Nihan Sahan Eren is the Global Consumer & Market Insights (CMI) Director for Unilever Food Solutions, based in the Netherlands. With more than two decades of experience in consumer and market research, she began her career on the agency side in 2003 before joining Unilever in 2010. Throughout her career, she has led insight transformation and innovation across Ice Cream, Foods, Refreshment, Home Care, Beauty & Personal Care and Media & Shopper Insights.
An internationally recognized thought leader and frequent keynote speaker, Nihan has presented at major industry events including ESOMAR, IIEX, Insight Lighthouse, and the Neuromarketing World Forum. She is the recipient of the ESOMAR Best Paper Award (2025) for “Unstereotype with Neuroscience for Lasting Social Change”, an ESOMAR Insight250 Winner (2024), and a member of the ESOMAR Congress 2026 Committee.
Nihan holds an Honours degree in Business Administration from Galatasaray University and has completed executive AI programs at Oxford’s Saïd Business School and Erasmus University’s Rotterdam School of Management.
Passionate E2E Retail Activation & Insight expert with 25 years’ experience within local & global functions. An unrivalled knowledge on toy shoppers & insights, an experienced leader with diverse cultural understanding and the ability to influence & lead multiple stakeholders through networking & teamwork, coupled with a strong personal focus on continued development for both self and team. Energized through continuous learning & capability building, I’m thrilled to work for a brand that allows me to be creative and fuel my passion to change how Shoppers feel about our products during their P2P and drive the right retail executions communication, at the right time that are fun, impactful & promote the LEGO System of Play for Shoppers and Consumers around the world.
With 8+ years of experience in user research and customer insights within the sexual wellness industry, Elisabeth specialises in qualitative research on pleasure, relationships and intimacy. Her work focuses on uncovering needs and experiences that are often difficult to articulate, and on navigating the sensitivities and complexities of researching deeply personal topics.
Phil Pegram leads insights, analytics and market research at TalkTalk. His work connects customer understanding, data, AI and organisational decision-making to improve products, services and commercial outcomes. He is also a doctoral researcher with a strong interest in making evidence useful in the real world.
Amy Wolsey is a Design Research Manager at the BBC, where she leads work to strengthen research practice and embed continuous discovery across product teams. She focuses on helping researchers, designers, product managers and engineers build closer relationships with users, develop stronger learning habits and make better decisions with evidence. Amy is particularly interested in research enablement, coaching and the practical trade-offs required to make research useful in fast-moving organisations.
At Novo Nordisk, Mariana Helguera Martinez helps shape user-centred innovation as Lead Design & UX Strategist in the User Insights team, part of Drug Delivery Innovation. She works at the intersection of research, design and innovation strategy, identifying unmet needs and translating them into actionable insights and opportunities to inform innovation decisions. She leads and advises on mixed-methods research, ensuring findings are meaningful to users, strategically relevant to the business and actionable for cross-functional teams. Mariana brings 15+ years of international and cross-functional experience in user research, design and innovation strategy, gained through in-house and consulting roles in Mexico, Germany and Denmark. She also contributes to advancing research and innovation practices and mentoring colleagues.
With over 15 years immersed in UX research and business strategy, Nicole Bacchus excels at harnessing the collective brainpower of a team to uncover profound user insights, shaping user experience, product strategy, and innovation. A Kellogg MBA graduate, she has refined her distinctive approach through roles at American Express, Mars Chocolate, and Meta, complemented by invaluable experiences at design innovation consultancies such as Smart Design. Residing in Brooklyn, New York, Nicole specializes in seamlessly integrating insights and strategy to propel consumer-led product innovation. Her noteworthy achievements include leading research teams in supporting the impactful launches of Instagram Reels, Facebook Shops and Ray-Ban Meta Smartglasses, and crafting an award-winning customer transformation strategy for Amplifon, a leading hearing-aid retailer. As the current Head of Research at Thumbtack, Nicole leads a formidable team of UX Researchers, Market Researchers, and Research Operations, steering impactful projects at the intersection of strategy and user experience.
Shivani is senior consumer research at Mondelez International. With a background in design and behavioural science, she uses qualitative research to understand what drives people's choices and help shape products, packaging and brand choices. She manages global qualitative and behavioural science communities, putting new approaches into practice. Her experience spans consumer goods, healthcare, technology, and social impact. She is also a trustee at Talking Taboos, a charity that uses research to tackle social stigma.
