Our guest today is Reed Cundiff, Chief Executive Officer at the Schlesinger Group. Founded in 1966, Schlesinger is a leading provider of quantitative and qualitative research solutions and has built and bought leading technology solutions providing customers with both best-in-class service and software. Prior to joining Schlesinger, Reed served as a General Manager at Microsoft, SVP at the Yankee Group, and CEO of the Americas for Kantar. Find Reed Online: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reed-cundiff-3b0a181/Schlesinger Group: https://www.schlesingergroup.com/en/ Find Jamin Online: Email: jamin@happymr.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jaminbrazilTwitter: www.twitter.com/jaminbrazil Find Us Online: Twitter: www.twitter.com/happymrxp LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/happymarketresearch Facebook: www.facebook.com/happymrxp Website: www.happymr.com Music: “Clap Along” by Auditionauti: https://audionautix.com This Episode is Sponsored by: HubUX is a research operation platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions, and surveys. For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubux.com. [00:00:00] Jamin Brazil: Hey, everybody. You are listening to the Happy Market Research Podcast. We have a special guest today, Reed Cundiff. He is the chief executive officer as the Schlesinger Group. Founded in 1966, Schlesinger is a leading provider of qualitative and quantitative research solutions and has built and bought leading technology solutions which now provide companies best-in-class, both in terms of service and software. Prior to joining Schlesinger, Reed has served as a general manager at Microsoft, SVP at the Yankee Group, and CEO of the Americas for Kantar. Reed, thanks so much for making time for us and being on the Happy Market Research Podcast today. [00:00:44] Reed Cundiff: Thanks for having me, Jamin. It’s a pleasure to be here. [00:00:50] Jamin Brazil: HubUX is a research operations platform for private panel management, qualitative automation including video audition questions, and surveys. For a limited time, user seats are free. If you’d like to learn more or create your own account, visit hubux.com. I’d like to start out with this context question. Tell us a little bit about your parents, what they did and how that informs what you do today. [00:01:15] Reed Cundiff: I love this question, and probably my mom in particular loves this question. Both my parents worked outside the home. My dad was a mechanical engineer at DuPont for over 30 years. And I have to say, he believed in a structured approach to pretty much everything in life as engineers sometimes do, and also had a real strong belief in efficient execution, whether that was at work, whether that was mowing the lawn or whatever the case may be. And so I think that kind of structured approach and focus on efficiency certainly has showed up in my work life and home life. The interesting blend was my mom was a change management and a talent consultant with Towers Perrin and Watson Wyatt and a few other organizations. And so she honestly built a career around the belief and the power of people and teams to be able to tackle pretty much anything in the world and just the importance of human capital within a business context. So together I feel like honestly, it’s pretty logical that I ended up here. I couldn’t have told you that at 22, but bent towards a structured understanding of the world and a focus on the people side of business has I think really driven me to where I am now. [00:02:44] Jamin Brazil: It is a special skill set that you possess and that has thankfully been installed by your family, that both probably in terms of DNA and also obviously observational. So that’s super interesting. But it’s a special skill to be able to take the chaos of life or business and then create order around that and structure so that you can create repeatable processes. Have you seen in your career, is this a skill that’s innate with people, or is this something that you see people that maybe don’t have it can invest in and actually achieve that? [00:03:14] Reed Cundiff: I think it’s absolutely a skill that people can learn. And of course people are going to have a tendency coming in. But what pops to mind for me, Jamin, was my first job out of school was as a market analyst for Gartner. And this is where believe it or not, even after what I consider to be a pretty good education, thinking in a logical way and communicating in a structured way was something that I’d only taken the first couple steps in a marathon in learning how to do. And those first few years out of school, I thankfully had folks who were willing to invest time and energy in teaching me how to improve. And I definitely feel like that’s put me on a better path than I would’ve been just in a state of nature. [00:04:05] Jamin Brazil: Yes, ...
