The Founders and Leaders Series

Mike Stevens, Insight Platforms

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Mike Stevens of Insight Platforms interviews the tech entrepreneurs and business leaders building the future of research, insights and analytics.

FEB 22

Episode 10: Frederic-Charles Petit, CEO, Toluna

Episode Overview Frédéric-Charles Petit, Founder and CEO of Toluna, on building a 25-year-old consumer insights company for the age of AI. Episode Highlights Four pillars, one platform. Toluna's model combines a global consumer panel, proprietary technology, specialist methodology, and people to deliver integrated consumer insight at scale for enterprise brands.Synthetic personas grounded in real data. Toluna's AI-driven synthetic personas were built on a foundation of first-party panel data and machine learning developed from 2019 — well before the generative AI boom — enabling fast, high-correlation answers to real business questions.AI as the engine of democratisation. Frédéric-Charles argues that AI is the most significant transformation force in market research, enabling research to move at the speed at which content is now created and decisions are now made.From gatekeeper to door opener. The insights function inside enterprise organisations is shifting — from controlling access to research to enabling broader teams to act on consumer data with confidence and speed.Adoption is maturing, not just experimenting. Customer uptake of AI-first research solutions at Toluna has already surpassed full-year revenues from the previous year, pointing to a market that is moving from pilot to embedded practice.Strategy and tactics in equal measure. After 25 years building Toluna, Frédéric-Charles's core leadership lesson is the need to balance long-term strategy with close operational involvement — what he calls "top down and bottom up."About the Guest Frédéric-Charles Petit is the Founder and CEO of Toluna, a global digital consumer insights company he has built over more than 25 years. Under his leadership, Toluna has evolved from a panel provider into a technology-driven insight platform serving enterprise brands worldwide. The company's current focus is on embedding AI across both quantitative and qualitative research, including the development of synthetic personas and AI-powered ad testing tools. Frédéric-Charles is based in France and is a long-standing figure in the research technology industry. Learn more about the impact of technology and AI on research, insights & analytics at Insight Platforms.

28 min
FEB 18

Episode 9: Andrew Cooper, Founder & CEO, Verve

Episode Overview Andrew Cooper, founder and CEO of Verve, on synthetic personas, the respondent crisis, and a new model for AI-powered insight. Episode Highlights From access panels to AI simulations: Andrew traces Verve's evolution from one of the early online panel companies to a specialist in AI-powered synthetic personas — built on the conviction that "a good simulation is better than an average sample."Addressing the respondent crisis: Rather than replicating large samples artificially, Verve combines proprietary client data with curated sources to build auditable, validated simulations that correlate at 0.9 with real human responses.Where synthetic personas work best: B2B and specialist audiences — where recruiting real respondents is slow, expensive or unreliable — are proving to be the strongest use cases, alongside healthcare and financial services segments.Humans and simulations working together: Verve's model keeps real people involved in the insight process, using simulations to handle onerous or tactical tasks, while human respondents contribute depth, validation and qualitative richness.The skills challenge for the industry: AI is reshaping the capabilities research businesses need — consultative skills, critical thinking and an AI-native mindset are growing in importance, while routine analytical work is declining.Oracles and internal AI agents: Verve has built 60 internal AI tools ("Oracles") covering specialist areas of their workflow, effectively doubling productive capacity without adding headcount.About the Guest Andrew Cooper is the founder and CEO of Verve, a UK-based insight technology company specialising in AI-powered synthetic personas and simulations. He previously co-founded Research Now, one of the pioneering online access panel businesses. With over two decades in the research industry, Cooper has been an early advocate for respondent quality and engagement, and now leads Verve's work helping brands including Mars and Samsung generate board-level insight through a combination of real human data and intelligent simulation. Learn more about the impact of technology and AI on research, insights & analytics at Insight Platforms.

