Future of Insights in Latin America with Visa’s Paula Guarín

Visa’s Paula Guarín, Head of Consumer Insights & Marketing Analytics for Latin America & the Caribbean (LAC), joins Karen Lynch to unpack how a 13-person team blends primary research with transactional data to drive brand and business results. Paula shares her career path from agency intern to regional leader, explains why embedding insights leaders in-country matters, and breaks down six priority areas—from agile testing to say-do correlation and ROI on insights.

She also spotlights region-specific dynamics (Brazil/Argentina vs. Mexico/DR), double-digit e-commerce growth, and how agentic AI may reshape purchase behavior. Plus: building revenue by selling research to clients, Visa University’s role in upskilling, “five trends in five minutes,” and fresh learnings on ultra-affluent travelers and category liquidity. A masterclass in impact, communication, and human-centered research at scale.

Key Discussion Points:

• Team design: In-country insight leads + regional standards for speed and comparability.
• Data fusion: Precise surveys + transactional “do” data to measure real impact.
• Core priorities: Thought leadership, agile testing, tracking/MMM, descriptives, say-do, and client-funded studies.
• Regional nuance: Different disruption levels (Brazil/Argentina vs. Mexico/DR) and why local vendors matter.
• Trends: Double-digit e-commerce growth and early signals of AI agents influencing purchases.

Resources & Links:

• Visa
• IIEX LATAM
• Walmart Luminate

You can reach out to Paula Guarin on LinkedIn.

Many thanks to Paula Guarin for being our guest. Thanks also to our production team and our editor at Big Bad Audio.

Transcript

Karen: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Greenbook Podcast. I’m Karen Lynch, your host, and I am happy to be here today talking to a delightful, you know, female professional in the industry. I’m talking to Paula Guarin. She is the head of consumer insights and marketing analytics for the Latin American Caribbean region at Visa. Paula, I’m going to briefly introduce you before we begin, but first I want to say, welcome to the Greenbook Podcast.

Paula: Thank you, Karen. Super happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation. 

Karen: My pleasure, my pleasure. So, for those of you who are going to get to know Paula with me today, she has experience on both the client and the agency side. She’s held, kind of, county, regional and global roles. She is a guest lecturer at the University of Miami. She’s a faculty member at Visa University, which we may have to talk about Visa University because that just sounds like a very buttoned up kind of option that they have onboarding folks at Visa is what I imagine. But she’s also teaching market research specifically to internal and external audiences. So, enough from me, Paula. Why don’t you expand upon how I just introduced you, and, you know, tell our audience a little bit more about you.

Paula: Perfect. Thank you, Karen, so yes, I’m Paula, Paula Guarin. I’m originally from Colombia, actually, but I’m based in Miami, and I lead the consumer insights and analytics team for Visa for the Latin American and Caribbean region we call LAC. And unfortunately, to lead a great group of professionals, I have the insight leader located actually in the countries, in our main countries because we want to be closer to our consumers and to our clients. And when I say clients for Visa, it includes financial institutions like banks, like neobanks, like fintechs, as well as merchants. And I also lead the team of marketing data science and analysts who develop regional capabilities to help us measure all the marketing performance in the region. And for me, when I think it’s important, I have a very clear, simple vision for my team, and it’s to provide continuous, timely, and actionable consumer insights, analytics, and learning to the LEC organization to drive both business and brand results. 

Karen: I love that you have a vision for your team. First of all, just to give me an idea, like, how large is your team?

Paula: We are 13 in the region. 

Karen: Thirteen. So, even at—it’s, I call that out because to our listeners, even with the team of 13, it’s so important to have that kind of a vision, so you know, hats off to you. It sounds like a big job there. As you were talking, I was like, that seems like an enormous responsibility. And I’m curious about your journey, how you got there. What are some milestones along the way in your career that brought you to the level where you can take all that on confidently?

