Interview With Adriana Rocha

In honor of Women’s History Month, GreenBook is talking with female leaders from across the insights industry to celebrate their achievements and inspire the next wave of professionals. Join us each week for the CEO Series as we sit down with top female leaders for a conversation on industry trends, overcoming challenges, and developing leadership skills.

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This interview has been edited for clarity

Lenny Murphy: Hello, everybody. Lenny Murphy, continuing with our CEO series, and today, joined by one of my favorite people, longtime friend, one of the most awesome, awesome CEOs period who also happens to be a woman, Adriana Roca, from eCGlobal. Adriana, welcome. It’s good to see you.

 

Adriana Rocha: Thank you and nice to see you. Thank you for the introduction. It’s been some time without contact, so really nice to see you and know that we’re here, right? It’s going well.

 

Lenny Murphy: Is I think that everybody’s theme song now should be the Elton John song, “I’m still standing,” I mean, we’re here we are, we’ve made it through. You have made it through an awful lot.

So, you and I met at ARF in New York, 12 years ago? Something like that?

 

Adriana Rocha: Well, yes. Many years ago, actually. It was 2011.

 

Lenny Murphy: Was that when we met? but has been one of the early folks at GMI. Now we’re really dating ourselves, right? So that’s probably a good segue. tell our audience who may not be familiar with you and your story. how do you from GMI to eCGlobal?

 

Adriana Rocha: My gosh. I started at GMI 20 years ago, actually 21 years ago.

 

Lenny Murphy: So you were really early!

 

Adriana Rocha: Really early. It’s funny because you know that I am a computing engineer, So I used to code and develop software, all of my career, even my previous life before joined in the market research industry.

so I start at GMI in my very early stage startup phase and I went to Budapest for Global training. Most of us remember Rob Monster, well after my first interactions with Rob, he realized that I was a programmer. So, my first task was with GMI was to process a database of one million e-mails in and from there, helping GMI to start building their first panels now and evolving their panel platform. Actually, we sold that platform license to TNS Globally and that’s when I started traveling, around the world.

so I traveled to Paris and started working with remote teams so, it’s been quite a journey. And in seeing how the industry from that early stage has evolved, You know? And, of course, seeing how online panels and agencies were creating their first online surveys and online research projects. I was very frustrated with some of what was happening in terms of user experience was terrible.

 

Lenny Murphy: (laughs) It was bad then it’s still not awesome, in a lot of scenarios.

 

Adriana Rocha: Correct. So, seeing that, I was frustrated and I knew there was a big issue to be solved and that’s how I started eCGlobal, actually, I started eCGlobal 15 years ago. Actually, we’re celebrating our 15 years. We wanted to change the user experience. We wanted to change the way that we could really learn, generate customer knowledge in a  more interactive, more fun, something that could be natural for the users to participate in market research like playing a game or a class, joining friends in a specific group.

Without knowing, back in 2000, she actually, presented at the ESOMAR Data conference in Barcelona in 2006, on how panels will evolve as communities.

How we can really connect people, let them talk, let them collaborate, and then the brands and the researchers will be part of this entire experience. So, we were building a new social media platform, without knowing at that time, we were incorporating gamification, online community, social media, a lot of companies in elements that we see nowadays being used, in social networking in online communities.

We’ve been really a pioneer in that space. Not just individually, but really building testing, evolving the platform, working with clients that share the same vision.

when I look back and do 15 years, I would say that we have our first phase, where we were trying to work with agencies, trying to really be the technology enabler. But we’re still not in control of the entire user experience. Then I said, “Well, we need to start talking directly with the, with the clients. We need to really connect with the brands and also see if he can build something different.” and I’m very happy to see how in the last three or five years, we’ve seen this change in market research departments are being merged with the CRM department. the CX program is now becoming, our entire market research platform our knowledge platform being cooperated part of this cx program so a lot of change.

But at the same time, creating a lot of opportunities for our industry to really navigate in broader opportunities inside these large clients and organizations.

 

Lenny Murphy:  you’ve always been visionary, Adriana, and I’m not saying that’s just fluff. I think that’s one of the things you and I have always connected on, is, thinking through what those opportunities look like, and it’s been incredibly impressive to watch you Do it. To implement that vision.

I think it was a little over a year ago, the last time, I had a demo of your platform and I left that going, “holy crap!” Like, you’ve built a social media platform that is aligned towards research, but with the consumer in mind.

I think that that was always one of the things that was incredibly impressive, was your sense of design; the visuals, the interactivity, just leveraging things that actually weren’t enjoyable experiences. They may look different from how we think about traditional research, right? But an ll the elements are there but designed for consumers to actually enjoy the experience and…

 

Adriana Rocha: Exactly If you see it even one year, after that, if you see the newer version, you’ll be amazed because we’ve developed some really cool features in exactly always thinking on the user.

Users love to participate in our platforms, in their communities, social networks, and lately, in the last year, we’ve seen something even that, I believe is very unique in the industry. We’ve seen clients joining together to build a community for more than one brand.

for example, we have a large project in Brazil where we have, for example, Nestle Natura is a really large beauty company in Brazil. But, they’ve been expanding globally. They acquired Avon in the US, the Body Shop and we have also ItalBank the largest bank. So imagine it and other companies are joining this group. I think that’s the first b2b collaborative platform where different clients from different industries have come together to build communities and understand the consumer in a more holistic way.

it’s not just about understanding how people use a financial product. It’s not just about understanding food or beauty preferences. It’s understanding people, connecting these brands, with people in understanding and listening to them in a more integrated way. It’s putting people first.