37 min
FEB 17

Episode 8: Olaf Lenzmann, Co-Founder, Market Logic Software

Episode Overview Olaf Lenzmann discusses Market Logic's AI evolution, synthetic personas, innovation workflows and the lessons from building a research tech platform over 15 years. Episode Highlights AI-powered insights platforms: How Market Logic's DeepSights connects internal and external data sources, transforming knowledge management into active decision support through generative AI capabilitiesThe rise of synthetic personas: Why AI-generated personas based on proprietary research data are gaining strong demand, enabling organisations to activate strategic assets and make insights more accessible across teamsRethinking innovation workflows: How AI is shifting from simple automation to collaborative tools that present comprehensive options, requiring deeper human judgement rather than eliminating thinkingManaging AI governance and quality: The evolving role of insights teams as gatekeepers who establish guardrails, vet data sources and build systems thinking into AI-human workflowsBuilding for scale versus customisation: Lessons on balancing enterprise customer needs with product development, the importance of thought leadership and avoiding reactive feature-buildingAdvice for research tech founders: Why sustainable competitive advantage requires more than technology capability—whether through human expertise, partner ecosystems or compounding knowledge modelsAbout the Guest Olaf Lenzmann is Co-Founder and Chief Innovation and Product Officer at Market Logic Software, a Berlin-based company that provides enterprise insights platforms. Market Logic's DeepSights solution enables organisations to integrate research, knowledge and data about consumers, markets and brands into a unified platform. With approximately 15 years in the commercial market, the company serves major enterprises across CPG, automotive, financial services, retail and healthcare sectors. Olaf has led the company's evolution from knowledge management through to AI-powered insights activation and innovation support. Learn more about the impact of technology and AI on research, insights & analytics at Insight Platforms.

39 min
FEB 6

Episode 7: Daniel Graff-Radford, CEO, Discuss

Episode Overview Daniel Graff-Radford explores the evolution of research tech platform Discuss, combining qual research with the Voxco survey and Ascribe AI text analytics platforms. Episode Highlights The merger story: How Discuss brought together Voxco's quantitative surveys, Ascribe's text analytics, and Discuss's qualitative platform to create an integrated research solution marking the company's 50th anniversaryAI as thought partner, not replacement: Why AI should enhance researcher expertise rather than replace it, and how quality questions from trained researchers deliver better insights than automated shallow analysisThe full-stack researcher: How AI tools are breaking down rigid qual-quant specialisms, enabling researchers to blend methodologies and apply the right approach for each questionAvoiding startup pitfalls: Lessons from building five companies, including the importance of customer focus over investor pitches, cultural fit in M&A, and documenting decisions for continuous learningThe future of research workflows: Why startups fail when they skip steps to reach a three-year vision, and how established players can light the path from current capabilities to AI-powered research ecosystemsBuilding culture over strategy: Why hiring carefully, fostering a culture where mistakes drive learning, and maintaining customer obsession matter more than brilliant strategyAbout the Guest Daniel Graff-Radford is CEO of Discuss, leading the integration of three established research technology companies: Voxco (quantitative surveys), Ascribe (text analytics and AI insights), and Discuss (qualitative research). This is his fifth company and second role as CEO, with a track record of building businesses that achieve over $10 million in recurring revenue with positive outcomes for investors. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, he brings decades of experience in research technology and a customer-focused approach to building company culture and product strategy. Learn more about the impact of technology and AI on research, insights & analytics at Insight Platforms.

29 min
12/12/2025

Episode 6: Tobi Andersson, General Manager, Forsta

Episode Overview Tobi Andersson shares his journey founding and scaling Dapresy to 100+ employees, the formation of Forsta, and his insights on AI in market research. Episode Highlights Building Dapresy from a single-employee Swedish startup to a global company with operations across all regions, focused solely on visualising market research dataHow the merger of Dapresy, Confirmit and FocusVision created Forsta's integrated platform for sample, data collection, reporting and analyticsAI applications in market research, from automating survey scripting and data preparation to generating PowerPoint presentations and enabling conversational data analysisThe evolving role of synthetic samples as a complementary research tool for early exploration and hypothesis testingEssential startup lessons including the importance of staying focused, delegating early, understanding customer needs, and investing time in leadershipWhy humility and patience matter when innovating in the mature market research industry, rather than pursuing disruptive change for its own sakeAbout the Guest Tobi Andersson is General Manager for Market Research at Forsta. He founded Dapresy in 2003 after recognising the need for better data visualisation whilst working at a fieldwork house in 1999. Over 15 years, he scaled Dapresy from a local Swedish company to a global business with over 100 employees. Dapresy later merged with Confirmit and FocusVision to form Forsta, a name derived from the Nordic word meaning "to understand". Throughout his 25-year career, Tobi has maintained a consistent focus on market research technology and creating efficient processes for research professionals. Learn more about the impact of technology and AI on research, insights & analytics at Insight Platforms.