Paula: Yes, sure. You know, actually, my entire career in insights and analytics started with one phone call that I made [laugh]. So, back in college in Colombia, so we had to select our areas of interest for the internship. So, my first choice was marketing, and the second choice was logistics. So, I started to hear that some friends got interviews at a small market research agency, but I was not invited to that interview, so I was like, “Hmm.” And I got interviews for big companies, global banks, but not from this market research agency. So, I pick up the phone and call, and as you know, “I’m Paula Guarin. I want to confirm that you got my resume.” A few days later, I got the interview, and suddenly I was deciding between a big company—the internship in a big company in the country, and this internship in the market research agency that not even in my family, they have heard about. So, you know, like for my father, he’s a doctor, or my grandfather, that he was a lawyer, like, the obvious path was the big company, right, the prestigious, big name, but I followed my gut, and I went to the market research agency. And I think this decision, you know, set the stage for everything that follow in my career. I stayed there for two years. For those of us who have worked in market research agency, we know that is the best learning experiences because you do everything by yourself. Then I moved to the client side in Colombia, to a British company, so great structure, a great learning experience in another way, from the client side, more on the action and the strategy. And then another twist, I moved to Miami. I was very young, so I could also started a new path, but I was super determined that I wanted to continue in market research, so I started hiring process with a market research agency. That process actually fell through, but they asked me if they could refer me to a client that was looking for someone. Of course, I said yes, and that client was Visa. So, this was more than 20 years ago. I started at Visa as an analyst, actually managing the brand and advertising tracking for 12 countries in the region and well, the rest is, I think, it’s history. I have grown so much many years of my early career was a one-woman show for research in Latin America, and now I’m super proud to say that I built the team, that I lead the team, and that we do many, many studies, projects, and strategies for the week.

Karen: I love that story for so many reasons. First of all, I think that we have written about this on the Greenbook website, also, about starting as a research analyst is actually, you know, a great, kind of, step in your career because you are really focused on just the analysis, everything else starts to come in after that, so it’s a great way to begin a career, certainly at an organization like yours. But what a lesson in picking up the phone and saying, “Hey, did you get my resume?” That is actually an amazing lesson to not just accept, you know, that maybe you’re not getting a position. You know, there could be a million reasons why you didn’t get, you know, the application back. Maybe it was set aside, maybe somebody was busy when they first picked it up, never came back to it, forgot, overlooked for the wrong reason, but the gumption that you show when you pick up the phone and call them, so good for you. That was a great move. Good move [laugh].

Paula: Thank you. 

Karen: Yeah, of course. So, let’s talk about the structure then in place there because, you know, you’re talking about both the insights and marketing analytics, so kind of talk a little bit about that team that you have in place and how you’re organized there. Like, do different people have very unique roles? Is it kind of, you know, a team handling insights, a team handling analytics? Like, how are you set up? 

Paula: Yes. So, the structure, actually, I have, like, in three main areas. So, I have the insights team, more, really, more of the market research, consumer insights. This is the team that is located, actually in the countries, very close to the consumer, having, you know, their finger on the pulse of the consumer, and close to our clients. And I’ll tell you why it’s important to be also close to our clients. The second group that I have is the analytics team, marketing analytics. They develop more regional capabilities and more meta analysis, and I have, then also a regional group of marketing data science team, which help us with all the transactional data. And why? Because, at Visa, you know, we have the fortune of having a lot of primary and secondary, you know, information from research from consumers, but they also have a lot of transactional data. 

Karen: Of course.

Paula: So, imagine the depth of the analysis that we can do when we combine both. So, that’s the magic, and that’s the beauty of this team because we can blend consumer insight with actual spending behavior. So, having said that, with that combination, you know, that’s how the team is organized. But in terms of our priorities, I mentioned, like, we have six main areas of priority. So, the first one is, like, the strategic research that we do, that is research that it’s available for all the company that also is, like, leadership for us with clients, saying this is what we publish about Gen Z, maybe about the small business, about the affluent consumer, about travel trends. So, this help us identify opportunities for all of us in the company. The second area will be more the ad hoc or agile, more for rapid decision-making for the marketing team to decide the launch or they don’t launch, the the pre-testing, the concept testing, the disaster checks side. The third one, it will be the measurement and the tracking. Here is when we combine both the transactional and the research side to measure our marketing effectiveness, both in the brand and in the business. The fourth will be all the descriptive analytics that we can do with the data. Let’s say for gamers, how gamers behave in their spending compared to others. The fifth one will be what we call the say-do correlation. Because since we have with service where consumers say, we can see with the spending what they do, and we do these correlations, and to our surprise, it is pretty related. Even when they say that they intend to use a brand and we follow them, it is very, very related. And the sixth one that I think is very unique is that we also generate revenue selling research to our clients. So, we also provide that service and generate revenue for the team.

