The best conversations at a researchconference don’t happen on stage. They happen in the hallways, right after asession, when someone’s still thinking out loud. Waves of Thinking is ourattempt to capture that—short, unfiltered interviews with the researchers andstrategists shaping the future of consumer insights, recorded live from thefloor at IIEX North America 2026. Here’s everything from our time there.
Kicking off Waves of Thinking — Elana Marmorstein, aytm
aytm’s Elana Marmorsteinintroduces Waves of Thinking live from the floor at IIEX North America 2026.This short-form series captures unfiltered conversations with the researchers,strategists, and insights leaders shaping the future of consumer intelligence.No slides, no polish—just sharp perspectives from the people doing the work.
Michelle Finzel — DAP
Michelle Finzel, SeniorManager of Consumer Insights at DAP,sat down with us at IIEX North America 2026 to make a case that might feelcounterintuitive: the best defense against fraudulent data isn’t smarteralgorithms, it’s returning to human connection. Her sharpest point—that themath on fraud is wrong—reframes the conversation. When clients push to savecredits, the real cost of what gets through (bad data shaping real decisions)rarely makes it into that calculation.
Char-lynn Griffiths — Faire
Char-lynn Griffiths, StaffMarket Researcher at Faire,joined us at IIEX North America 2026 to unpack a five-country study on B2Bdecision-making. The finding: values and emotion aren’t noise, they’re signal.The harder question is what you do with that insight when you still needsegmentation teams can actually use. Her framing—that richness and scalabilityaren’t opposites, but getting them to coexist requires being deliberate aboutwhich decisions each type of insight is meant to drive—reframes a debate thatusually flattens too quickly.
Greg Silverman — Interbrand
Greg Silverman, GlobalDirector of Brand Economics at Interbrand, sat downwith us at IIEX North America 2026 to dig into what’s happening with brandinfluence. It’s declining—but not everywhere, and the exceptions aren’t random.He walks through what the outlier categories have in common, and what brands indeclining categories can realistically take from that. His other thread is justas sharp: knowing what the data says and getting marketers to act on it are twocompletely different problems, and the translation layer between insight andaction is where a lot of good brand thinking quietly disappears.
Andrew Embry — Eli Lilly and Company
Andrew Embry, Sr.Director of Insights Innovation and Capabilities at Eli Lilly andCompany, joined us at IIEX North America 2026 to talk about what itactually looked like to bring an insights team through AI skepticism and outthe other side. The cultural turn was one thing. The organizational one wasanother. His read on the leadership piece: it wasn’t just that AI made the workfaster—it changed how executives understood what the insights function wascapable of, and that reframing mattered more than any individual deliverable.
Carissa Luch, PhD — Sargento
Carissa Luch, PhD,Director of Consumer Research at Sargento, sat down withus at IIEX North America 2026 to talk about where insights actually get stuckin complex organizations, and what it takes to move them. Spoiler: it’s mostlya people problem, and that framing changes what solutions are even worthpursuing. Her take on GenAI fits right into that—she describes it as anamplifier, not a replacement, and notes that the places where human judgmentstill matters most are exactly the places where organizational dynamics arehardest to navigate.
Maxalan Vickers — Overtime
Maxalan Vickers, SeniorInsights Manager at Overtime,joined us at IIEX North America 2026 to make the case that convenience isactually an act of empathy—and that reframe changes a lot of downstreamthinking about what you build and why. He walks through how Overtime takes GenZ’s demand for authenticity seriously rather than just gestures at it. Oneconcrete answer: they respond to every message and DM they receive. Every one.That’s a philosophy made visible, and once a fanbase notices, it becomesload-bearing for how the brand is perceived.
David Iudica — Uber
David Iudica, Head ofGlobal Measurement & Insights Analytics at Uber Advertising, satdown with us at IIEX North America 2026 to talk about what happens when youstop thinking about a delivery platform as a transaction channel and startthinking about it as a full-funnel influencer. That reframe has realimplications for how Uber Eats understands its role in the consumerrelationship. The methodology that got them there is worth noting too: pairingmobile ethnographies with large-scale quant, where the ethnography surfacedthings the quantitative data had no way of seeing.
Mallory Krumsieg — International Justice Mission
Mallory Krumsieg,Global Marketing Director at InternationalJustice Mission, joined us at IIEX North America 2026 to talk about donormotivation research that genuinely shifted how she understood the people givingto the cause. The insight itself was one thing—what they did with it wasanother. Her account of what made cross-functional adoption work acrossmarketing, product, program, and field teams (and what would have derailed it)is the part that’s most transferable to anyone trying to close the gap betweeninsight and action.
Angela Smith, MBA/MSMR — Talking Rain Beverage Co®, makers of Sparkling Ice
Angela Smith, MBA/MSMR,Director of Consumer & Market Insights at Talking Rain Beverage Co®,makers of Sparkling Ice, sat down with us at IIEX North America 2026 totalk about what her team uncovered about how consumers are relating to the RTDbeverage category, and the methodological choices that made those findingspossible. Running ethnographies and quantitative concept evaluation in the sameprogram is ambitious; designing them so they genuinely inform each other ratherthan just coexist is harder than it sounds. Her most surprising behavioralfinding is the kind of thing that only surfaces when you give people enoughroom to show you how they actually live with a product—not just how they talkabout it.
Until next time
Nine conversations. One conference. A lot to think about. aytm’s Waves of Thinking series wrapped up at IIEX North America2026 with perspectives from researchers, strategists, and insights leadersacross some of the most recognizable brands in the world. We’re leavinginspired—and already looking ahead to the next event. Catch up on every episodeand stay tuned for what’s next.
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