35 min
09/18/2025

Episode 5: Hakan Yardakul, Bolt Insight

Episode Overview Hakan Yurdakul, CEO of Bolt Insight, discusses AI-native research, dynamic personas, and how conversational AI is transforming market research. Episode Highlights Pioneer in AI Research: Bolt Insight created the world's first AI-native conversational research platform, predating the ChatGPT boom by training proprietary models on human-moderated interviewsHuman + AI Approach: How combining human expertise with AI technology creates better research outcomes, moving beyond simple correlation to understand causality in consumer insightsDynamic Personas Revolution: Moving beyond static synthetic personas to "live personas" that are continuously updated with fresh consumer interviews and market trendsCorporate Memory Solution: AI agents serving as institutional memory banks, connecting sales data, historical research, and new insights to prevent repeated mistakes and improve innovation success ratesEntrepreneurial Journey: Transitioning from 15 years at Unilever to founding a successful AI research company, with lessons on networking and moving outside comfort zonesFuture of Research: The shift from traditional qual vs quant methodologies toward hybrid, conversational research that brings human empathy back to consumer understandingAbout the Guest Hakan Yurdakul is the co-founder and CEO of Bolt Insight, an AI-native research firm. A Harvard graduate with 15 years of experience at Unilever as a consumer marketeer across FMCG categories, Hakan transitioned from corporate life to entrepreneurship to create research tools he wished he had in his corporate roles. Along with co-founders from Ipsos and Nielsen backgrounds, he built Bolt Insight into a 60-person company serving 95% large enterprise clients across FMCG, finance, consulting, and technology sectors. The company operates globally with offices in North America, UK, France, Turkey, and Singapore. Learn more about the impact of technology and AI on research, insights & analytics at Insight Platforms.

46 min
09/10/2025

Episode 4: Hendrik van Hove & Niels Schillewaert, Conveo

Episode Overview AI-powered research platform Conveo transforms market insights through AI-moderated video interviews, delivering deeper consumer understanding at scale. Episode Highlights The Future of Data Collection: How AI moderators are revolutionizing consumer research by conducting natural video conversations that capture not just what people say, but how they say it and what they show Multimodal Analysis Breakthrough: Advanced AI capabilities that analyze facial expressions, emotions, environments, and brand detection alongside transcripts—providing the 93% of meaning beyond words Research Team Transformation: Why AI tools are empowering researchers rather than replacing them, enabling the 90% of research projects that teams wish they could run but couldn't due to time constraints From Insights to Impact: Real examples of how AI-generated research travels directly to revenue-generating functions, convincing retailers and driving shelf placement decisions The Talent Multiplier Effect: How research technology acts as a talent acquisition tool, allowing teams to scale expertise without scaling headcount while maintaining research rigor Beyond "Qual at Scale": Moving past traditional research categories toward rapid iterative insights that compound knowledge across multiple studies and markets About the Guests Hendrik van Hove is Chief Product Officer at Conveo, the AI-powered research platform. A former McKinsey consultant who studied AI before ChatGPT's launch, Hendrik co-founded Conveo after Y Combinator and focuses on customer-driven product development. Niels Schillewaert is Head of Research and Methods at Conveo and former co-founder of Human8 Insights Consulting. With decades of experience in digital research transformation, Niels brings deep methodological expertise to AI-powered consumer insights. Learn more about the impact of technology and AI on research, insights & analytics at Insight Platforms.

38 min
09/04/2025

Episode 3: Tanika McLeod, OneCliq (Dig Insights)