Karen: There’s so many things I want to go back to. Let’s hover on that last point a minute because we talk frequently in some of our other channels about, for instance, like Walmart Data Ventures, how they conduct research on their retail data, right? And some of their customers, you know, who are customers of the Walmart retail environment are actually able to get intelligence from the Wal-Mart customer data. So, you when you say you do research for some of your customers as well, it’s all in the data you’re investigating. It’s pretty interesting that I don’t think a lot of people think about that.

Paula: Yes, definitely. And we do also ad hoc studies for them. You know, we leverage all the capabilities that we have too, and expand it to them.

Karen: Yeah, yeah. Very cool, very cool. So, you’re executing research, not just for yourselves, but also for others. So, pretty sweet. I want to hover also on, kind of, the fifth thing on your list, which has to do with that say-do gap that so many people talk about. Have you hypothesized why it’s correlated, actually, and not as big of a gap as you might have thought? Because I would think, in finance, there is a big say-do gap. I mean, that would just be my assumption as a consumer, but you’re not finding that case. So, talk to me a little bit about that. That’s very interesting to me.

Paula: You know, I think it’s also fine tuning the way we ask the questions, you know? So, when we are very, I don’t know specific for example, I’m talking about an intention to use or to purchase something, if you give the person options, like, you know, one, two, three, four, five, it is very easy for them to think about it, but if we give them options in ranges or very large, it is more difficult. So, we have seen that the more specific we give the answer choices in the survey, the more we can really relate to the data. So, I think it’s how we answer the questions. Also, I think starting to use those techniques more related with timing, so consumers don’t really rationalize a lot of things that in real life they don’t do. So, that helped us a lot, also in the way of designing even the way that we do research.

Karen: Yeah, yeah. Well, kudos to you. I think that’s great, a good testament for the quality of work that you’re doing there. So, let’s talk about one other thing that you said, again, when you were going over list about the members of your team, kind of working locally. You said, we can get back to that, but let’s just go there. Tell me why that’s so important, and you know I am assuming that means there might be somebody who’s, you know, working from Brazil, if you’re studying, you know, the Brazilian market, or somebody from Mexico, if you’re studying the Mexican market. Talk to me about that decision.

Paula: No, definitely. You know, being closer to the consumer, to the market, even to the teams they are that are really execution, executing is key. Even knowing, you know, the agencies and the local vendors, I love, and we work with global agencies, but also with something local, depending on the project, and that local knowledge of the vendor, of the dynamics, of the market, of even the agility of the project, everything is much faster having that person. But I think it’s a balance, right, because sometimes we have just country projects, especially those that we do for clients, so we need the people there, but we need also somehow standard methodologies, so we are able to do benchmarks, to do comparisons, to tell Brazil or to tell Argentina, yes, you are on the right path, or you can improve. So, this is the beauty of also having, like, a regional team that helps me standardize so we can really conduct that. So, I think it’s an abundance of both being in the market for agility, closer to the clients. If the client wants a presentation, it’s not the same if you go there to the office, even now that have a lot of team meetings that you know, especially in Latin America, that personal connection is still is very valid. So, for that sign, but for the standardization, the capabilities, the models, the dashboard that we create, we don’t need to do it for every market. We need a regional capability to do it.

Karen: I’m very curious, as you’re talking about that and thinking about the importance of it, I’m very curious about some of the unique challenges of having such a broad region. I know that when I used to execute research, before I joined Greenbook and I was working in full service with, you know, an insights provider, and we would talk about doing research, in LATAM, or in the last one of the LATAM countries, we were trying to figure out, like, you know, which country is our clients’ target, and how do we address translation needs? Like, it was always very country specific. So, when you’re doing research in such a broad region, I am sure there are challenges that are very unique to, you know, the LAC part of your role, as opposed to somebody who’s just, you know, working here in the US, for example. Can you speak to any of those?

