GIZEM CEYLAN

INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE

I spent 10 years in two leading consumer goods and beauty companies internationnaly.

My experience started at Procter & Gamble where I worked at different levels in the consumer insights department and oversaw both qualitative and quantitative research. Across various roles, I partnered with multi-functional teams in marketing, sales, finance, and public relations to advance our understanding of the environment and develop products and campaigns that provide benefits consumers were looking to satisfy. While working in Africa, I did not only work on developing insights but also worked with research agencies to build a sound infrastructure to collect high quality data. I trained my team as well as researchers working for the research gencies partnered with me. In the 3.5 years I was in Africa, I offered insights about consumers and markets to numerous leadership teams and category teams. It was such as pleasure to see those insights led to the major changes in product devealopment and strategy for P&G in Africa as well as all in developing markets.

Later, I worked at the Estee Lauder Companies and oversaw global insights work for the flagship Estee Lauder brand. This experience helped me expand my knowledge of consumer and product needs to the prestige beauty category and to Asia.

All in all, these experiences helped me to gain invaluable experience in all fronts of the research process. Further, these experiences taught me that arriving insights is just the first step. A more important step is to influence decision makers at all levels including the leadership teams and key functions.