Navigating AI, Growth, and Mentorship in Market Research with Dyna Boen

Transcript

Leonard Murphy: Hello everybody. It's Lenny Murphy with another edition of the CEO series of interviews. Thank you for joining myself and my guest. And today it is my pleasure to have Dina Boen, the managing director of Escalent joining us. Dina, how are It's good to see you. it's joy. We hadn't caught up in a long time. So that's why I love doing these things because I get to talk to people that I like and otherwise we wouldn't have made the time to do this because we're busy. So glad we're having the conversation. so for those who don't know do you want to give a quick little bio kind of your origin story? okay,…

Dyna Boen: Yeah. Yeah. I'll talk about my market research origin story specifically. So, I started in the industry in the year 2000.

Leonard Murphy: There you go.

Dyna Boen: I came out of technology consulting and I'd experienced an IPO and was ready to go to another startup and was lucky enough to join a company called Market Tools at that time and that was a 12-year run on building a company that ultimately was sold to Survey Monkey. So most of my market research origins are technology- based research companies and startups.  So, Escalent is the first company I've been at that is just really a services company. we're technology enabled, but we are, a people-based consultancy and services company, more market strategies.

Leonard Murphy: Thank you.

Dyna Boen: And then…

Leonard Murphy: Yes. Yeah.

Dyna Boen: Since then we acquired a company called before that a company called Javelin which is a syndicated business. and then most recently the incorporation of space and Holland Partners.

Leonard Murphy: Very cool. I'm talking to Diane Hess here in another week or two, and…

Dyna Boen: She's a legend.

Leonard Murphy: She is I'm looking forward to it.

Dyna Boen: She's a...

Leonard Murphy: I haven't talked to her in a long time. So, she was on the phone with me when we discovered we're having our fifth child. So, we have this connection because we just happened to be on the call and she was calming me down when I was hyperventilating. So, the …

Dyna Boen: You're like, I'm excited, but I'm excited.

Leonard Murphy: Yeah, I guess we're buying a Suburban now, which really was the second thing out of my mouth when we found out. So what's the difference in coming through technology and now being on kind of the service side of the industry? I'm just curious on what that's been like for you.

Dyna Boen: Talk a lot about people, process, and technology. And we've got a lot of really smart people, a lot of great people. We've got people all over the world at this point. I don't know if people know that about Escalent, but We have offices in South America. We have an office that the European office has capacent all in the same space. And we've got offices in India. So, we're maybe larger than people think we are. but you can only push people so far. You have to use technology and of course now with AI we're looking at How do we implement But all of that is to help people be more efficient so that they can really think about how do they add value with strategy and expertise and their experience versus maybe more administrative tasks.

Leonard Murphy: During this period of transformation technologies especially AI and I think the implications for service businesses are equally exciting and scary with so yeah…

Dyna Boen: Yes. That it will AI replace my job is the fear, right? It's technology replacing jobs is always a fear for People need jobs.

Leonard Murphy: If it's process oriented I mean so my experience been with that I resisted here I am Mr. innovation and I resisted incorporate AI into my daily work because of the fear of being replaced where finally I realized, wait a minute, no, this is just replacing kind of not value added drudge work, right? lots of process. my value is still in my thinking and implications and outcomes and all that type of good stuff. The not there yet, but I could save so much time. So I found it to be a force multiplier overall but my job purely as a consultant. So when we have a business like Escalan or any traditional full service company that has incorporated a lot of process of doing the heavy lift of process for clients that seems to be maybe not a fully valid concern but not an invalid concern.  So yeah, right.

Dyna Boen: Yeah. Yeah. We're seeing it everywhere, And it's deciding where is it good and where do you need to be more cautious? I would say it's like a calculator or when I was in school, it was a graphing calculator, Learn to do a bell chart graph if you don't.  So and then it was the internet and then it was mobile.  I mean every generation has their innovation that you have to figure out how to live with and it does feel like AI is a step change but I also feel like it's really in its infancy and so you can't ignore it it's coming and in terms of people versus computer I don't know the best defense is always a good offense so the more you can learn about it and know about it. Just like anything, the less fearful you are of that. But there's low hanging fruit, I'm always moving fast. People that know me are like, "She's moving fast. She's overcommitted. that's how I roll, right?" but Grammarly has been amazing for me in terms of just I look back at my emails and I'm like, " that was spelled wrong. that should that letter. It should have had apostrophe, right?" and I'm somehow able to communicate...