Paula: And I think you told a great point because, you know, even though we are a region, every country is very, very unique and different. Even in our category, where there is a lot of disruption now in payments, I can say that we have two extremes: we have countries like Brazil and Argentina, one extreme that are very mature in terms of digital disruption, and we have on the other side, countries like Mexico or like Dominican Republic, where disruption has not started. I don’t want to say they are traditional market because I think they are going to get into the disruption, but not yet. So, to give you an example, we did a study about principality, about what is your main institution, your financial institution. So, in Argentina and Brazil, the leaders are fintechs, while in Mexico and Dominican Republic, the leaders are traditional banks. In Brazil and Argentina, consumers are aware of 22 financial institutions. They have five. They are clients of five. Can you imagine how you are fighting for that preference to be the main for that principality if the consumer already have five financial institutions, compared to Mexico or Dominican Republic with they still have two, so for now, it’s easier. So, that’s the complexity of the region, of really understanding the level of maturity of each country and the needs of each country, in addition to what we were discussing, right, the client needs, the consumer needs, the environment that definitely is different.

Karen: I love that. Thank you for that explanation. And you know, whenever I talk to people like yourself, my head always starts to explain, and I keep thinking, we have an IIEX event for Latin America, our IIEX LATAM, and we underestimate the Caribbean part of it, I think, where we, you know, roll those all in, but I imagine that each nation in the Caribbean also brings a different dynamic because completely different from… anyway, just completely different from the others, when you talk about some of these more mainland countries.

Paula: Completely different behaviors, different values, different culture. So yes, our even our marketing strategies have to be very, very different in those countries. 

Karen: Yeah, really, it’s incredible to think about what you do. So, let’s talk about some of the initiatives or progress projects you worked on. Nothing proprietary, as I reassured you. You don’t have to divulge anything proprietary, but is there anything you can share that you’re particularly proud of, that you’ve worked on?

Paula: Yes. Actually, you know, I’m always looking to do new things. You may ask, okay, you have been there at Visa for 20 years, you know, how will you manage? So, and for me, you know, always like curiosity, trying to do new things every year. So, back a few years ago, I put in place a consumer community, and when the pandemic hit, we already had it—had it for a few years—and it was great because week by week, we were able to see what was happening with the consumer in terms of at that time, of what they were thinking, how they were behaving, how was this impacting even the spending behavior? So, I’m super proud of having that in place at that moment. Because even at the all-staff meetings, the quarterly meetings that the president had, I had a section that was called ‘Five Trends in Five Minutes’ at these regional forums. So, given the importance of knowing what was happening with the consumer. So, that’s one that I feel super proud of because it gave a lot of exposure to our area. The second one is kind of related because I do a lot of webinars and present as a speaker in many of our client events, and I love that because as important as it is to have the right methodology, the great results is how we communicate it and make an impact to the organization and to our clients, and also how we inspire them. And I am feeling that with every time that I go and present trends, we inspire people, we spark ideas. And I love that. I feel super proud every time that I [laugh] go to a webinar, or I’m a speaker at an event, or even we’re talking about Visa University, when they do a teacher class, that inspiration, and that spark of ideas of what I can do different, how can I solve this for the consumer, even if the team is in risk, in operations, not necessarily in—[of course 00:21:04] marketing and products is, you know, our main internal client, but even in other areas that they can think, hmm, how can I make this experience seamless for the consumer is key. So, that’s something that I’m super proud every time I’m presenting these key insights to other areas. Also now, very, very proud of being part of the AI transformation right now, you know how we are leveraging AI to create agents that help us, you know, communicate insights even to the broader organization, but at the same time, how we don’t lose that empathy and that humanity. We just finished a big, big project about consumer and merchants in aid markets, when even the leaders of the countries, like a group from different areas, we went to the houses of consumers, to the businesses of merchants. And I love that. It was a life changing experience for many and I feel super proud of you know, of leading this type of initiatives that in a world of, you know, AI and technology, we can still enable this human connection with our consumers.

Karen: Yeah. I’m going to pause there for a minute because I feel like if there are not opportunities for brand-side researchers in particular—or even just brand-side professionals across the board—to get into people’s homes, the homes of their customers, or the businesses of their customers. The best work I did as a qualitative researcher was always ethnography and going into people’s homes, and I just don’t think you internalize who you’re serving if you don’t get out there and understand because they do not necessarily live like you do, as a business professional. Like, it’s just not always the case. And I can’t underestimate or undervalue what it means to go into people’s homes. I’m so glad you brought that up.

