Stephanie Vance’s media page
Turning Insights Functions Into Engines of Innovation
Stephanie Vance spent 20 years learning what makes an insight true. Now she helps organizations build the systems that make insights matter.
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Who is Stephanie?
Stephanie Vance is a social scientist by training and an insights leader by trade. With a PhD in Social Psychology and a research background in attitudes and social cognition, she's spent nearly two decades studying not just what consumers say, but what actually drives their behavior: first as a researcher, now as someone who builds the organizational engines that turn that understanding into competitive advantage.
Her career has taken her through nearly every seat in the consumer insights world: brand-side at Samsung, agency-side at Sentient Services and Troubadour Research and Consulting, and now inside an insights technology company as VP of Customer Experience & Research Strategy at aytm. She's run quant and qual, strategic and tactical, product and brand research, which means when she talks about what makes insights work, she's speaking from every angle of the table, not just one.
That range shaped a simple, demanding definition she holds every insight to: it has to be true (rigorous, defensible science), actionable (tied to a real decision), and novel (something the business didn't already know). Most “insights,” she'll argue, only clear one or two of those bars.
Today, Stephanie's focus has shifted from individual projects to something bigger: helping organizations build insights functions that operate as a sustainable engine of innovation, not a service desk that answers one-off questions, but a strategic capability the business runs on.
Highlights
- Nearly 20 years across every side of the consumer insights industry: brand, agency, and technology platform
- PhD in Social Psychology (attitudes and social cognition), bringing rigorous experimental method to business strategy
- Co-host of The Curiosity Current, winner of Best Business Podcast at the 2026 Quill Podcast Awards, exploring how research and technology are reshaping the insights industry
- Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Trusted by Fortune 100 companies across CPG, Food & Beverage, Tech, and Financial Services to help build sustainable insights functions that drive innovation
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Media Appearances
Listen to Stephanie's previous interviews
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What Your Audience Could Learn
The Data Quality Problem No One Wants to Talk About
As research tools multiply and AI enters every stage of the process, Stephanie argues the industry has a growing blind spot around data quality itself: what it means, how to test for it, and how easy it is to mistake more data (or more automated data) for better data.
She makes the case that speed and volume mean nothing if the underlying data can't be trusted, and that rigor around data quality is the foundation everything else, including AI, has to be built on.
The Right Way to Ask About Behavior, And Why Most Surveys Get It Backwards
As a survey researcher herself, Stephanie isn't anti-survey, she's anti-bad question design. Her research on the intention-behavior gap shows that when people are asked directly about a behavior, they often unconsciously blend what they intend to do with what they actually do.
But when respondents are first given space to express their aspirations, they can then report their real behavior far more accurately and comfortably. It's a small methodological shift with a big payoff: better questions, not fewer surveys, are the fix for the say-do gap.
The Evolution of the Traditional Researcher
Stephanie is optimistic about where AI is taking the research profession, not toward obsolescence, but toward something more strategic. As routine tasks get automated, she sees researchers shifting from report generators to strategic partners: interpreting signals, challenging assumptions, and co-creating decisions with the business.
The question isn't whether AI replaces researchers, it's how the role evolves to make deeper human judgment more valuable, not less.
Why Making Research Accessible Is a Good Thing, If We Get It Right
Stephanie explores how research is becoming more accessible across organizations, allowing more people to run studies and access insights without being traditional researchers.
But democratizing research shouldn’t mean democratizing quality. As more people use research tools, there need to be the right guardrails in place to help users generate insights that are reliable, meaningful, and genuinely useful.
The goal isn’t simply to help more people do research. It’s to help more people uncover insights that are truly worth acting on.
Why Strong Data Isn’t Enough to Drive Decisions
Being right isn’t the job. Stephanie explores the uncomfortable lesson that even strong research and insights can be ignored if they aren’t connected to real business decisions.
She shares why researchers need to move beyond simply presenting the data and focus on making their insights actionable. That means simplifying complex findings, telling a clear story, and communicating in a way that leaders can understand and act on.
For Stephanie, the real value of research isn’t just getting the answer right. It’s helping the business know what to do with it.
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