Cyndhia Varshni on Human Judgment, Curiosity, and the Future of Strategic Insights

Editor’s Note: The following interview features a 2026 Greenbook Future List honoree, Cyndhia Varshni. The Greenbook Future List recognizes leadership, professional growth, personal integrity, passion, and excellence in the next generation of consumer insights and marketing professionals within the first 10 years of their careers.

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Cyndhia Varshni, Senior Research Manager at BEESY Strategy and a 2026 Future List Honoree, is passionate about understanding the human behaviors that shape decision-making. Combining behavioral curiosity with strategic thinking, she believes the future of insights lies in pairing technological advances with thoughtful interpretation. Her perspective emphasizes empathy, critical thinking, and the growing role of insights in shaping business strategy from the very beginning.

Outside of insights, what are your passions and interests?

Outside of my formal insights work, I find human behavior in general, quite fascinating: why people make the choices they do, and what those choices mean. This often shows up in quieter, more personal ways. I enjoy reading across psychology and behavioral science, often as a way to reflect and make sense of patterns I see in real life. I have also found great value in having a creative outlet.

Painting has become an important way for me to slow down and process. It helps me reset in ways that structured and conscious thinking can’t always reach. Beyond that, I’m involved with non-profits, which is deeply meaningful to me. Contributing time and skills to causes larger than myself keeps me connected to impact beyond the workplace and reminds me why the work I do matters.

When did you know you wanted to enter a career in insights, and what inspired you? 

The decision to take up a career in insights was not something that came about overnight or was driven by a single defining moment. It grew out of a long-standing curiosity about why people do what they do. That curiosity only deepened as I began paying attention to the extent to which context, culture, and real-world constraints shaped decisions.

Over time, I became more interested in work that went beyond measuring behavior to actually explaining it; work that helps make sense of how people think and choose within the environments they are in. That was when insights started to feel like a natural fit.

How has market research changed since you first started your career? 

Market research has become faster, more tech-enabled, and broader in scope. Access to data is easier than it’s ever been, and collection can happen at speed. But that shift has only made interpretation and judgment all the more important. In the AI powered world in which we live, having a critical eye matters now more than ever.

Outputs reach us quickly, but they still need to be questioned, pressure-tested, and grounded in context. That ability to slow down, to question what’s in front of us, and apply to human judgment is something market researchers are uniquely trained to do and it is becoming one of our most essential skills.

What advice do you have for folks hoping to start a career in insights?

I would encourage people starting out to spend as much time building how they think as they do learning specific tools or methodologies. Platforms and techniques will continue to evolve and change, but curiosity, judgment, and clear communication consistently show up as the skills that matter most in insights work.

Those skills are what allow insights to move beyond outputs and actually influence decisions. It also helps to pay attention to how decisions are actually made inside organizations, not just how research is designed. I have found that the work is strongest when it stays anchored in what the insights mean for real people and the choices they need to make.

What do you think the key characteristics or qualities of a leader are? How does this play into MRX? 

To me, leadership has come to mean bringing clarity and empathy into the room, and knowing when to listen, when to guide, and when to step back. Not every situation calls for the same approach, and being able to adapt your style based on the moment, the people involved, and what’s at stake really matters.

In MRX, that shows up in very practical ways: creating space for questions when the work is ambiguous, offering direction when teams need momentum, and encouraging different perspectives. When leaders respect both the rigor of the data and the people behind it, and adjust how they show up accordingly, the work becomes more thoughtful and the insights carry more weight.

What trends do you see making headway on the horizon of insights? What trends do you think will falter in years to come?

AI and automation are clearly reshaping how information is synthesized and accessed, and that momentum will continue. But I expect approaches that prioritize speed or automation alone, without judgment or context, to lose traction over time. The real value will come from blending technological capability with thoughtful interpretation.

Human judgment still matters; in deciding what’s worth exploring, how to pressure-test outputs, and why any of it should matter in the real world. As tools become faster and data more abundant, the challenge won’t be access to information, but focus: knowing where to look, what to question, and how to translate complexity into decisions that people can actually act on.

Where do you see the future of insights heading in the next 10 years?

Insights already plays an important role in informing decisions; especially around launch planning, positioning, messaging, and such. Over the next decade, I see that role becoming more continuous and upstream. Rather than being engaged at defined moments, insights will be increasingly integrated into the ongoing conversations where strategy, priorities, and trade-offs are taking shape.

As that happens, the function shifts from supporting individual decisions to helping shape direction more broadly; working alongside strategy, marketing, product, and leadership as questions are formed, not just answered.