Paula: Yes, definitely. Agree with you.

Karen: Yeah, talk to me—I’m going to take, go down two different paths. First, just talk to us a little bit, what is, like, really demystify Visa University because I think it sounds great. I love that there’s an educational component to your work, and clearly you’d be a wonderful instructor, so I’m glad you’re a part of it. What can you share about that? 

Paula: Yeah, that’s, um… that’s an internal, like, training initiative, where they have both classes or learning paths for employees, but also they do seminars courses for clients. So, the class that I have there is about market research, so I have done it for internal for other employees around the world, but also for some seminars for clients. And this is not necessarily about presenting consumer trends, but mostly about what is market research and how can we use the data to take a action to make decisions to improve our products. So, I love it because, you know, it’s another way to give a, of course, more exposure to our area, to our job, more importance, but for people to really understand how to use it, right? How to use it to make decisions, to make their day-to-day job better.

Karen: Yeah. Very cool, very cool. And also, I’m sure it helps some level, I’m making… an educated guess here, but helps kind of permeate the importance of the voice of the customer or customer data throughout the organization if they understand from the beginning of their tenure at Visa, this is a part of what we do, and this is important, right?

Paula: Yes. In fact, let me add that another big component of this initiative is the onboarding of new employees. And I have that session about our consumers for that onboarding because, as you said, that even sets the tone.

Karen: Sets the stage. Yeah, very cool. I want to go with one other thing. So, you know, you mentioned trend work, and how fun it is to kind of have these—by the way, ‘Five Trends in Five Minutes,’ I love that, I think it’s fantastic and I imagine it’s exciting to bring—trend work always fascinates our audience because we are—the Greenbook audience and the IIEX audience, we tend to be very future-focused and kind of what’s coming. We want to be in the know, and we’re always very curious about that. So, are there any, sort of, trends in your region that we should all be paying attention to, if we have an interest in the LAC region in general, anything you can share with us that, again, is not proprietary, but could be pointing us towards pay attention to this trend [laugh]? 

Paula: Well, I’ll mention two trends. The first one is that, you know, in Latin America, e-commerce continues growing at double-digit in some countries. So, that increase or surge of e-commerce continues and we have to pay attention because it changes, you know, the consumer purchasing journey. And for us at Visa, that’s important because then what we are providing is, you know, security and seamless experience, so it is easier for consumers to do it. And the second one that I will mention is definitely agentic AI. So, you know, how artificial intelligence is going to help consumers make those purchases, and that’s also a place that in for our category, is key to continue watching and see how it’ll develop. And I’ll give you here one example from one of the consumer immersions that we did, it was in Mexico. It was among the lower social economic level. This was a person that was afraid to use credit or debit cards at a merchant location, but she would trust AI to the purchases for her. So, this is shocking, you know? Then you see how AI is really changing, or maybe shifting consumers’ perceptions. So, something new, this is a trend. So, something new for us to track. This was just an observation on something that I experienced at that visit, but how it’s going to evolve, right?

Karen: That is so interesting that AI could be more trusted for the purchase decision than going directly to the vendor. I wonder if that just has everything to do with the security that they assume AI has in place, or the platforms that are using AI have in place. That’s very interesting so thank you, yeah.

Paula: Yeah. This was, you know, just an observation from one visit, but we are doing, like, a tracking study for AI to really understand that on a quantitative basis.

Karen: Yeah, for sure. For sure. Very cool. Thank you for sharing that. So, I do want to talk about, kind of, a passion of yours within your passionate work, and that’s with high-net-worth travelers, right? So, we just talked about, kind of, lower income, perhaps individuals, but let’s talk about these high-net-worth travelers, or individuals who happen to, I think I was reading an article that you wrote about they may have multiple homes, so they’re just going from home to home in different countries. We’re talking luxury. And obviously you’re studying those individuals. Talk to me about how you—did you, kind of, develop an interest in that because of your work, you kind of had to pay attention to them or did you kind of gravitate towards that as, I really want to study this more? Which was it? 

