Episodes

Welcome to episode 72, the third of season 10, and we’re moving onto the 5th P of the Insight Leader’s Playbook – P for priorities. We all know the 80:20 rule: that 80% of the value of pretty much anything will be generated by only 20% of the things we do. So it stands to reason that selecting the most valuable projects for our Insight teams to work on, allocating the right proportion of resources to them, and working on them in the optimal sequence, is going to be critical to the impact we can make.

Welcome to episode 73, the fourth of season 10, and we’re continuing our focus on the 5th P of The Insight Leader’s Playbook – P for Prioritisation. IMA members and regular Transforming Insight podcast listeners will be familiar with James Wycherley’s obsession with removing the dividing line between Insight teams’ focus on markets, consumers and customers, and the rest of our organisations’ focus on sales, revenue and profit.

In this week’s episode we begin with an analogy I’ve drawn many times drawn between the responsibilities of an Insight leader and the roles performed by the director of a small business. Michael E Gerber, author of the E-myth books, says that it’s a small business owner’s primary responsibility to work on their business rather than in it. And I believe that it’s an Insight leader’s role to work on their Insight team, rather than just in it. It’s to help achieve that goal that I’ve been suggesting that senior people in corporate Insight teams might write their own Insight leader’s playbook. To document and develop your ideas for Insight team transformation, whenever you get the chance, and to build up, over time, a plan for how you can optimise your team’s impact in your organisation.

This week we’re continuing our focus on an Insight team’s products – the output seen by the rest of the organisation. And I’m joined by Clare Gough, an IMA associate who has led great Insight teams at SAB Miller, Daily Mail, Waitrose and Haleon.

It’s the last episode on Season 10, and a chance for James, Emma and Lisa to reflect on the IMA’s latest best practice research, the challenges recently shared by Insight leaders, and our emerging thoughts about the future of Insight roles.

Welcome back to the Transforming Insight podcast! This is episode 1 of Season 11, and we’ve called it 'Perfecting Insight’s processes'. How much value does your Insight team place on its ways of working? How much time does it spend crystallising best practice and establishing effective and efficient systems? Unless we pay attention to critical processes we can’t induct new recruits, set common standards, or buy back our own time so that we can work as Insight leaders, not as Insight managers without whose involvement nothing can happen.

Towards the end of each business year, everyone in corporate life starts to think about the success they’ve enjoyed during the past 12 months. Which objectives have been hit, which pieces of work have received the most praise, and which things haven’t gone so well? Will our line manager see those issues in the same way as we do? What will that mean for our performance rating? And what about our colleagues? How will our team members be assessed and rewarded? Knowing how our contribution is going to be judged will be top of mind for everyone towards the end of a period. But how the success of any project is going to be measured is also a determinant in what we focus on in the first place.

This season we’ve been continuing our focus on the 9Ps of the Insight Leader’s Playbook, and in the last episode, we explored P for Performance. James asked ‘has your Insight team had a good year?’ and ‘how did you approach your assessment?’ The most progressive Insight teams focus on identifying value opportunities for their organisations, and know they have to quantify that value if they’re to prioritise the right projects, contextualise their findings, and sell their recommendations to senior decision-makers.

Over the last 3 seasons of our podcast, we’ve explored 8 of the 9 Ps of the Insight Leader’s Playbook. In season 9, we looked at Purpose, Profile and People, in season 10 at Partners, Prioritisation and Products, and in this season at Processes and Performance.

This week I’ve been thinking about the roles that Insight professionals are likely to play in an AI-shaped world, which is the topic of the IMA’s Insight forums in November and December. It’s too early to see the details of any reporting line roles, but I think we can start to map a journey that we will all need to go on – or continue along: a journey from being researchers or analysts to becoming Insight activists. This topic is framing the way I’m thinking about the content I’m reading and listening to, including a new edition of Matthew Syed’s book Black Box Thinking, which has been published to mark its tenth anniversary. It’s a great example, packed full of examples of how some sectors (such as aviation) have become famous for how they record and share learnings when accidents occur, whilst others have a culture of sweeping problems under the carpet and never moving forward.

