Interview with Kristin Luck

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.

---

What to say about Kristin Luck? Well, my nickname for her is “Rockstar” and that might sum it up best because that is what she is in our industry. Charismatic, genuine, brilliant, and altruistic, she exemplifies the qualities that the best Rockstars seem to exemplify. She is insanely successful after building and existing multiple successful companies, she has leveraged her experience to help many other companies succeed, and she has done more to help support the cause of equality, diversity, and inclusion in our industry than anyone else. Am I gushing a bit? Well, yeah I am but I have had a chance to become personal friends with Kristin over the past 12 or so years, and to collaborate with her in many ways on the professional front. She has earned my trust, my respect, and my genuine admiration.

It just so happens that Kristin is running for ESOMAR President (learn more information about the election) and March is Women’s History Month. I can’t think of a better way to kick off both events than with my interview with Kristin. It’s fun, insightful, inspiring and educational so I think you’ll enjoy it very much.  Here it is.

 

 

The interview has been edited for clarity.

 

 Lenny Murphy: Hello everybody, it’s Lenny Murphy with one of our interview series, and we are doing a special series today of well for the next few weeks on women who have made a massive impact in the industry and I can’t think of a person who exemplifies that more than Kristin Luck. Kristin welcome.

 

 Kristin Luck: Thanks for having me. appreciate being back on your program.

 

 Lenny Murphy: Always a pleasure. as we were talking about before it’s been too long and how long we’ve known each other. We were just commiserating on, “Wow! We’re getting old and we’ve been in this industry together for a long time.” So at least I am that Kristin you still.

 

 Kristin Luck: Long time. I mean, I think we’re saying we were both on the 30 under 30 and now We’re pushing 50.

 

 Lenny Murphy: Well, I’m past it now. I’m past it now so. Grown into ourselves, right? We have we’re filling our potential.

 

 Kristin Luck: Yes

 

 Lenny Murphy: So yes, which is a great segue. Think about fulfilling potential, right? I mean, your story also. We met when you were at OTX, right? Well, the cofounders OTX.

 

 Kristin Luck: Yeah, I think I was 28 at the time.

 

 Lenny Murphy: Yeah, so you have done so many amazing things since then from OTX to Decipher to WIRe to ScaleHouse. And now running for President ESOMAR. Just good Lord, if there’s anyone who’s made an impact in this industry, it is you. So, let’s talk about that. Talk about that journey.

 

 Kristin Luck: Yeah, I mean it’s been. It’s been an interesting journey because I feel like I’ve made a lot of career twists and turns. I think I started out…

 

 Lenny Murphy: Sorry, the kids are home cause of ice. That’s my 12-year-old Maryland. Anyway, please go ahead.

 

 Kristin Luck: To the future of women! Then you need things after.

 

 Lenny Murphy: Do we want to stop and start over? Or…

 

 Kristin Luck: Totally up to you

 

 Lenny Murphy: You know what? Let’s roll with it. So here we go and welcome to the new normal alright.

 

 Kristin Luck: The new normal. I have a little dog jumping up on my lap, your daughters walking through. We’re all, yeah.

I was on call the other day where a private equity guy got decapitated by a sword by his son partway through the call. Not literally, but he came up with the sword and like…

 

 Lenny Murphy: Got it

 

 Kristin Luck: Like yeah, there’s a lot going on. Anyway, yeah. I’ve had a very interesting career path. I started out in traditional research and at Lieberman in Los Angeles, and I think that the key for me along the way is always that I’ve been really guided by my curiosity and things that I thought were interesting, and I’ve been really fortunate that those things that I thought were interesting turned out to be pretty lucrative.

I was really very interested in online research early on, was so was lucky to join ACNielsen at a time when they were just deciding to build their first online research platform. Determined pretty quickly ACNielsen was not a great place to build this start-up and left with my business partner, Shelly Zalis, and built OTX, and was the fastest-growing research firm in the world in 2002/2003.

