CARMA’s all-women Insights leadership team in the spotlight on International Women’s Day
In celebration of International Women’s Day, we explore the remarkable backgrounds and highlight the experience of CARMA’s all-women Insights leadership team.
In the dynamic world of PR measurement, these exceptional professionals serve as recognized experts, driving innovation and shaping narratives. They share their dedication and knowledge with clients, colleagues, and the community.
We spoke with each member, asking them about the team’s journey and their individual career accomplishments. Through their responses, you’ll not only meet each team member but also gain insight into the diverse paths that have led them to the forefront of the industry.
Join us as we share the stories of these inspiring female leaders, celebrating their achievements and honoring the significance of International Women’s Day in recognizing the invaluable contributions of women in the field of insights and analytics.
Khali Sakkas, Global Head of Insights
Khali is an experienced executive in the communications measurement industry, spending 20 years leading teams to deliver award-winning research to Asia Pacific’s top clients. Prior to joining CARMA in 2021, Khali served as Chief Insights Officer at Isentia where she directed Insights teams in multiple markets and helped to deliver strong business growth, innovative products, and ground-breaking research.
Could you elaborate on how the diverse skills and strengths within the team interplay and complement each other?
Our Insights leadership team brings together a diverse range of backgrounds and skillsets. We are blessed to have each other and have begun to recognise and leverage our different strengths. Our extensive experience in measurement and evaluation and our diverse backgrounds shine through in projects where we come together to innovate for our clients. The team is currently working on a number of new insights approaches to help measure impact, and it is these projects where our diversity and experience help to drive results.
Our differences are something to celebrate as they help us to innovate and see things from different perspectives. We bring together strong operational experience with exceptional leadership and technical expertise. It’s the balance of creativity and order that keeps us on track to deliver at pace.
While we are all motivated by different factors, we are all passionate about our industry and our teams.
In what ways do you support and advocate for each other?
We are lucky to work in a very supportive environment and this has now built to advocacy for each other and emerging leaders within the business. The support works on two levels.
Firstly, we always support each other publicly on social media and other public forums.
Secondly, we are there for each other to provide personal support whenever needed, so there is always a sense that we can reach out and have in-depth conversations. It requires team members to be vulnerable and it also requires a keen sense of observation to pick up when one of us needs more support than usual. We work across multiple times zones and regions, so we need to listen carefully and use intuition.
Advocating and supporting each other is not about always agreeing. One of the things I love the most about our Insights leadership team is that we are prepared to disagree with each other and speak our minds.
Rawan Hashem, Head of Insights – MENA
Rawan leads a team of 200+ insights professionals, showcasing 16 years of expertise in seamlessly integrating research and big data for captivating storytelling. Her collaborative efforts extend to global organizations such as HSBC, Aramco, G20, and KPMG. Since joining CARMA in 2014, Rawan continues to adeptly leverage insights, crafting client-centric solutions that address diverse industry challenges.
Can you share insights into your approach to leadership as a woman within the CARMA Insights team?
My journey as a woman and a mother has very much shaped my leadership style at CARMA. It has instilled in me values close to my heart: empathy, love, and care. I always seek heartfelt commitment from my team, not just compliance. I want them to feel connected with their work and understand the bigger picture and the contribution they are making to CARMA.
One big eye-opener for me was realizing that people act upon their own motivation not mine. Everyone perceives the world uniquely and as a leader, my task is to influence people, not have them see the world through my lens which doesn’t always happen, and surprisingly, that’s a positive thing.
The diversity of perspectives fosters innovation and creativity. I’ve come to appreciate and embrace these differences, realizing that tapping into this variety allows us to achieve more than if we solely rely on our individual knowledge and experience.
The greatest lesson I learned is that people need to be understood and need to share their feelings without fear or without being judged. My job is to create a safe environment for them to open their hearts and minds. That is what I call empathy.
Krysia Lucuk, Head of Insights West
Krysia has over 15+ years’ experience working in the media measurement industry, and has worked across multiple sectors and teams, continuing to build experience in managing global programs. She has managed several successful operational teams, who have been centered around delivering high quality output for client.
Can you discuss any female role models you look up to and how they can assist and guide emerging female leaders?
