Career Pivots: Market Research & Brand Strategy

(Other time zones: 9–10:00 am CEST, 5–6:00 pm AEST)

Virtual Session

Moderator: Julia Prior, Head of Innovation and Software Development Strategy, Wisetech Global
Sunandini Pande Ray, Vice President, Kantar
Cato Hunt, Director, Space Doctors

Career Pivot sessions help us open doors to new roles and domains in which ethnographers thrive.

In this Career Pivot we’ll learn about market research and brand strategy with two EPIC Members in the field: Sunandini Pande Ray, Vice President at Kantar, and Cato Hunt, Director at Space Doctors. Sunandini and Cato will introduce key principles and aspects of this work, then we’ll do an extensive “group informational interview” so you can ask all of your nitty gritty questions about the domain. Meanwhile, we’ll take collaborative notes. And finally, we will synthesize an understanding of service design as a space of opportunity for ethnographic work and impact.

Julia Prior’s work focuses on fostering a thriving software development culture as the path towards effective practice, innovation and high-quality enterprise software products. She is an ethnographer, software developer, innovator and researcher who loves working with multidisciplinary teams on cryptic issues characterised by uncertainty.. 

Sunandini Pande Ray has been working at the intersection of understanding people, culture and communication, in India and the Middle East. She has built her career within consumer research and insights – asking questions, connecting the dots and staying fascinated with the world outside and the world within. She focuses on situating human insights at the heart of strategy and building a deeper, more empathetic and inclusive understanding of consumer ecosystems.

Cato Hunt is a Director at Space Doctors, where she heads the London office and pioneers new ways to understand, create and measure meaning. From her background in semiotics, cultural insight, trends, ethnography and strategy, she draws on a diverse array of other fields – from speculative & critical design to the cognitive sciences – to innovate hybrid methods and ways of thinking which help us answer the new kinds of challenges brands and organisations face today.