It’s the last episode of 2025, and James celebrates his birthday while wrapping up Season 11 with a special Christmas roundtable discussion featuring his colleagues and regular guests - Lisa and Emma. We dive into the insights gathered from our recent forums in Manchester and London, where we engaged with numerous Insight leaders about the evolving landscape of corporate insight teams. As they discuss the key themes from these forums, James introduces the concept of the "Insight Professionals Pyramid," which outlines the essential skills and roles that Insight professionals should embrace as we navigate the future. The pyramid emphasises the importance of evidence-based activities, the generation of insights, and the need for Insight professionals to act as growth consultants, foresight pioneers, insight influencers, and knowledge stewards. And the apex of the pyramid is an ambition: an aspiration for all corporate Insight professionals to see themselves first and foremost as Insight …

A new year, and a new season of the Transforming Insight podcast! We begin Season 12 with Episode 83, and we’ve called it Leading Insight in 2026. Eagle-eyed IMA members will see that unusually I’ve decided to start this year with the same topic at the Insight forums and on the Transforming Insight podcast. I’ve done it because I think that irrespective of the size of our Insight team, its level of maturity, or our level of seniority within it, we all need to lead Insight’s transformation this year with purpose, right from the start.

In our second episode of season 12, James talks to Rhea Fox, Marketing Director at Moonpig Gift Experiences, former Insight Director at eBay and Aviva, and long-time Insight forum participant. Rhea shares her journey through 15 years in Insight roles, emphasising that research only delivers value when effectively embedded within business decision-making. She advocates for Insight teams to move beyond seeing Insight as a separate function and focus on becoming integral partners across departments, building strong stakeholder relationships that ensure research directly influences organisational strategy.

If you work in a corporate Insight team, how easy do you find it to be invited into the room when big decisions are being made? And how often do you make such an impression that you’re invited back? In every organisation, there are managers who have more influence on outcomes regardless of their job title. There are those who find it easy to build credibility and trust. And there are some who are adept at driving change through other people. All these attributes often reflect the same underlying quality: they are the natural consequences of having developed personal impact.

What does it mean to lead through Insight in a world that never slows down? In our fourth episode of season 12, James welcomes Eddie O’Brien, Senior Director, Global Customer Insight and Experience at Sage. From navigating the pace of the SaaS industry to reimagining what Insight professionals can and should be, Eddie brings a refreshingly candid and forward-thinking perspective to the conversation.

What does it take to build a world-class Insight function from the ground up — and keep evolving it as the world changes around you? In the fifth episode of season 12, James is joined by Thomas Walker, VP – Global Consumer Insights at eBay, whose team has grown from just three people when he joined in 2017 to a team of around 50 today. That growth isn't just a number; it's an indicator of how seriously eBay's leadership takes the value of consumer understanding.

What separates a good Insight professional from a truly impactful one? It might come down to something deceptively simple and yet surprisingly difficult: the willingness to form and express a confident opinion. In this episode, we take a step back from our recent conversations with Insight leaders at Sage and eBay to focus closer to home, on the individual mindset and behaviours that define how Insight professionals show up in their organisations. Joining host James Whycherley is Jane Woolley, James’s colleague and senior adviser at the Insight Management Academy, whose 20 years of guiding Insight teams give her a sharp and empathetic view of what holds professionals back.

It's Episode 89, our first of Season 13, and I have a special guest on today’s episode: Laura Barber, Insight Consultant & Founder of The Ripple Impact. With twenty years of Insight roles spanning General Mills, Coca-Cola, Boots, and PepsiCo, and a career that began before the word "Insights" was widely used in organisations, Laura Barber has seen the field transform in almost every imaginable way. Now running her own consultancy and podcast, The Ripple Impact, Laura helps brand leaders and founders sharpen their storytelling and strengthen their influence.

What does it look like to walk into a new Insight leadership role with a clear vision, a structured playbook, and the determination to shift a team from tactical to truly strategic? In this episode, we find out - as Joanne (Jo) Dealtry, Head of Customer Insight at Admiral, shares the thinking and approach she's bringing to one of the UK's most recognisable brands.

In this episode, we are joined again by Ruth Hinton, Insight leader and Chair of AURA, the UK-based volunteer-led organisation, originally known as the Association of Users of Research Agencies. A year ago, she joined us to talk about something the Insight industry doesn't always discuss openly: the health of the relationships between client-side Insight teams and their agency partners. It sparked a rich conversation, and a lot has happened since.