Episode Overview Co-founder Tanika McLeod discusses OneCliq's AI-powered qualitative insights platform and her journey from researcher to startup founder. Episode Highlights From Researcher to Founder: How Tanika combined her seven years of qualitative research experience with generative AI expertise to solve the painful, time-consuming aspects of analyzing unstructured text dataQualitative Insights at Scale: OneCliq's breakthrough approach using unsupervised classification to analyze thousands of online conversations across Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and X - delivering deep qualitative insights without predetermined frameworksThe Future of Research: Why AI will transform research from manually executing projects to orchestrating them, freeing researchers from grunt work to focus on high-impact strategic and creative analysisStartup Lessons: Hard-won insights about building true value, the importance of customer discovery, and why the fear of failure is worse than failure itself - plus the painful pivot that led to breakthrough successAI Reality Check: A balanced perspective on AI's potential and limitations, debunking both the replacement fears and AGI hype while highlighting the democratizing power of current AI toolsRecent Acquisition: The story behind OneCliq's integration with Dig Insights and how it fits into their end-to-end innovation platformAbout the Guest Tanika McLeod is co-founder and managing director of OneCliq, an AI-powered platform that provides qualitative insights from online conversations at unprecedented speed and scale. With seven years of qualitative research experience combined with deep generative AI expertise from Google's accelerator program, she has pioneered unsupervised classification techniques that unlock cultural insights from social media data. OneCliq was recently acquired by Dig Insights, where Tanika continues to lead the development of innovative research methodologies that bridge traditional qualitative research with AI automation. Learn more about the impact of technology and AI on research, insights & analytics at Insight Platforms.

41 min
08/20/2025

Episode 2 - Matteo Cera, Founder and CEO: Glaut

Episode Overview AI-powered research meets human expertise: Matteo Cera explores how AI moderated interviews bridge qual and quant research for faster, deeper insights. Episode Highlights AI Moderated Interviews (AIMIs): How voice-based AI interviews deliver insights 10-15x faster and 2-3x cheaper than traditional methods by combining survey structure with conversational depth The Evolution of Research Methodologies: Why the boundaries between qualitative and quantitative research are blurring, creating opportunities for "Agile Quantifiable Qual" approaches Building Trust in Research Tech: The critical importance of human relationships and trust-building in B2B research technology adoption, especially for founders entering the industry The Future of Researchers: How AI tools will enhance rather than replace researchers, shifting their role from manual tasks to strategic piloting and insight delivery Agency Transformation: Two distinct camps emerging - skeptics focusing on AI limitations versus progressive agencies embracing AI across their entire operations Quality vs Scale Trade-offs: Measuring success through depth of insights, emotional nuances, project speed, and cost efficiency rather than traditional metrics About the Guest Matteo Cera is the Founder and CEO of Glaut, an AI-powered research platform specializing in AI Moderated Interviews (AIMIs). A former McKinsey consultant and serial entrepreneur, this is his third technology startup. Matteo brings an outsider's perspective to the research industry, having built his career in strategy consulting and tech entrepreneurship before founding Glaut in late 2023. He focuses on helping experienced researchers deliver faster, more cost-effective insights through AI-enhanced voice interviews that bridge the gap between traditional surveys and in-depth interviews. Learn more about the impact of technology and AI on research, insights & analytics at Insight Platforms.

48 min
07/31/2025

Episode 1: Aneesh Dhawan - Founder & CEO, Knit

Episode Overview In this inaugural episode, we sit down with Aneesh Dhawan, Founder and CEO of Knit, the AI-powered market research platform. The conversation explores both the ways that AI is transforming market research and the crucial role human researchers will continue to play. Episode Highlights The Emergence of "Researcher-Driven AI": Aneesh discusses Knit's framework that positions researchers as orchestrators who direct AI tools rather than being replaced by them.Balancing Efficiency with Expertise: The discussion examines how AI can handle data processing and analysis while human researchers contribute critical context, judgment, and storytelling capabilities.The Evolution of Research Skills: Insights into how the role of researchers is shifting from primarily analytical work to becoming translators and storytellers who create narratives that drive business decisions.Scaling Research Capabilities: Aneesh explains how Knit's approach makes high-quality research more accessible, potentially transforming research from occasional projects to essential business infrastructure.The Future of Market Research: The conversation covers Knit's vision for international expansion, new methodologies, and deeper integration with business workflows.About the Guest Aneesh Dhawan is the CEO and Co-founder of Knit, which recently secured $16M in Series A funding to advance its Researcher-Driven AI platform. Under Aneesh's leadership, Knit is working to reshape how organizations conduct market research by combining AI efficiency with human expertise. Listen to the full episode to learn how the next generation of market research is evolving at the intersection of artificial intelligence and human insight. Learn more about the impact of technology and AI on research, insights & analytics at Insight Platforms.

40 min

10 Episodes

Mike Stevens of Insight Platforms interviews the tech entrepreneurs and business leaders building the future of research, insights and analytics.

Creator

Mike Stevens, Insight Platforms
Years Active

2025 - 2026
Episodes

10
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© 2026 Insight Platforms
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The Founders and Leaders Series