Paula: Well, the reality is that we do studies about all our segments. We were talking about the underserved of the lower socioeconomic level. We do a lot about Gen Z. We do a lot about the small business, the long-tail entrepreneurs, or we call it even nano merchant, the small mom-and-pops in Latin America. And this is another segment of interest, but to tell you the truth, all of them are very interesting. So, in this case, I published that blog about the ultra-high net worth of the affluent, but I have published other information about the rest. It’s… I think that’s the beauty also of this job, that it’s so dynamic, and we talk about so many different segments and countries that is very, very interesting. But specifically about this one that I published about the ultra-high net worth, what is really interesting is that it’s helping us changing the stereotypes. Why? We saw that it has, like, three multiple phases. It’s like three groups within the segment. We have the traditional affluent in Latin America. Those are, like, families that are the owners of big businesses, and also with their children, they pass that wealth generation to generation, but we have a lot of new affluence that is not only, like, the soccer players, but also the influencers, the YouTubers, the creators, and they behave very, very different. The traditionals are more classic, more reserved. The new affluence. They like to show more trends and show more of their status. And we even have a third segment that is like the emerging affluent, that these people, like, is getting into the segment, like a young professionals that have been escalated the corporate ladder and are now at that level, but still, they don’t behave as the other groups. So, depending on who are you talking to, you know, the design of the communication, the events, the products, could be different. 

Karen: Yeah.

Paula: And also, what I think is super important is that this segment is in a moment of transformation and this is what it caught me that’s super, super interesting. And that transformation is driven by four factors. So, the first one is the big generational transfer of wealth. So, it’s not a secret that, you know, baby boomers are transferring that wealth to Millennials and to Gen Z. I think that 2030, it is suspected that Millennials account for 55% of the luxury market and Gen Z is going to be between 25 and 30%. And we all have heard all those trends about Gen Z and Millennials with, you know, they value more experiences than products, they have more value related to social responsibility, to the environment. So, of course, that generation is bringing all those values with them, even for the affluence segment. The second one that is super interesting is the increasing representation of women. Before we used to think of the affluent segment, and you know, as a male executive, and now we have a lot of women in the segment, not only by inheritance, but also because they are influencer, creators, business woman. So, that is also a shift. The third one is the rise of the emerging markets. So also, before at the global level, you know, it was Paris, Tokyo, New York, London, like, the big luxury markets. But now three out of the ten, biggest cities increasing in this market are in India. And also, you know, cities like Oslo, like Prague, start to emerge similar to—and you know, even the younger populations in the world, they are in Latin America, in Asia Pacific, in Central Europe, and Middle East, so of course, this changes. And the fourth one that you mentioned, and I think that’s the most important, even for our category is the global reality, and the global reality means that they live in more than one country. And I actually participated in one of those interviews with one person, one consumer, in Mexico, but he had an apartment in Miami, a house in Houston, an apartment in Madrid. So, there is a lot of opportunities for us in the category to provide multi-currency products, to connect those accounts, those financials for those people because it’s not only traveling as a typical tourist that they do and they are have the higher incidence for travel, but also in the way they are living and spending time abroad.

Karen: Yeah. If we had more hours together, I would want to say, let’s talk more about the women because I am very—again, those who know me have been listening for a while, I’ve traveled to Brazil for the first time. I now have a daughter in law who is from Sao Paulo and I have learned so much about, kind of, the matriarchal society, you know, where women in the households are making so many decisions and really are revered and kind of held to a higher esteem. I don’t want to say they’re pedestal, but they have the utmost importance in the home. And I’m very curious about that. All of a sudden, I would want to take a little sidebar with you and say, “Tell me how that wealth for females is playing out in such a matriarchal society. I’d love to know more.”

Paula: We can have, yeah, a separate discussion about that. Definitely, yeah.

Karen: Question about that? I know. More time for sure, for sure. We are coming up on time, too, so anything in some of your learnings that you think would be helpful for, sort of, a greater audience? Like, is there any, anything that kind of finite wealth or affluent in any of those categories could be applied, maybe to a different category, outside of Visa, luxury focused learnings cascading into other consumer trends, for example?