Emilia Wigum is a concept development manager at OBOS with 15 years of experience in user-centered design of products and services. She has worked across edtech, fintech and media, including roles at DNB, Schibsted, Eniro and Aschehoug Undervisning.
In 2021 Emilia joined the OBOS Living Lab, an innovation hub and “real-life” apartment building in Oslo with 60 residents that live their everyday life there while sharing their experience and feedback continuously with the OBOS team. Emilia created the innovation framework for gathering insight from, and with the residents, and co-creating with them, partners, colleagues, and others in the Norwegian real estate industry. The work in the OBOS Living Lab over the last five years combines workshops, simulated experiments, home visits, interviews, focus groups and surveys. The approach links qualitative research directly to strategy and development of new products and services. It´s an example of how a traditional industry with high risks and a complex value chain can involve its users in the development of new products and services and leverage knowledge of its customers in the overall strategy.
Aurore Campbell works in Research & Insights at JobRad, where she investigates what drives customer decisions and how markets and competitors are evolving. She combines qualitative and quantitative research to help teams across Product, Sales and Strategy answer key business questions. In 2026, she led JobRad’s mixed-method B2B Win/Loss research, exploring what really drives employers to choose, stay with or move away from a provider.
Jess Wareing is a Senior User Researcher at the BBC, where she leads research focused on children, teenagers and emerging audiences. She works with teams across BBC products to turn research insights into meaningful experiences. Jess is particularly interested in what the next generation can teach us about the future of digital, and how organisations can stay ahead of it by paying attention to younger people’s evolving needs and behaviours.
Elle Jamonts developed and leads the Cultural Insight and Foresight programme at Pandora, where she focuses on developing a proactive approach to cultural relevance that informs product, marketing and localisation. She emphasises an approach that translates the complex "nows and nexts" of the consumer's world into clear strategic and operational outcomes. Elle's career and education span Australia, Denmark, Japan and Nepal, inspiring her commitment to understanding both universal and localised expressions of culture and its brand implications.
Helen is a user focused research expert who’s equally at home planning high level strategy and sitting down with real people talking about what matters to them. Her career spans Insight, Design and User Research across the commercial, government and non-profit sectors. She has set up UX research functions from scratch, led voice of the customer programs and defined priorities for award winning user journeys. Following Design and UX Research positions at Lloyds Banking Group, The Guardian and The Economist, Helen now leads Strategic User Research for GOV.UK. In her role, she pushes for action for the users who need it most through innovative research and analysis approaches, narrative driven, super engaging insight outputs and building great relationships with colleagues at all levels.
Emelie Bruneau is Head of Insights for Europe & Asia at Onduline Group. With over 15 years of experience in consumer and market insights, including several years at L’Oréal, she works with marketing, sales and business teams to put consumer understanding at the heart of business decisions. Her current focus is on bringing business teams closer to consumers and turning insights into concrete actions across markets.
Dr. Maryam Ramezani-Bartsch is a visionary leader passionate about data, people, and technology. With leadership experience at adidas, Sky, GroupM, SAP, and Delivery Hero she excels at building and scaling high-performing teams and delivering data-driven solutions in marketing ROI, LTV, personalization, and analytics. Her global experience across three continents shapes her agile, empathetic leadership style. An award-winning academic, author of scientific papers and patents, and a creative problem solver, Maryam is also a sports enthusiast and proud mother of two. She is currently focused on bridging customer insights and analytics, using AI to connect deep attitudinal personas with behavioral and transactional data to drive more human-centered marketing and personalization.
Annelies Verhaeghe is Chief Innovation Officer at Human8, leading the company’s innovation strategy and AI-enabled consulting capabilities. With nearly 20 years of experience in the insights industry, she specializes in combining human empathy, technology, and AI to help brands make better decisions and drive meaningful growth.
Dr. Katrin Franzen-Löhnig is an accomplished consumer insights leader with nearly 20 years of experience building research capabilities and shaping business strategy across Nielsen, Fressnapf, REWE, LIXIL EMENA and Ipsos. At Arla Foods, she translates consumer and cultural understanding into strategic direction, innovation and growth.
