Guest blog from Kahren Kersten, Founder, Experience Insights
Our mission at MRII is to provide training and development for best practices in market research and insights. While we support people at all stages in their careers, we are particularly proud to celebrate young talent and rising stars.
In today’s guest blog, we feature Kahren Kersten, Founder of Experience Insights, a 2025 Emerging Leader recognized by the Market Research Council. This program honors rising professionals who are redefining the future of the insights industry through bold thinking, boundary-pushing collaboration, and a commitment to driving meaningful impact.
Kahren shares her unconventional path into insights, from design and strategy to research and beyond. And why breaking down silos is essential to shaping what’s next.
I often find myself asking, what does it truly mean to be an insights professional?
For many, the answer is simple: it’s about uncovering the truth behind behaviors to inform smarter decisions. Yet my own journey into this field has been anything but simple. It has been shaped by detours, pivots, contradictions and a fierce determination to rewrite the rules.
I move forward not always knowing exactly what comes next, but always with curiosity and openness. Each discovery has deepened my belief that insights isn’t a fixed discipline. It’s expansive, evolving and inherently interdisciplinary.
Since childhood, I’ve felt the pull of two competing identities: one that’s immersed in creativity, the other deeply grounded by strategy and analysis. Society presents these as opposites. However, I’ve come to see them as essential counterparts.
In 2004, I moved to the UK to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration at the University of Leeds. I was fascinated by how organizations function – how decisions are made, departments align and complexity is managed. This was an early career interest that I now have knowledge to guide.
After graduating, I joined GfK NOP in London. From there, I moved to Research International (now TNS), and eventually into BrainJuicer’s R&D “Labs” team (now System1 Group). I thrived in experimenting with methodologies, collaborating across expertise and pushing boundaries.
This curiosity led me to work at a number of other boutique London-based agencies, honing my skills across new product development research, advertising evaluation and customer experience measurement. As Director at Vizeum UK, I developed new methods through partnership with brand strategists, media specialists and data modelers, ultimately resulting in a 25% increase in the Insight function’s revenue.
Still, a deeper unmet need had been calling. I was climbing a ladder that felt too narrow.
In 2017, after 14 years abroad, I returned to the U.S. in search of a new direction. I began freelancing for change management firm Cambiar Consulting while simultaneously pursuing graduate studies in product design at North Carolina State University. Midway through the program, I had a realization that would reshape my professional philosophy:
- Market researchers and designers use strikingly similar methods, and actually work towards solving similar issues, yet rarely collaborate.
- In fact, the value of their work is not well understood by each other, across disciplines and among other business stakeholders they support.
- While similar in many ways, they also hold unique perspectives and approaches that, when integrated, amplify the effectiveness of their respective lines of work.
I concluded that by bridging these worlds, we can actually magnify the impact we make as we generate, communicate and activate insights – solving not only business problems, but real human ones too. Opportunities exist for other cross-disciplinary intersections as well.
This realization is what eventually led me to found my own consultancy, Experience Insights, in 2020. Over the last five years, I’ve worked with a wide variety of experts within and beyond insights roles. For me, this is where the real magic happens. Stepping outside my comfort zone and tackling problems with people who are different from me is what has ultimately expanded my reality of possibilities.
Indeed, the silos that exist today are not strategic. They are limiting. To me, insights work should connect, inspire and motivate action – not just within departments but also beyond them.
Today, my work bridges research, design and strategy to help leaders navigate change. It involves innovation, market intelligence, executive facilitation / development and cross-functional stakeholder alignment.
My ongoing partnership with Cambiar has been incredibly instrumental in cementing my own view on where our connection point lies with other professionals in the wider business ecosystem: driving business impact. As we continue to cross-pollinate and evolve, we strengthen a foundation of established strategic consulting with emerging disciplines and new ways of problem-solving.
Knowing that insights need to make an impact beyond business walls, I’ve also been busy in the wider insights community. In 2024, I was appointed VP of Research-on-Research for the Insights Career Network, and subsequently joined the Senior Executive Team. I’ve also recently been nominated into the Market Research Council’s Emerging Leaders Program.
I am highly active in industry events, giving presentations and running workshops on topics such as strategic impact, innovation and design thinking, and cross-functional collaboration. I’m certified as an Enterprise Design Thinking Practitioner through IBM Global, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have received multiple design awards for applying behavioral science to behavior-change initiatives.
So when I think about what it means to be an insights professional, I keep my view open.
We must continuously ask ourselves: what is our purpose within businesses, as insights professionals, in the grander scheme of life? Ideally, our answers connect across these questions. Even if they don’t, we can learn to speak the language that matters to our stakeholders and direct initiatives that meet our needs across all of our identities.
Just like in other industries, the temptation is to follow the well trodden path and stick to how it’s always been done. And yet, change is now thrust upon us! It’s disruptive, but also a huge opportunity. As I think about the future, and the possibilities for new talent entering the field, what excites me most is that we are in a perfect moment to shift the existing narrative. To build new models. To help leaders think differently.
What we need today isn’t just data or analysis. We need imagination. Open minds. A willingness to be wrong. A desire to learn a better way. And above all, a collaborative mindset.
These are the traits that will continue to generate meaningful insight and drive real impact, not only for businesses, but also the people who work for them and the communities we all serve.