Paula: Yes. You know one of those… one of those trends from that study talk about, you know that seamless experience that they want, you know? The affluent segment wants a top service, but sometimes we focus a lot of new experiences and forget about the basic, the user experience. And I think that applies to all the categories, all the segments. That’s what we really should focus on, on how can we make that better for the consumer, easier for the consumer, faster for the consumer? So, I think that’s one that applies across demographic and across categories.

Karen: It’s true, right? And everything that we do as consumers, whether it’s shopping or whether it’s a service, getting your hair done or getting your car repaired, we would like seamlessness, wouldn’t we? The world is too complicated right now. We need our interactions with businesses to be seamless. So, that resonates deeply.

Paula: Especially because you know, the technology company, the technology brands and companies, they taught us, as consumers, that things can be done with one click, that things can be solved with one chat, so now consumers expect that from every category. You know, before when we do with this research, we did it by industry, right, like consumer goods, financial. Now consumers, there is this thing called category liquidity where they bring expectations from one category to another, right? So, this is why this is now.

Karen: Yeah. So, helpful to think about. Gosh, Paula, thank you so much. Like literally, this is a this has been a course for our audience in things to learn. I’m sure there are people who are like, I’m going to be taking some notes during this episode. So, I want to wrap with a question we typically ask, which is, you know, the Greenbook tagline, which is the future of insights? In your opinion, what do you think the future of insights is?

Paula: I believe the future insights actually, is very, very exciting right now, leveraging all these AI tools that we have now in our favor. So, how can we have more agility, reduce our speed to insights with AI? So, the first thing is super exciting. Let’s embrace AI in our favor to be more agile, to reduce that speed to insights, but in terms of, like, the professional, anything is the present and the future [laugh] is like, in addition to all our analytical mind that I think is the core of our function, I think this communication part is key. Because definitely—and now with all these tools, the podcasts, the webinars, even the agents in AI that we can create, we can even impact and inspire more people inside and outside our organizations. So, how can we use all these tools, these platforms to make our insights more impactful with great communication? And actually that’s when I look in my team, a great analytical minds with good communication because we are selling. We are selling ideas. We are also selling—in our companies, we are helping sales, not only the direct revenue that I was talking about, but how with these trends or insights we are helping other teams sell other products or initiatives?

Karen: Yeah. And I love the call out that strong analytical skills are key. I was just doing another podcast that launched last week with Matt O’Mara, who’s in executive search in the industry, and one of the things he brought up was strong analytical skills, basically, you know, the ability to look at the data and apply that eye. So, tapping back to 20 years ago, your skills as an analyst, right, are still serving you well today with that analytical lens to what you’re looking at. Well, thank you so much. Is there anything I didn’t get to today that you really wish I’d asked before we wrap?

Paula: Well, everyone saying that, how do we measure impact for insights and analytics, and my answer will be two things, definitely, how we impact a strategy, right, what decisions are taken with insights? That’s one. But the second one for us is definitely easier because we have a tangible revenue, so the ROI is easier to measure. So, that’s the two ways where we measure, how we measure, in fact, for my team in insights and analytics.

Karen: Yeah. No, thank you. It’s also critical, we are driving decisions, aren’t we, so all the time in the insights, that is the reason that we exist is to help inform those decisions that are being made within our organization. So, thank you so much for sharing that. It was such a pleasure. And to our listeners, this was officially Paula’s first podcast, so I’m so glad, hopefully you will always remember it, but you were able to shine. You’re a star [laugh].

Paula: Thank you so much. I always try to do new things in my personal life, in my job, and always looking for new methodologies, new ideas, so part of trying new things is why I accepted this invitation. Of course, super excited when you say, you know, “Let’s do it,” so thank you so much for having me.

Karen: You’re so welcome. Thank you for joining us. It was such a pleasure, Paula. Really, for real.

Paula: Thank you.

Karen: You’re very welcome. To all of our listeners. Thank you for tuning in. We appreciate you, and do what we do to hopefully bring you the inspiration you need to further evolve your own careers and position yourselves in your organizations as well with new knowledge. Thank you to the Greenbook team for helping us produce this. And to Big Bad Audio, thank you for all you do as well when you edit it up and clean us up. We are so grateful for everything that helps this show come about. And yeah, we’ll see you next time on the Greenbook Podcast. That’s it for now. Bye, everyone.