Editor’s Note: The following interview features a GreenBook Future List honoree, Josipa Majic. 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.
Introducing Josipa Majic
Josipa Majic is the founder and CEO at Tacit.tech, a London-based company with offices in the EU that collects and analyses biometric data. Tacit is group of computer scientists, neuroscience experts, MDs, psychologists, researchers, and hardware and software engineers that have been working on research products with a range of universities, research institutions, and corporate customers since its incorporation in 2013. Josipa is the main visionary behind Tacit’s products and overall strategy, responsible for successful customer relationships with Fortune 100 clients globally. Josipa was a keynote speaker at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, and she has appeared on the BBC, Fox News, WSJ, Forbes, CNN, and many others.
What is something you’ve recently learned from insights?
How to do cutting-edge research, and how to partner up with clients to deliver more business value and co-create better research methodologies.
What would you like the insights industry to understand about marketers, and what marketers are looking for?
We all just want to know the consumer better. How are their desires, fears, and identities evolving daily, and how does that affect their habits, rituals, and preferences?
What’s a fun fact about yourself that would surprise people to know?
I’m quite dyslexic – even my most serious business emails may be ridden with hilarious typos. 😊
Since starting your career in market research, what would you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?
Creating a research platform that is used by Fortune 100 brands, but is also so simple and easy that respondents love it (and are curious about the results) themselves!
If you could go back in time to when you first started your career, what advice would you give to your younger self?
Focus on your clients’ long-term needs, not industry trends and fads. Fads go away, value stays!
What do you consider to be key characteristics or qualities of a leader? How does this play into market research?
True and intrinsic curiosity, as well as a desire to understand both yourself and the end customers better!
If you could change one thing about the insights industry, what would it be?
Focus more on the actual business value and implementation of gained insights, rather than the report. One can only dream 😊
What are your market research predictions for the near future?
I believe that the future of market research will be always “on”, fully embedded in our normal lives, and robust with behavioural and implicit insights.
How did you get your start in insights? Did you know that this is what you wanted to do, or did you fall into it?
By accident! I was working on a biomedical startup and a senior Fortune 100 executive working in insights suggested we do a pilot where we leverage sensors for consumer research.
What are some of your most used, go-to resources, tools, and/or platforms in insights? What do you like about them and why are they top of mind?
I personally love Twitter, Google Trends, and Exploding Topics – they are fast, self-service, and very actionable!
What is something you’ve built or launched that you’re proud of?
A multimodal affective computing platform that is fast, affordable, scalable, and simple to use!
Do you have a mentor or role model who has made a large impact on your career? If so, who? In what way did they make an impact?
Yes, my angel investors. They have taught me almost everything I know about client and account management.
What sets you apart from your peers? Is there a specific trait that you attribute much of your success to? (For example, resiliency, grit, capacity for risk, etc.)
I would say a mix of curiosity and grit.
What changes would you like to see reflected in the industry over the next five years?
A greater focus on delivering insights that create an impact on the bottom line in a sustainable way.
Is there a specific experience, internship, or job that best prepared you for your career in market research? If so, how and why?
Yes – when I worked on pilot projects directly with big brands via organisations, such as The Bakery in London.
What’s next on the horizon for you? Are there areas where you’re looking to level up? A company you want to launch? A new milestone you want to reach?
We are launching a new self-service product with a freemium model, which is expected to expand our user base by 200%. In addition, we at Tacit.tech want to do simultaneous sensory research on every continent in 2022.
If you had $1M to invest in various parts of the industry, who or what would you invest in? (You can split the amount as you see fit!)
I would double down on behavioural and implicit insights from sensor data.
Is there a particular failure that you’ve experienced that has shaped your career and/or decisions?
An infinite backlog of features that will never go live 😊