I mean back then I was much younger and I could work 24-hours a day not skipping a beat. I’m not sure I could do that now, but you know, I think certainly the things that I’m passionate about have really guided where I’ve ended up going in my career. And from there and starting Forefront, which was a data visualization platform, and joining Decipher to take them into the software, licensing space and since then, I’ve been consulting and advising.

I think one of the exercises that I go through every time I’m going to make a career transition, is to really think about all the things that I really love doing. Like, what are the things that make me the happiest? And if I could spend my entire day doing something, what would it be? And after that exit from Decipher, was really, gosh if I could just work with other founders all day long and help them scale and monetize their businesses like that would be the most fun that I could have and from there.

It also made a lot of sense for me to get my investment banking license, which I did almost three years ago now, which I would never have imagined in a million years. If you had told me when I was at University that I was going to be an investment banker, I would’ve said you’re crazy.

 

 Lenny Murphy: and congratulations, by the way. I heard that the recent FocusVision/Confirmit deal that you were behind that.

 

 Kristin Luck: So yes, I sit on the board of FocusVision now. We’re very excited. Obviously, we’re in this antitrust period. Right now. But we’re confident that the merger is going to take place and I’m excited for what the future holds for the combined companies.

 

 Lenny Murphy: But it makes a lot of sense. It was kind of those “well, duh!” deals when it was announced so anyway.

 

 Kristin Luck: It was interesting to hear the reactions have been pretty varied. I’ve had some people like, “oh wow, that’s kind of weird”, and others that really understand the synergies between the two companies.

In the opportunity and particularly if you look at some of the other companies in this space Qualtrics when their IPO just hit, they had a $27.3 billion valuation. I mean, that’s unheard of in this industry. So, I think the two firms are better together.

 

 Lenny Murphy: I would agree now biased Apple Company, you’ve got the whole value chain so

 

 Kristin Luck: Right, exactly.

 

 Lenny Murphy: That’s awesome. And I think you and I share that. you know this other part of my business with Gen2, right? That’s just helping people. my kid asked me, “what do you do, Daddy?” I’d say, you know, “I help people.” At least I tried to. that is where the fulfillment comes from.

So, let’s think about your kind of nonprofit work with WIRe. And now with ESOMAR. So, I mean WIRe is grown tremendously right? Really? A force to be reckoned with in the industry now.

 

 Kristin Luck: Yeah, got over 11,000 people in the community worldwide Now if you can believe that.

 

 Lenny Murphy: Really? That big? Wow

 

 Kristin Luck: It’s crazy. this is one of the lessons that I try to import and other entrepreneurs which is sometimes you have to let go to grow. there were many years when I was doing everything for WIRe myself. I held onto it really tightly. I ran all the events myself. I was flying all over the world and running events. I was sending all the emails from my personal email and it was bananas.

Once I started letting other people take the reins and entrusting that the women in each market understood the mission of WIRe and what we were trying to accomplish.  I was able to hire somebody to run marketing. Then I was able to let go of some things and really focus on what I felt like I was good at, which was creating community and the mission behind what we’re trying to do and do some strategic partnerships.

ESOMAR has been one of those partners for us and that came about. Actually, I think even before I was involved in Council, for people that aren’t familiar with ESOMAR, the board of ESOMAR is called Council. So, I joined. Council six years ago I’ve been on for six years. The last two as vice president and that partnership has been really important to WIRe in terms of our global expansion. So, I think we were like in. I mean we’re on every continent now, which is separate Antarctica, I think.

 

 Lenny Murphy: Yeah, so far.

 

 Kristin Luck: Right so far. Stay tuned. Yeah, and I think the last year it’s interesting. The last year I think has been amazing in a lot of ways for the floor for WIRe because for the first time people were able to attend events in different markets. That and kind of ‘go where they wanted to go based on content’ versus ‘based on location’ which has been a super interesting learning experience for us.

 

 Lenny Murphy: The shift to virtual certainly has been interesting. A lot of benefits, right? That is not being locked into location.

So now in this partnership with ESOMAR and you being on Council, you are standing for president again. I’m not an ESOMAR member but and I may break a rule here, but you’d have my vote and I would encourage everybody else to go for you as well. So, there’s that. cause you’d be the first American in a long time when is it?

