Your breakthrough insight isn't buried in a dashboard. Finding the human story in your data requires expert navigation.
Meet Jake Pierson, Director of Enterprise Accounts at aytm. With a background spanning client-side analysis, agency strategy, and wilderness guiding, Jake knows how to chart a clear path forward. He partners with you to align our research technology directly with your most critical business needs.
Read our conversation below to see how Jake turns a deep curiosity for human psychology into fierce advocacy for your success.
Can you tell us a little bit about what you do here at aytm?
I am a part of the Enterprise Accounts team (aka Director of Enterprise Accounts). As I see it, my role is to build honest relationships with our clients and learn what we can do to make them as successful as possible. That’s the foundation. My ultimate goal is to make clients’ lives as easy as possible. Having been on the client side myself, I’ve been in those shoes and I understand the difficulties of that role. So I try to put myself in their shoes and figure out how best to help them reach their business goals. I don’t view it as selling a platform—I view it as building a relationship with someone and trying to understand what’s going to make them as successful as possible.
How did you decide to get into your field?
My path to this point has been a long and winding one. I was a creative writing minor and history major in undergrad, and I had no clue what market research was. Then I went to graduate school for my MBA, and I found market research and statistics extremely interesting—even though I had almost no quantitative background. What I finally realized is that the link between all of it—writing, research, account management—is trying to understand what makes people tick and why they do what they do. I’ve always been fascinated with the psychology behind people’s decisions, and that’s what pulled me into this field. My first opportunity was with Wegmans Food Markets doing research, and from there I shifted between the client side, the vendor side, and marketing and advertising agencies before my interest in market research ultimately drew me back to an account management role at aytm.
What’s something you’re passionate about? (alternative questions below)
I am very interested in psychology. While I am far from an expert, I am fascinated by what makes people tick and why they make the decisions they do. I listen to podcasts like Hidden Brain, and it’s just fascinating to me that we all think we make rational decisions—but we just don’t. Rational thought accounts for less than one percent of our brain power. Understanding why people do what they do, and using that information for good, is what really drives me.
What's a skill you have that would surprise your coworkers?
I spent 13 years canoe tripping in Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada, including six years as a canoe trip guide. I started going to camp at age nine, working up from three-day canoe trips to 17-day expeditions with whitewater. By 19, I was a trip guide in charge of children out in the wilderness in the middle of nowhere—which is crazy to think about now that I have a son who’s 19. In addition to the mental aspect of overcoming the physical of canoe tripping, a big challenge is navigating the relationships on a trip. You are out there for between three to 17 or more days with a group of people with varied skills and personalities. It was a great way to learn how to work as a team.
How do you balance your career and personal life at aytm?
It is extremely important to have a balance in your life. We need time to recharge, have a diversity of activities, and otherwise be human. Personal time with family and friends is essential to keeping us grounded in what’s most important. I still go up to the same camp every October for a canoe tripping fundraiser race, and my wife’s family has a cottage on a lake near our home where we spend part of the summer recharging. I do a lot of coaching—little league and CYO basketball—and I have my own wooden canoe that I re-varnished and repainted this summer. That kind of meditative, hands-on work is a great way to reset.
If you could give your first-day-at-aytm self one piece of advice, what would it be?
Give yourself some grace as you try to learn everything about the platform, because it has so much to offer. I liken it to Excel—everyone uses it, but very few people use every feature. Take advantage of the onboarding training as much as possible, which is by far the best I’ve ever had at any company. Use that time to dig in, learn as much as you can, figure out where your weaknesses are, and try to sort out how you can improve those while playing to your strengths at the same time.
How has aytm helped you in your career development?
I’m a firm believer that we’re always smarter as a group, and having a diversity of people and experiences to pull from is hugely important. At aytm, you get people who have done different types of jobs—researchers, panel experts, strategists—and being able to pick their brains and learn from their experiences makes you better at what you do.
What's something you can do at aytm that you couldn't do anywhere else?
As for something I can do here that I couldn’t do anywhere else: Having regular one-on-one conversations with the CEO is not common. Being able to pull Lev or the head of product into a meeting with a client who has questions they’re better suited to answer—that kind of accessibility just doesn’t exist at most companies. I’ve never experienced a work environment where, from top to bottom, it feels more like a team.
Which aytm Core Value is your favorite and why?
Empathy is my favorite aytm Core Value. The world would be a lot better place if more people treated others the way they wanted to be treated. Empathy also gives us more perspective, a view into how others might look at a situation. We are all smarter as a group. Collaboration, kindness and understanding makes work and life much easier to manage.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out at aytm?
Lean on the expertise of others to learn what we do and how we do it. There are a ton of very smart and capable people at aytm. Collaborate, listen, and learn. And give yourself the freedom to realize that you’re not going to be an expert on the platform on day one—and you probably never will be. I’m never going to know it as well as some others, but you can learn it enough to know what it is, what all the features are, and where to go when you need help. If someone asks me how to program a complex study, I know to go to the people who can knock it out in five minutes. That’s the beauty of the team here.
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