product Officer, Minna Technologies

Tiama Hanson-Drury is Chief Product Officer at Minna Technologies where she runs the global product and design functions. Prior to that, she ran products for insights & research tech companies like Dynata and Zappi. She is passionate about building product growth engines and brings extensive experience in data-driven product development in the consumer and B2B Insights platform space. Her expertise includes Product Led Growth, Transformation, Consumer Insights, B2B2C data products, B2B enterprise platforms and the increasingly complex area of personal data privacy.

Tiama is actively committed to supporting diversity, she helped develop mentorship and diversity efforts at Kantar Profiles and Zappi and served as Dynata’s Executive Diversity & Inclusion sponsor. She is an active Exec member of Women In Research (WIRe).

Jessica Irwin

Director, Experience Insights, Verizon

Jessica Irwin has over 20 years of experience in being the voice of the consumer and the shopper for her business partners.  She is passionate about using data to drive the business including everything from new product development to the digital experience to the communications that support those products and experiences.  Currently at Verizon, she leads the insights teams that run tracking, brand & communications, CX/NPS, and all DIY platforms for both Consumer & B2B.Pre-Verizon, Jessica worked at Nestlé Nutrition on the Gerber brand where she led the research and testing for a Gerber Baby logo evolution and a revolutionary package design.  Prior to that, she worked at Saatchi & Saatchi X where she managed a wide range of Shopper Insights projects for major CPG companies and retailers.  Over the years, Jessica has spoken many times at the Path to Purchase Institute and has been a member of their Faculty.  She is currently an active member of Women in Research and is a mentor to many early-career researchers.  Jessica has a BA in International Studies from Towson University and an MBA from The University of Pittsburgh, Katz Graduate School of Business.

Erin Mays

Co-Founder & CEO of Ebco

Erin Mays is the co-founder and CEO of Ebco, a trend and innovation firm in Austin, TX, that uses an evidence-based and culturally observed research process to drive and inspire unexpected new products, technologies, business models and categories. The firm leverages trends that lead to breakthrough insights and inspiration that differentiates their Fortune 500 clients from the competition. Ebco was recently recognized as one of Austin Inno’s 50 on Fire.

Prior to forming Ebco, Erin served as a vice president for Sterling Brands and Senior Design Strategist at Karten Design. Erin is an accomplished researcher utilizing a range of methodologies and sources and has worked across a variety of industries, categories, and markets. She holds an MBA in Design Strategy and dual bachelor degrees from UCLA in Design and Anthropology.


In addition to being an entrepreneur, Erin is married to husband Ben Chaib, also an entrepreneur, and mom to 4 kids, 2-11 years old, who are busy busy with extracurricular activities and volunteering. As a family they participate in Generation Serve volunteering, and Erin serves as a weekly volunteer with the Girls Empowerment Network. With family, for business, or alone with her husband, travel is top on Erin’s list of favorite activities, flying out at least monthly and leaving the country at least 3 times a year.

Eric Salama

Director, Morning Consult

Eric Salama is the former Chairman and CEO of Kantar, the data investment management division of WPP, the largest marketing services and communications company in the world. Previously, Salama was a Main Board Director of WPP Group, and CEO of www.wpp.com. Eric has also worked in consultancy and political roles, and was a non-executive director of The British Museum and The Horse’s Mouth Foundation. Currently, he serves as the non-executive director of the Department for International Development. He holds degrees from the University of Oxford and the University of London.

Babita Earle

Head of Strategic Partnerships at Zappi

Babita is Head of Strategic Partnerships at Zappi. At Zappi, Babita is responsible for looking after Zappi’s most important customers, collaborating on product design, digitisation strategies and change management, with a goal to elevate the role of Insights professionals within organisations. Babita has more than 20 years industry experience, anchored mostly in tech, commercial and digital roles. Babita is also a member of the Main UK MRS Board.

Laura Chaibi

Director, International Ad Marketing & Insights, Roku

Laura Chaibi is a seasoned marketing and insights practitioner who built her career on ground breaking new mediums and media.

More than $200m of global insights have been managed under her watchful eye across primary research, marketing effectiveness, measurement, commercial forecasting, syndicate data and intelligence projects at a company and industry level.

As an early pioneer in digital, she helped build the commercial and content measurement industry; from spearheading cross screen media measurement through to being a technical committee member for digital media using panel, tagged and census level data solutions worldwide. Her first patent submission was in 2012 focused on user centric advertising innovation. She was also a founding member of IPA touchpoints cross media planning.

She was classically trained in research at the BBC and has cut across many mediums working for AOL, Orange France Telecom, Yahoo, and now Roku, leading Advertising Marketing and Insights to drive the next generation of CTV advertising internationally.

Winning many industry awards along the way, and leading teams in over 10 countries, she meshes the best of both marketing and insights and was commissioned by Econsultancy to author a best practice guide on digital transformation and the role of data.

Laura is CIM qualified and has been active on the WIRe board since 2017.  She remains dedicated to helping up and coming talent become great achievers of tomorrow.

Originally from Vancouver, Canada, she’s currently in the UK having lived in Australia, Greece, North Africa and the UAE.

Kristin Luck

Founder, Women In Research Growth Strategist/Advisor, ScaleHouse

Kristin Luck serves as an advisor and growth strategist to a number of cutting-edge marketing and analytics technology and services firms through her consultancy, ScaleHouse. She is the founder of two marketing analytics companies that she led to successful exits. Kristin co-founded OTX, an online research business that was named the fastest growing research firm in the world in 2002 and 2003 and was subsequently acquired by Pilot Group and again by Ipsos in 2007. She then founded Forefront Consulting Group, a research technology firm that was acquired by Decipher. Decipher was acquired by FocusVision in 2014 after seven consecutive years of double- and triple-digit growth. FocusVision merged with Confirmit in 2021 to become Forsta, where she sat on the the Board of Directors until its recent acquisition by Press Ganey.

Kristin is a licensed investment banker with Oberon Securities and a founder focused on helping fellow founders and executive teams scale and monetize their businesses. Her deal expertise on both sides of transactions comes from participating in both acquisitions and exits from $30 million to $225 million. She is also passionate about supporting founders in international markets execute their entry into the U.S.Kristin regularly contributes to both the commercial (Fast Company, Forbes) and academic press (Research World, Journal of Brand Strategy) where she explores emerging marketing and research methods. She is consistently ranked as one of the top 100 sales and branding experts to follow on social media.

In addition to Founding, Women in Research, Kristin has also served on the board of ESOMAR, the global insights and analytics association, for eight years; including a two year term as Vice-President and a two year term as President.

Mentorship

Programs

    Webinars

    Joining the WIRe community is free!

    WIRe programs are free thanks to the generous support of our sponsors and donors. Join our network to access events, webinars, our award-winning mentorship program and more!

    Sign Me Up!