Editor’s Be aware: The next interview contains a GreenBook Future Checklist honoree, Esi Akaltun. The GreenBook Future Checklist acknowledges management, skilled development, private integrity, ardour, and excellence within the subsequent era of shopper insights and advertising and marketing professionals inside the first 10 years of their careers.
Introducing Esi Akaltun of Hims & Hers
Esi Akaltun is an distinctive blended technique researcher who has been efficiently delivering strategic insights for the previous 7 years on the analysis company facet, at C Area, and on the model facet, at Hims & Hers. Esi is captivated with attempting new analysis methodologies, embarking into new analysis subjects nobody has tackled earlier than, and serving to corporations make affect in industries that haven’t been touched.
She has been constructing an intent-based buyer segmentation for the group’s classes to deliver to life who their prospects are and create actionable plans for every class. They discover the web site flows by this lens, and construct an viewers technique based mostly on this lens. The group fairly often makes use of her frameworks.
Right here’s a quote from her supervisor that describes Esi’s ardour for analysis methodologies: “Esi has mastered the best way to do shopper insights and translate it to a digital product firm – insights work will not be all the time actionable and product groups at tech startups aren’t often used to taking motion based mostly on insights work. Esi has positioned herself strategically with groups to translate advanced, emotional insights to their tactical wants with a purpose to create actionable plans.”
Exterior of insights, what are your passions and pursuits?
I really like new experiences and diving deep right into a passion for months at a time: most not too long ago this has been sizzling yoga and browsing, although I even have life-long practices resembling taking part in the piano, ceramics and free diving. My pals typically name me an outdated soul – I’ve a canine, a motorcycle, and I like to prepare dinner multi-course meals for hours, solely to serve the meals on plates that I’ve made. This one is extra associated to insights: I’m additionally deeply captivated with social affect and companion with native non-profits at any time when attainable to assist with customer-centric analysis methods, resembling constructing buyer journey maps or serving to run workshops.
When do you know you wished to enter a profession in insights, and what impressed you?
Being from Turkey, a land of advanced historical past and socio-political constructions, I’ve all the time been curious concerning the human situation and what drives us. After I moved to the US for college, I landed in a Sociology main and fell in love with the sphere – the thought of advanced programs of people and constructing theories out of it clicked with me. I made a decision to remain in analysis, however didn’t wish to decide to a single line of research for the remainder of my life.
After conducting analysis for a assume tank in Italy, a non-profit in Turkey, and plenty of different research for my subject – producing information didn’t really feel sufficient, I wished to have the ability to have conversations round it and make change that I performed a job in. That’s once I discovered about insights — I really like that I can hold doing analysis on completely different subjects, continue to learn and digging, and translating insights to a brand new language (company, advertising and marketing, engineering, you identify it) to make affect in a company. Seeing the tangible affect in prospects’ experiences is invaluable.
If you happen to might return in time to if you first began your profession, what recommendation would you give to your youthful self?
For each ‘cool’ mission, there’s one other mission or function that merely doesn’t click on with you or your pursuits. Studying to see the stability of the 2, and staying open minded (and even having fun with!) the initiatives/roles that don’t mesh nicely with you is a giant reward. These are the moments you’ll develop essentially the most. For each ‘cool’ mission in market analysis, there’s one other mission or function that merely doesn’t click on with you or your pursuits. Studying to see the stability of the 2, and staying open minded (and even having fun with) the initiatives/roles that don’t mesh nicely with you is a giant reward. These are the moments you’ll develop essentially the most.
Inform us about any advocacy/volunteer/affiliation work you’re doing inside the business. What points are you attempting to unravel? Why is that this work vital for the business?
I’m captivated with social affect and I companion with non-profits who might have insights challenges, however not essentially the funds or personnel. For these organizations, I assist herald new methods of considering and analysis processes resembling ethnographies, journey mapping, workshops and activation methods. Generally my work is within the type of consulting and conversations, different instances I play the function of a pro-bono teammate. Earlier to Hims I labored at an company, and there I began our workplace’s non-profit consulting arm. We partnered with an area group in NY to run co-creation workshops and re-create their customer support technique.
The place do you see the way forward for insights heading within the subsequent 10 years?
It’s attention-grabbing – as a lot as insights is such a human business, that requires human expertise, human conversations… expertise is totally altering the business. Now, many new insights corporations are software program corporations: providing sooner evaluation, sooner entry to shopper responses, higher knowledge visualization, higher transcription. There’s a little bit of a rigidity between insights professionals and rising instruments — maybe as a result of instruments will not be there but or that many professionals don’t really feel comfy counting on the instruments. I undoubtedly assume expertise is right here to remain, however we’ll both watch it evolve and redefine insights, or discover methods to enhance & collaborate.