Leonard Murphy: Right. Right.

Dyna Boen: But I'm like, "This email's completely illiterate." how did I, you look back and you're like, "Okay, I was in a meeting. I was doing three things at once. Just slow down." But Grammarly has been amazing for me in that.

Leonard Murphy: Right. Right.

Dyna Boen: And that's super Grammarly feels not so scary, It's spellch check on steroids, right? And it's helping you with your grammar. You're presenting yourself more professionally.  you're catching on the run errors and things. so that to me is a really safe easy way to start on getting comfortable with AI. but then you get into co-pilot and chat GPT and things like that. And when you're in this, thinking about, okay, am I using it where it's safe and I'm using it in a way where I can put company information and I'm not throwing a bunch of confidential information into, informing the algorithms, right? So, you're in a safe zone and you're using it and it starts to become fun in terms of, you write a executive summary for a report, let's say, and you put it and it cleans it up. It's like, that is a little bit more professional. Yeah, I didn't need those extra words. It's a little bit more concise. And in that regard, I think it's going to help humans to be better, right?  So there's other lots of nefarious, kind of sci-fi ways to think about what could be happening with AI. But at this moment, I look towards the good side of AI and think about how it can make us better at our jobs, how it can enable us to look smarter, speak more eloquently, put together a better executive summary, a proposal. And if you're not using it, someone else is and they're going to have a slightly more polished deliverable than you.

Leonard Murphy: Been combining with I read AI for my meetings and a couple have been the results of that were proposals and I will analyze the transcript first to make sure that I've captured everything using GPTO1 what are the salient points and then now structure that in a proposal format it's not a deliverable the thing I'm going to send but it saves the  time of okay now I have something I can work with here and add more details etc etc it's kind of the grunt work aspect of things so where a proposal would take me a day right to write before but I could do two or three in a day now yes

Dyna Boen: Yeah, you probably got to the same place on that proposal that given the time you would have gotten to, but it gets you there faster. gives you more bandwidth to crank more proposals.

Leonard Murphy: Right. Right.

Dyna Boen: Yeah. Yeah.

Leonard Murphy: So great, great example. All right. So all that said then and not kind of wearing your escalent hat or not just your escalent hat. Just thinking you're always wearing the Escalent hat.

Dyna Boen: I'm always wearing my escalate hat. Come on.

Leonard Murphy: Got it. I should have known. How could I assume anything else? Let's think two, three years out,…

Dyna Boen: Uh-huh. Yeah.

Leonard Murphy: Right? what does the industry look like and what does a company like Escalent look like assuming that this progression of technological disruption and change and efficiencies continues? What do you think?

Dyna Boen: Three to five years. I think that I will step back for a moment and think about the industry that I grew up in. what market tools was a venturebacked startup right at that time there was a lot of venture capital money in the industry there was also a lot of bootstrapping going on right…

Leonard Murphy: Yep. Cool.

Dyna Boen: which I admire immensely after my UB mobile experience and kind of what it takes to the runway it takes to get technology off the ground I have a lot of respect for people that bootstrap but now the industry is very private equity based right and you see graphs in charts that say, at one time it was 10% and now it's, 40% of the funding behind the research industry. And most of us have some kind of private equity investor,…

Leonard Murphy: Yep.

Dyna Boen: Whether a sample company or a research firm, it's part of the financing of the marketplace and the industry that we are in. And so, we're private equity backed by STG so we have goals and time horizons associated with three years and…

Leonard Murphy: Sure.

