Today sees the launch of a podcast series – “Unequal Truths” by ICG member Ella Fryer-Smith. In each of the episodes, she interviews a successful researcher who tell us the story of how they’ve built their career and how as an industry we might become more inclusive. Her first interviewee is fellow ICG member and Konrad Collao.
Ella introduces her podcast series and her motivation in producing it:
“I started working in market research nearly 15 years ago. When I entered the industry, I noticed there were a few differences between me and my peers – I didn’t take a gap year to travel, or do ‘ski season’, instead worked as a waitress to buy clothes and go out partying, I hadn’t gone to a Russell group university, rather one with a large working class intake where I felt much more at home. And the way I spoke sounded different. Basically, the workplace wasn’t very diverse and I stuck out.
Many years on, and we’re still not diverse enough as an industry and this really matters, because from toilet roll to taxes, our work impacts EVERYBODY! The more diverse we are, the better our work will be – how can we hope to reflect the diverse reality of everyday life, if we’re not reflective of our society?
I started the Unequal Truths podcast to try and address this issue by hearing from researchers who like me, entered the industry from low-income backgrounds and have successfully navigated the market research industry to build a career. In the podcast they share their stories – what they learnt on their journey and what we can all learn from their experiences – to help our industry become more inclusive.
My hope is that, building on the new pathways for discussion built by the Black Lives Matter movement, this will contribute to the conversation around D&I generally in market research and provide a space for organisations, leaders, peers and aspiring market researchers to listen and, provoke ideas for change.”
You can access the podcast via Ella’s website here or via your preferred streaming service below.
On Spotify
On Apple
On Stitcher
On TuneIn
On Podbean