GreenBook Future List Spotlight: Laarni Paras

Outside of insights, what are your passions and interests?

Before insights, I worked in women’s rights so that area remains a strong passion of mine. This certainly helped me in bringing empathy and diverse perspectives in my research work, especially in methodology design and insights.

As an immigrant, access to opportunities can change your life significantly. I make it a priority to give back to my community as well as elevating diverse voices in any way I can. I go back to my college every year as a mentor as a way to pay forward the mentorship I’ve received throughout my career. The uprising of marginalized groups in 2020 further strengthened my dedication to increasing diversity in all aspects of my work and community involvement.

 

Who is your career role model or source of inspiration?

My parents and other immigrant families.

They grew up in the aftermath of war and later on, decades-long dictatorship. Yet they persevered and got us to Canada for a better life. These brilliant, resilient, innovative minds faced many of the barriers including undocumented work, underemployment, racism, poverty to name a few. And yet, here we are, children of immigrants thriving despite all those odds. They taught me unbelievable work ethic, utmost resilience, and the hunger for learning at any stage in your life. They gave me the gift of curiosity that has served me well in my research career.

To all the immigrant parents and families who cross continents and oceans and borders, maraming salamat po.

 

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

I started out in community-based research and I wanted to move into the corporate world for better career opportunities. I attended an event for Women in Advertising and I was glued to the keynote speaker’s presentation the entire time. It wasn’t boring presentation of research findings. It was exciting, inspiring, and also beautifully designed. I was also inspired by the speaker herself – I saw what could be possible for me years down the road. Never underestimate the power of representation.

It eventually led me to going into custom research. To this day, I still remember that presentation. It remains a driving force in my work and I make it a priority to create visually impactful ways to convey insights.

 

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

Empathy and curiosity.

Empathy helps us as researchers better understand the communities we are observing. I believe empathy drastically helps improve methodology design to the way you communicate with respondents to how you represent the groups you are studying. Through empathy, you may begin to understand the world through different perspectives aside from your own. It also makes leaders be better mentors to others.

Great leaders are also curious. They ask a lot of questions, do not settle for status quo, and look for ways to achieve change and solve problems. Curiosity is contagious (I think) and inspires others to think.

The combination of curiosity and empathy is powerful in understanding those who are different from us and how to make this world a better place together.

 

Tell us about any advocacy/volunteer/association work you’re doing within the industry. What issues are you trying to solve? Why is this work critical for the industry?

DIVERSITY AND REPRESENTATION.

2020 has cracked open a lot more doors for us to talk about diversity in general and of course, specifically within the insights industry. To be clear, many of us have been doing anti-racism advocacy work for many, many years. I have been a community activist for over 15 years, with a focus on women, immigrant, and disability rights. It was only this year were it felt like marginalized voices could no longer be ignored. It also felt a bit safer to bring issues of diversity to the table and be taken more seriously in the workplace and the industry.

Research and insights touches so many industries and products and services and influences innovation. Lack of diversity in leadership roles is absolutely critical for our industry to address. Additionally, every other company has made promises to do better, specifically for Black, Indigenous, and people with disabilities. It is up to us to hold ourselves accountable to those promises or nothing will change. We will lose great talent and innovation opportunities.

I’ve been lucky enough to team up with a small group of my colleagues to form SW&A’s first DEI team where we developed a DEI strategic plan to increase diversity across the organization. A solid but evolving plan with specific metrics and goals to hold ourselves accountable.

I’m also currently involved with Insights In Colour, which is a community built for multicultural market research & insights professionals in increase inclusion and representation. I was also invited to get involved with Canadian Research Insights Council’s efforts to address exclusion and racism in the insights industry. And most recently, I am grateful to be a finalist for the MRX Diversity Champion Award from WIRe.

 

If you could change one thing about insights, what would it be?

I wish the insights industry had a better structure overall to mentor, nurture, and promote diverse talent across all the services. Being able to visualize a future in your career and be able to identify mentors and leaders who can help you on that path is crucial, not just for younger researchers but for all of us in the industry.

Of course, career paths are not always linear but we need to be more purposeful in making the insights industry a place where younger people can see themselves thrive and grow (and be competitively compensated).

One way we can do that is to diversify industry leadership.