Dyna Boen: Five years and those things. so without going into too much detail on that it's inside company things, this is about growth. So, we're looking at growth and how are we growing for Escalent? We're all about specializing in specific markets, right? my team we have multiple managing directors at Escalent right the CEO of Escalent is Melissa Slaughter Escalent Group Hall and partner CSpace Escalent right so the managing directors are expertises in their markets for me it's consumer and retail and telecom for others it's tech for others it's auto healthcare right financial services so it's about growth it's about how are we growing and that's about driving value for our customers it's about adding differentiated services analytics and AI capabilities which we have a platform called Enlighta which to me we inherit we bought that that was part of what we bought with Hollow Partners and to me it's just amazing in terms of what you can do with tracking research. So every company out there is going to have what's their play for AI, How are they differentiating with their analytics? For us, it's data science and BI and then your people and your talent and your expertise because at the end of the day, we're all advising on human behavior.

Leonard Murphy: Right. Mhm.

Dyna Boen: That's market research does.  It helps inform our clients on what they can do to develop and deliver better products and services to the market, right? And we do that around the world. And so, the people aspect of how you think about that storytelling is It's going to continue to be about interpreting the data and telling the human story. Even if we automate everything else, and we haven't gotten all the way there yet, but even when we do, right? And all of that is automated in terms of the process in producing the insights, right? It's the people telling the story. And so in five years, that's going to be even more important as the technology takes out some of the more menial tasks, processes large data sets faster. It's still going to come down to people telling a very human story about what products and services the world wants.

Leonard Murphy: Yep. I love that and couldn't agree more. and I think that's also, incredibly smart. And we have to specialize either around verticals or business issues from the service component. and then our value is going to be in helping to make sense of those things and give good direction. But everything else where historically we had to build the systems and we had to price for the systems and it was just part of the process right and so in that process I think took over a big chunk of the value of businesses in our space now that's decreasing and…

Dyna Boen: Yeah. Yeah.

Leonard Murphy: And we will clearly be this delineation of tech and service on that spectrum and…

Dyna Boen: And I mean the fun part is solving new business problems,…

Leonard Murphy: Companies like go ahead.

Dyna Boen: To me that's the fun part,…

Leonard Murphy: Yes. Yes.

Dyna Boen: So AI AI is only going to know what happened in the past and be able to look at the data and the patterns in the past,…

Leonard Murphy: Yep. Been a couple years.

Dyna Boen: But things happen every day that we've never seen before. A lot of things happened this year before, right? and…

Leonard Murphy: Right. Right.

Dyna Boen: So I think about a blog post that I worked on with a couple folks at my company, Casey Boyce and Auto and Energy and Nancy Art and tech. The three of us partnered together to look from a tech retail and auto energy lens EV charging at retail at Targets and Walmarts and Starbucks' and McDonald's and how is the world going to change in terms of how we charge hybrids or electric vehicles and how does that impact the retail experience and…

Leonard Murphy: Mhm. Yep.

Dyna Boen: That's a new problem to solve. AI doesn't know how to solve it because it's not a problem. They could look at data that already has answers, right? And so that's super exciting as a researcher.

Leonard Murphy: All right.

Dyna Boen: It's the new things. how do we deal with now with this new technology and that's never going to go away. So the future is going to need smart people to solve new problems.

Leonard Murphy: Yep. …

Dyna Boen: And hopefully technology will solve the problems that we don't want to solve anymore because we've solved them a hundred times already. there's things that in my career,…

Leonard Murphy: Right. Yeah,…

Dyna Boen: Even when I'm coaching people on my team, I'm like, " my god, I've solved this problem a hundred times. How about you give it a shot? Maybe how about you try it because you need to learn how to solve that problem. I don't need to learn how to solve that problem anymore." Right? And that's what AI is going to do for us, right?

Leonard Murphy: I love that. That's such a great vision. By the way, I have a buddy in Australia that surprised me not too long ago. he was in real estate and they were targeting buying buildings that had large roofs. no, I'm sorry. They were not real estate. They were in automotive. They were buying buildings with large roofs. It's like why for flying cars? no. for flying cars like what soon?

Dyna Boen: These are right there.

Leonard Murphy: Right. Right.