 

 Kristin Luck: [Anne-Sophie Damelincourt] I believe was living in the states when she was president. At least part-time she was. Florida, but yeah, it would be. I mean regardless of. I mean two women are running for president myself and Anne, so who’s our Treasurer currently. So regardless, we’re going to have our first female president and close to 11 years. I think there’s only been two female presidents in the entire history of ESOMAR, so it’s an exciting time, regardless of who wins.

Traditionally what’s been interesting about ESOMAR is that although we’re a global Association and the US makes up, I think that 56% of the global research spend now, if you look at the Americas combined, certainly the largest spend region in the world. yet we’ve been very traditionally underrepresented on Council, less than 10%. I think some of that relates to ESOMAR’s roots, which were as a European Association.

But yeah, that’s changed for some time now, and I do get some questions from folks saying like, “ESOMAR is based in Amsterdam. How would it work with the President on the West coast of the States?” and my response to that is it has to work because if they were really a global association, then we need to be able to support members all over the world. That means Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Africa, Nigeria, Nicaragua, anywhere in the world where we have members, we need to be able to provide them with resources and support.

 

 Lenny Murphy: Well, we learned that in 2020. So, we just mentioned, right? Decoupling from locations. So we all adapted and a variety of ways where we’re not geo-specific anymore. The fact that you’re in Bend, Oregon, or I’m in Atlanta, it’s largely irrelevant to our businesses.

 

 Kristin Luck: It is Yeah. Although I do miss the travel.

 

 Lenny Murphy: I bet you do. But here’s a virtual hug, Kristin.

 

 Kristin Luck: Thank you. I’m a hugger.

 

 Lenny Murphy: And I do too. Hopefully, we’ll get back to something like normal second half this year. I think that’s what we’re planning on is by the fall. I don’t think, it’ll be a while before we get back to this scale of live events and live interactions that we were at this time last year.

 

 Kristin Luck: I agree

 

 Lenny Murphy: But I think we’ll get back. So, and begin that process later on this year. So we think about the future, then with the ESOMAR for Presidency and WIRe and all of your scale house. That I can see where all that fits from supporting the industry going forward.

I love to hear your vision of what you would like to achieve. How these various aspects of your life and your business can synthesize to add value.

 

 Kristin Luck: Yeah, well it’s interesting. I think we’re in a time of intense transformation in the industry. That’s in large part driven by this pandemic.

If you look at the projections for industry growth over the next couple of years, most of the growth again, it’s coming from the digital and tech sides of the business and that’s to downplay the importance of full-service research. I think it is as important as it ever was, but I do think a lot of businesses were hit very hard by this pandemic.

Like yourself, I’ve got a decade of experience building and scaling businesses. My firms survived the dot-com crash, the economic recession back in 2007, and now pandemic so, I’ve got a lot of experience navigating rough waters during turbulent times, and I’m hoping to do the same for ESOMAR, and certainly achieve that WIRe.

I’ve also served for the last six years on the board of the ESOMAR Foundation, which is ESOMAR’s nonprofit arm that serves researchers in need. when I first joined the board that entity was largely reliant on ESOMAR funds and we’ve transformed it into a self-sustaining entity, and John Kieran runs it, runs the foundation now, so this is a transformation specialty in many ways

 

 Lenny Murphy: It’s fantastic.

 

 Kristin Luck: When I think about ESOMAR also about WIRe. In my own business, we truly live in a global society and we need to be able to support and sustain members or community regardless of where we are on the continent. And then bringing younger researchers into the fold.

I know you and I have talked about this before, but your startup competitions at IIEX have been really fundamental in bringing new ideas, new technologies, new people, younger ideas, new thinking into the business – which is super important.

We really have to open our arms to data scientists, behavioral data firms, firms that maybe we’d be a little scared of or reluctant to embrace in the past. my feeling is always hey, don’t push these things away because we’re nervous about them or we don’t understand how they work and they don’t necessarily follow the same rules that we do. I think ESOMAR’s role as an Association is how do we partner with these firms that they understand the importance of data ethics and risk? respondent privacy and all of the things that are so important to us as researchers. You know? I think it’s important to bring those folks into the fold.