So if I share with you some of the new things that we’ve been doing, it will be even more amazing, I’m sure.

 

Lenny Murphy: Well, we should just circle back around. There’s some interest, the synergies, with what I’m seeing with the various projects that I’m working on. Aligned to that idea of thinking about, we don’t have to own these relationships with consumers directly. We need to own the opportunity to engage with them and that can be a collaborative process so that it’s really interesting.

We’ll circle back around to that. But I want to go back to one of the things that were also always impressive. I remember the first time that you showed a video of the developers of your office in Brazil and it’s in this mansion right? there’s a pool and everyone’s walking around in shorts And it looks like this fun vacation spot. but that’s your office, and everybody’s just working in a very informal capacity. how cool is that? So, let’s start with the culture. How is that evolution of the culture plate, as well, and why has that been important to you?

 

Adriana Rocha: Culture and team are everything. We have an amazing team that is connected to our mission and purpose.

So, let’s view the future, let’s create something different, Let’s do this together. Of course, we are trying in building something that we want to be fun. That’s going to be how people engage in the long term that’s part of our future as well. let’s create the future of collaborations, of teamwork of ownership.

So, that, that’s very important is its a, very strong company of our focus is really building these team that connected that understand our mission, our purpose. So, it’s a very important component. And, of course, we already had people working wherever they want, part-time in the office. A lot of people working from a home office. I have people who work with us for more than 10 years who travel around the world working from Thailand from China from any part of the world and they are still working and connected and part of this future of our unique team that facilitated for us to navigate through these challenging times after the pandemic as well.

 

Lenny Murphy: I think that the future of work is decoupled from location. You have worked from home for 20 years, right? They’ve managed global teams and you know all of that I’ve never felt the need to have a physical location that everybody had to be engaged in. I think you are visionary, and building a business that had that agility and flexibility baked in. How has it played in with work-life balance because you’re a mom, right? How have you dealt with all that too culturally and within your business?

 

Adriana Rocha: On my own personal level, I believe that going through this pandemic it’s even the most challenging side of the pandemic. And it is how we make sure that that, yes, I’m actually a mom of five: three kids and two pets.

 

Lenny Murphy: all right you’re just trying to compete with me, Adriana come on.

 

Adriana Rocha: So making sure that the kids full-time study from home and all of us interacting and working and studying 24/7, everyone together and my partner as well working from a home office that was the new reality. It was a challenge to really learn your feelings. We need to stay at home for some time and we’re still going through that of course. next school year kids will definitely start to return to physical school but it’s being quite challenging but we’re all doing good, thankfully.

We’re all, doing good in terms of our health as well. So, none of us got the virus though. but I have to balance the personal and the professional side. I think that as a woman, it’s one of the biggest challenges that we have. How we can be amazing mothers and also executives and business professionals. I think that learning a lot is really fun, during this pandemic phase in evolving to become an even better person, a better mother. Learning that in this difficult phase, having your family together is also very important. so we even strengthen our bonds as a family. It’s all good,  but at the end of the day. Yes, we’ve made it.

 

Lenny Murphy: I agree with you. This time, last year, thinking, when everything kind of hit. we were never homeschoolers for a reason. Because we would be very good at it. And we weren’t very good at it but That process of, having deepening into the bonds, right. Having the kids at home through last year. here in Georgia, they’ve been back at school since August. but the last year certainly was interesting.

Now, what about, say, your sister was she in Florida as well or was she in Brazil?

 

Adriana Rocha: So, she is there in Brazil, and she runs all of the operations side of the company. She’s doing well as well. We really work pretty well together. We complement each other in terms of skills, and they are always creating new things and challenging all of the team and she’s the one who says, “OK. That’s fine. That’s amazing, but let’s see how we deliver these.” So that’s another part of not just having an amazing team is really having the right people on the right feet, in having people that you trust and have your back. Not just in good times but in challenging times as well.

 

Lenny Murphy:  So, tell her. I said, hello. We, we met in Atlanta, and as ESOMAR in Atlanta.

But anyway, so let me conscious of time. For aspiring entrepreneurs, any last advice? Any guidance you could give them to kind of distill all this experience you’ve gotten for them.

 

Adriana Rocha: I would say that one of the most important skills that entrepreneurs should have is resilience. They should not give up on the first obstacles, or the first mistakes because that’s how you grow. That’s how will you really become strong and take your business to the next level. Also, I will say that being focused, learning fast, applying the learnings, and trusting your vision.

And, of course, we talked a lot about the team, about having the right people. I think that’s one of the things that entrepreneurs should really learn from the beginning. That you need to really have people who are aligned with your vision and are aligned with your future.

So, it’s about people. It’s about learning fast. It’s about not giving up in the first, challenging time. And I think that is really important advice for people starting their business. 

 

Lenny Murphy: Words of wisdom.

 

Adriana Rocha: Thank you. 

 

Lenny Murphy: Oh, it’s always a pleasure. Always a joy to catching up with Adriana. It’s been too long, and we need to make sure if that doesn’t happen again. So, let’s, let’s connect again soon, just to catch up because I’m just such a huge fan of all that you’ve done. And just Love you, love how you’re building the business.

 

Adriana Rocha: Sure.  sure. And so, thank you, again, and it’s really great to connect again and see you, as well and I look forward to continuing working together in developing new things. So, yeah. Thank you.