Dyna Boen: Yeah. Yeah.

Leonard Murphy: So to your point, it's like that and yeah. I know.

Dyna Boen: I feel like the company would be called Jetson Motors like George is like no.

Leonard Murphy: I know. Yes. Yes.

Dyna Boen: But yeah,…

Leonard Murphy: That we were promised we're of the gen, generation. Yes. where is our Justin's future? I don't think it's too far off now, but we still got a little ways to go. that's a really cool vision and great philosophy.

Dyna Boen: What if you had to go get your pilot's license at the DMV. That would be interesting, too. It's going.

Leonard Murphy: Apparently I mean that those are being rolled out slowly surely and apparently it does not require any real difference in licensing, which I think is pretty scary actually. So, I wouldn't do that personally myself. I damn sure wouldn't want my kids doing it without special training. so you mentioned mentoring and so that's a…

Dyna Boen: Yeah. 

Leonard Murphy: What are some of the major lessons that you would impart to either folks that you are mentoring or to the leaders of the future? distill your wisdom. Dino. Yep.

Dyna Boen: I would start with the less so many things to say about this. I mean, my leadership team for my team, we talk about this a lot in terms of mentoring this next generation of leaders, And try to be open-minded about their experience and the world that they're living in and coming up in their careers in versus our experience. and I'm a Gen Xer, right? So, we're like a figure it out for yourself, right? we were like here's your latch key, you're a lunch There were no mobile phones.

Leonard Murphy: Yeah. Right.

Dyna Boen: Your parents just hoped you showed up at the dinner table, right? They felt good about food would bring you back, right? So,…

Leonard Murphy: Right. Yep. Yep.

Dyna Boen: And it did. And that was the understanding, many things so I will say yes our generation was a figure it out for yourself generation all the way through our careers right now I will always say that we don't need to make it as the things that were hard for us we don't need to overly make hard on a younger generation just to prove a point right they're going to have their own things that are hard because of social media other things that they're dealing with in their time and place in the world but I will say that this generation is they're developing their careers on screens a lot of them and I think about how do we get across pollination for hopefully folks have got…

Leonard Murphy: Yep.

Dyna Boen: If they're in a remote type of world they have a good community outside of work when they're not on the screen for me that's like a world where I'm on screen in meetings all day long and then I go to yoga and do things with people in person right so it's finding that balance, but how do they get this camaraderie and coaching and we're making sure that they're not suffering in silence because you're not seeing them at their cube or at their desk or in the office every day. And so I would say for them it's beholden upon them to participate and be on video. And a lot of times people kind of go off video or they're not engaging with the meeting. you learn through engagement. You learn by asking questions. And so I get nervous. I'm like, they didn't ask any questions. Are we good here? Does everyone know what we're doing? so I think it's about how for the younger generation, I would say engage. For us,…

Leonard Murphy: Right. Right. Yep.

Dyna Boen: it was raise your hand and try something new and know that failure is learning. how do we help people? There are people on my team who over the last couple years have made I don't want to say catastrophic mistakes. That's not the right  expensive mistakes and then there's fear of, my gosh, am I gonna get fired? And it's like, no, I'm about to double down on you because I want a return on my investment because we just had a very expensive mistake. Your job is to learn and it's not going to happen again. And I'm going to invest in your learning. We have to invest in their learning, right? And move from fear at some point you got to figure it out you don't have forever but you do have one way to figure it out right but this generation has a lot of anxiety and fear and they're graduating during a pandemic there's a lot of uncertainty in the world they've grown up seeing things on social media good and bad right it creates anxiety for humans and so how do we help people feel safe so that they can make mistakes so they can learn because if they don't face challenges sometimes I'm going to let people face this challenge because otherwise they don't get the learning to go into man to be a better researcher to go into management to be a better leader in the world so it's letting folks fail in a safe way and supportive way but also making sure they get the learning right they have to get the learning because it can't the definition of a san failure healthy amount get the learning to build a career to new but this year I'm really trying to get some junior folks on my team to come up with a mentorship program for the team because every year we say we want a mentorship program of course I love the wire mentorship program I'm like there are great mentorship programs that exist in the research industry participate in them…

Leonard Murphy: Yeah. I love that.