I reflected on the countless women I could have chosen when asked this question, Marie Curie, Malala Yousafzai, Serena Williams. All serve as an inspiration to me with their extraordinary achievements and resilience and importantly, their courage in overcoming challenges and adversity! However, closer to home and if I’m honest, my role model has always and will always be my sister, Anna, eight years my senior.
Anna has paved her way in the communications and PR world, across retail, beauty and trade, leading European and Global teams, while balancing the joys and challenges of raising two incredible kids and a menagerie of animals. From helping me find my first real corporate role, Anna has been my professional confidant and mentor. She embodies the essence of leadership, teaching me the importance of personal goals, treating everyone with respect and fairness, and the value of hard work. Most importantly, she instilled in me the courage to stand firm in my beliefs and confidently voice my opinions, regardless of the audience.
As a professional woman and working parent, the greatest lesson I’ve learned is the important of authenticity. Being true to yourself, embracing differences, and acknowledging our privileges is crucial. Humility is an essential skill for personal and professional growth!
Inspired by my sister and the many role models in my life, I am committed to uplifting my team, supporting emerging female leaders, and creating an environment where we can celebrate our achievements and overcome obstacles together. My goal is to always empower other women.
Maria Talakina, Insights Director
Maria is a researcher and consultant with 14 years of experience. Before joining CARMA, Maria spent most of her career at Nielsen working with clients across the automotive, pharmaceutical, consumer goods, and sports and entertainment industries. At CARMA, Maria is responsible for the Market Research division which is a natural extension of the wider Insights business, delivering the WHY behind data and giving the voice of the consumer to brands and agencies.
Despite being scattered across several continents; how do you effectively collaborate and work together on a global scale?
I think the key to collaborating effectively is establishing personal connections no matter how close or how far you are. I enjoy having conversations beyond work and getting to know people across the world, and with time it feels like we are almost sitting in the same room. It definitely requires presence, undivided attention, and human touch – exactly the same effort you should put if you were working with someone across the room.
I think sometimes we lose connection by taking the screen in front of us too literal, we build an online wall and limit ourselves to the tasks we just need to complete together. But there’s so much more we can embrace! I remember being saved so many times by teams who spoke the languages I don’t or helping me turn things around overnight in my time zone. It’s so much fun working across cultures and by knowing people a little more we can achieve infinite results.
Rifa Khoder, Insights Director
Rifa, with over a decade of experience from a Fortune 500 company, has been with CARMA for four years. She leverages her expertise in media measurement, data analytics, process improvement, quality assurance concepts, and artificial intelligence to provide actionable insights to clients. Currently, Rifa leads a team of media analysis professionals overseeing a portfolio of over 100 accounts across the MENA region.
Can you discuss any memorable achievements or successes that our Insights leadership team has accomplished together?
It’s challenging to pinpoint a single major success achieved by this remarkable group, given their multifaceted contributions. When they’re not spearheading award-winning projects or playing essential roles in developing industry-wide methodologies, they’re assisting the communication teams of leading global brands in measuring their brand’s reputation and achieving their objectives.
However, if I were to highlight some of the team’s successes, they would include both individual and collective contributions to CARMA, securing gold at AMEC’s Global Measurement Effectiveness Awards every year, with notable achievements such as winning 16 awards in 2023. Moreover, they have played a pivotal role in securing contracts with some of the most prestigious brands worldwide, enabling CARMA to extend its services on a global scale.
On a broader scale, we are a collective of highly experienced individuals and leaders. However, at a more granular level, we represent a diverse group of women from various nationalities and backgrounds who have united to deliver impactful results for our clients.
Therefore, in my perspective, fostering a culture of inclusion and empowerment stands out as a significant accomplishment. This culture fosters collective intelligence and knowledge sharing, allowing us to harness the full potential of our diverse perspectives and talents to drive meaningful impact.
Orla Graham, Insights Consultant
In her role as Insights Consultant at CARMA, Orla advises clients on how to create meaningful, impactful and best practice measurement, leads insights product development and is a thought leader within the industry. She was recently named AMEC’s Executive Professional of the Year.
How do you see the role of women evolving in the field of insights and analytics in the coming years?