 

 Lenny Murphy: Yeah, I agree. that’s always I think what we’ve tried to do with GreenBook. to be that top of the funnel to bring these companies in and hand them off to ESOMAR, Insights Association whatever the case may be, right?  the appropriate organization where they can be brought into the fold more appropriately.

 

 Kristin Luck: It’s actually been great for ESOMAR. I mean a lot of the folks that I’ve met at IIEX events in that competition are ESOMAR members. And some of them are my advisory clients now.

 

 Lenny Murphy: Now we’ll get the synergy, Kristin. So, I want to be conscious of time because Lord knows you have a lot on your plate. So, As for presidencies, two years, right?

 

 Kristin Luck: Two years

 

 Lenny Murphy: So, we think about a two-year timeframe, whether it’s ESOMAR president or is not. What will you think? What will you call a success in two years if you can accomplish it? What does that look like for you?

 

 Kristin Luck: For sure membership growth globally for sure. particularly in markets like Africa, Latin America, Asia Pacific, where we struggle to grow Membership in the past and to really get people engaged again. I think that that goes back to this idea of making the Association a bit more global in nature.

Definitely seeing a growth of our younger members and getting them more engaged and involved in the Association, and I think also making sure again that we’re expanding the remit of ESOMAR so that we are more inclusive to these new types of companies that are coming into the business. we want to make sure that we’re maintaining our relevance and that as research evolves and changes and we have some of these new players coming into our ecosystem that we’re really embracing them and bring them into the fold versus sort of trying to keep them at arm’s length. these are a lot of the arm’s length business challenges that we’ve worked on as a council for the last two years.

2 years is not a lot of time to get these things done and that’s why it’s important that there’s some consistency in terms of making sure that the initiatives that we started or carry through and that has been really maximized, which is challenging when you’re changing the Council every two years.

 

 Lenny Murphy: Now what about you personally? So, two years. what’s a personal goal that you think you know cause you’ve done so much?  What’s next for you?

 

 Kristin Luck: I think it’s interesting. I’ve lived for the last eight years I’ve lived part-time in the US and part-time in Greece. I’ve never actually lived overseas full time. so originally my goal for 2020 was that I was going to move to Athens full time for a year and then I was going to send spend six months in Paris-Lyon, and learn French, which I’ve always wanted to learn. And then of course this pandemic change this pretty significantly.

So, I think that the rule of 2020 has taught us is that you can make all the plans in the world, but the world may have other plans for you, so We’ll see what happens.

I mean, I think the key for me is I always want to be learning new things. so, I’m always reading or like I read an article and give me an idea of something new and different. I want to read about a new place to visit and so for me, I’m dying to get back on an airplane. I know many people are not, but I’m going to squeeze back into my work pants and hit the road as soon as I can.

 

 Lenny Murphy: Well and another is that the new idea, one of the few newsletters that I look forward to our your ScaleHouse newsletters. Is there’s always so much great stuff in there. So, readers, if you have not subscribed to the Christmas newsletter via her consultancy ScaleHouse, you should do that. Because it’s always provocative and interesting and pretty damn funny too most of the time. So, your sense of humor comes through all.

 

 Kristin Luck: My major in journalism has paid off Lenny. My parents would be proud.

 

 Lenny Murphy: This has been fantastic. Let’s not wait another couple of years before we do this.

 

 Kristin Luck: No. No of course not.

 

 Lenny Murphy: So hopefully actually ESOMAR elections are next month on what date when is that?

 

 Kristin Luck: March 1^st. Yeah, and then there are first. If you are an ESOMAR member, keep an eye out for the ballot and please, please vote!

 

 Lenny Murphy: Alright so, our next conversation I’ll have to call you Madam President then.

 

 Kristin Luck: Fingers crossed

 

 Lenny Murphy: Alright Kristin. Be well, take care and we’ll talk soon. Alright

 

 Kristin Luck: See ya.