Brian Fowler is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Insights Career Network (ICN), a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to empowering consumer insights, market research, UX, and analytics professionals.

Inspired by an undergraduate elective at Middle Tennessee State University, Brian launched his 40-year career in a customer satisfaction call center. He honed his qualitative and quantitative skills at three agencies before joining NFIB, where extensive fieldwork established him as a subject matter expert on independent businesses. After earning his MBA, Brian navigated the dot-com bust in San Francisco by launching an independent research consultancy and advising struggling startups. That entrepreneurial agility, paired with continuous volunteer service, led him to CFMC, an industry-pioneering research technology platform, where—at age 38—he was named Chief Operating Officer. Over a decade as COO, Brian leveraged core insights skills—listening, identifying key metrics, and strategic storytelling—to guide the employee-owned firm and its users and clients through major modernization and an eventual acquisition.

In 2022, Brian and five co-founders started the Insights Career Network to fill the gaps in our professional support system with relevant, volunteer-powered assistance. Today, the nonprofit ICN serves as an insights career hub, supported by dozens of volunteers and a community of more than 37,000. ICN has hosted more than 150 free virtual events, published original research on insights labor movements and skills gaps, and introduced thousands to new worlds through its insights job referrals.

In his keynote, "Grounded in Human Truth: Driving the Future of Insights in Your First 5 Years," Brian draws on ICN’s original research and four decades of leadership to show how emerging professionals can turn core human empathy into high-impact strategic influence.

David Feick is a consumer insights and marketing strategy executive with more than 25 years of experience helping brands transform consumer understanding into business growth. He currently serves as Senior Director of Market & Consumer Insights at Kinetic, where he leads consumer insights, market intelligence, and competitive strategy for a multi-state broadband business.

Prior to Kinetic, David held senior leadership roles at Sonos, T-Mobile, and Yahoo!, building and leading research organizations supporting brand strategy, product development, customer experience, and pricing. He also served as Head of Technology and Telecom Practice at Engine Insights, advising brands including Apple, T-Mobile, Meta, and Sonos, and as EVP of North America at Stickee Technology, leading U.S. market expansion for an insights and analytics SaaS platform.

Having worked across client-side insights leadership, research consulting, and insights technology, David brings a distinctive perspective on how research is designed, interpreted, and translated into business decisions—and looks forward to sharing those lessons with the next generation of researchers.

David holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Social Psychology from the University of Utah and a B.A. in Economics and Psychology from Claremont McKenna College.

David Feick will provide an insider's perspective on how client-side insights teams generate consumer understanding and turn it into business action. From collaborating with research partners to leading end-to-end studies in-house and leveraging AI to accelerate analysis and decision-making, attendees will see how research fits into the broader business ecosystem. David will share real-world examples of how his insights team tackled business challenges, uncovered opportunities, and helped shape strategic decisions, offering students a practical look at the impact research can have inside an organization.

Dr. Cecilia Dones is a researcher, educator, and practitioner who studies how AI, algorithms, and data systems shape the way people understand each other, make decisions, and build trust. Her work sits at the intersection of market research, consumer behavior, strategic communication, and artificial intelligence.

As the founder of 3 Standard Deviations, Dr. Dones advises organizations on data, analytics, and AI strategy. Prior to founding her consultancy, she held analytics and strategy roles with global brands including L'Oréal and LVMH, where she worked on understanding consumers, measuring business performance, and translating data into action.

Dr. Dones teaches courses on AI, communication, and decision-making and has taught or guest lectured at institutions including Columbia University, MIT Sloan School of Management, and The Wharton School. She holds a B.S. from New York University Stern School of Business, an M.A. in Statistics from Columbia University, and a doctorate focused on trust and communication in digitally mediated environments.

She is also the author of the LinkedIn newsletter, *What Is a CMO to Do With AI?*, and the Substack *Authentic Interactions*, where she explores how emerging technologies are changing communication, relationships, organizations, and everyday life. Her work helps future researchers and business leaders navigate a world where understanding people increasingly requires understanding both human behavior and AI systems.

A practical talk on building an insights career right now; what's changing about how you'll be evaluated, hired, and trusted early on, and what still won't be automated out of the job. As a concrete case study, we'll look at "synthetic data," a term currently covering five distinct methods with different evidentiary grounding and use it to show what it actually looks like, day to day, to develop the kind of precise, explainable expertise that sets you apart. You'll leave with career-stage-relevant guidance, plus one immediately usable piece of vocabulary to bring into conversations with vendors, interviewers, and clients this week.