Dyna Boen: But sometimes you need something a little closer to home and so I've got some junior folks and I'm like how about you guys mentor us. how would you like to do a mentorship program? Right? And I always talk about reverse mentorship because there's perspective and understanding and learning. I can also get probably mistakes I'm making with generations that because I'm biased generation X, so there's the thing that's important about mentorship is knowing that you need to be mentored too, right? So, lots to say on mentorship.

Leonard Murphy: That is No.

Dyna Boen: I could just keep going, but mentorship to me is so fun.

Leonard Murphy: No, that's fantastic and reminds me of thinking of so many applications of that idea of not just in work but also as a father or in community so thank you.  I need to be reminded of that of remain teachable and from everybody

Dyna Boen: It's probably, my mom was a teacher, so I kind of came from, but of there's mentors certainly at Escalent, but then I have two mentors that are at brands, and I won't say what brands are at just out of confidentiality, but one's at an earlier stage in career, one's in more of getting ready to be senior management level in their career in big brands and they have a whole set of things that are different set of things than on the research partner side. So, I find it interesting to kind of work through that and think about how to ultimately help people advance their careers in the environment that they're in. So, gosh,…

Leonard Murphy: to bring up that we didn't get to.

Dyna Boen: I don't think so. After we get off this call, I'll think about five let's see.

Leonard Murphy: You'll think of it. Last chance. I mean, this is like, you get to brag. So, something you want to brag about. Say congratulations. Yep.

Dyna Boen: I will say that I'm on the board of insights association this year. you don't get there alone. There's a lot of people that support you on that opportunity. And so I'll take the chance to say thank you for those of you that supported me. I'm looking forward to that. I'm going to learn. I haven't been on the, insights association board is going to be new for me and new learning for me and I welcome that and there's a lot of really talented people on that board that I look forward to learning from. but I'd be say thank you to the folks out there that have been a part of my research life and have supported me and I hope that I return that in terms of the support I give you.

Leonard Murphy: Very cool. And congratulations. that's great. Yeah. Yeah.

Dyna Boen: So excited. Yeah. my gosh.

Leonard Murphy: No, very cool. I mean, Mel is just one of my favorite people in the world, so

Dyna Boen: She's Yeah.

Leonard Murphy: Yeah. I love Melissa.

Dyna Boen: Jackie Chan from Facebook. She's the head of board,…

Leonard Murphy: Yeah. Yeah.

Dyna Boen: right? There's lots of great people on the board.

Leonard Murphy: Very cool. It's very cool.

Dyna Boen: Scott Baker, who's been a friend and a colleague, And so I'm trying to think of all the folks now. I'm sorry if I didn't think of your name in this moment, but looking forward to working with all of you.

Leonard Murphy: That's okay. Where can people find you?

Dyna Boen: Boenescalent.co or…

Leonard Murphy: Or LinkedIn. Okay.

Dyna Boen: You guys on LinkedIn, but yeah, those tend to be the two best spots. Yeah.

Leonard Murphy: Donna, it's really a joy catching up. I loved your perspective on things. I think it was very inspiring across the board. that's kind of the point of these conversations as you to find those especially with the scary change. So, I appreciate you sharing that perspective, made me feel better. So, yeah.

Dyna Boen: To look at the bright side of change, And the opportunities. And Thank you for having me. And I would say, let's rock and roll 2025.

Leonard Murphy: Absolutely. It's going to be, every year is interesting. It seems and gets more interesting as we go. 2025 certainly seems to be shaping up to be one of the most interesting across the board and it's only mid January. So I think that things are always happening.

Dyna Boen: Things are always happening, Happy new year.

Leonard Murphy: And I think it is going to be a fun year. So, we will rock and roll. So, on that note, Really appreciate to our listeners, We appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day to spend it with us. And that's it for this edition of the CEO series. Everybody, take care. Bye-bye. Thanks.