One of the biggest challenges in insights, analytics and research is overcoming confirmation bias – there’s a real danger that we can use data to back up our pre-conceived ideas, and dismiss data and trends that don’t align with our understanding of ‘the norm’.
So the more diversity – not just gender, but all sorts of lived experiences, backgrounds and cultures – amongst researchers, the richer our insights and the more useful our research can be. This will become even more important as more data and research increasingly uses automation and AI, where bias can sometimes be quite hidden and difficult to overcome. We need a diverse array of analysts and thinkers to spot the biases, question the status quo, and find more robust interpretations of the data.
Communications and PR insights specifically is an interesting field when it comes to gender diversity – perhaps because PR is a female-dominated industry, we do tend to see a strong representation of women within the field. But that doesn’t mean that more can’t be done – particularly to make sure that women aren’t just entering the field, but are being supported into leadership positions.
It’s a great industry for women who are interested in research, but don’t necessarily want to go down a very STEM or academic-driven route. The range of skills needed – research, analysis, written and verbal communication, project management, presentation skills, visual storytelling, relationship building, to name just a few – makes it a varied, engaging and ever-evolving career path.
Jennifer Sanchis, Insights Consultant
Having studied Journalism, PR and Crisis Comms, Jennifer is passionate about PR research. At CARMA, she provides strategic guidance on gold award-winning global measurement and evaluation programmes. She is one of the best young talents in the industry – in 2023, AMEC awarded her Young Professional of the Year and in 2019, the CIPR East Anglia named her Outstanding Young Communicator. Outside of her day-to-day job, she volunteers at the CIPR Greater London group as a Committee member.
What advice would you offer to other female leaders in the industry, based on your experiences?
Based on my experiences of being a woman and an expat who had to start their career from the bottom, my advice to other female leaders would be to build resilience and continuously invest in themselves.
Leaving one’s home country and starting all over again in a country where you have no friends, and no family has definitely thickened my skin. Be it in your private as well as your professional life, the ability to withstand and recover from difficulties is an absolute essential to becoming a leader.
Resilience comes from putting yourself outside your comfort zone a little bit more every day. It doesn’t always have to be big changes – it starts with taking a client call, leading a presentation, applying for that job or just striking up a conversation with a stranger.
Following other female leaders like Bozoma Saint John, former CMO at Netflix, Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, and Malala Yousafzai, education activist and learning how they overcame hurdles in life inspire me to grow and become more resilient.
I would also advise female leaders to continuously invest in themselves – invest in their professional development, invest in their life experiences, and invest in their own wellbeing. If I have learnt one thing during my (short!) life, it’s that this kind of investment is the safest you can make. It is the best return on investment you can ever get.
Women should never stop prioritising themselves and what is right for them. Deep down, we know our needs and we know when something isn’t right. We need to be better at investing our time and efforts in the endeavours that fulfil us most.
Paige Lingwood, Insights Consultant
With well over a decade of experience, starting in marketing and moving over to measurement, Paige has had the privilege of working with some of the most prestigious brands in the world. Her expertise initially had her understanding the intricacies of consumer behaviour, leveraging that knowledge to create successful marketing campaigns, while now she thrives on helping her clients build a successful insights programme to shape their strategy as a brand.
Have you encountered any barriers or obstacles in your career journey as a woman, and how have you overcome them?
As a woman who originally began her early career in an industry dominated by men with very little female presence (approximately a quarter of the workforce are women to date, a number which has certainly increased recently), I learned very early on that I needed to, unfortunately, prove my worth in any room.
On a regular basis, my views or opinions were questioned as viable options, especially during large-scale workshop or presentational environments. This adversity really shaped the formative years of my career and still plays a part to date. While it forced me to work far harder, I also learned the art of resilience.
Looking ahead, this year’s theme of IWD is to inspire inclusion, which I find extremely fitting for me personally when I compare my early career to my experience here at CARMA. Although I only joined the team in 2024, I can certainly see how strong inclusivity is to the business and how much value each and every staff member brings, regardless of gender.
Fale com um dos nossos experientes consultores sobre a sua monitorização de media e comunicação ainda hoje!
Commentary
CARMA’s all-women Insights leadership team in the spotlight on International Women’s Day
In celebration of International Women’s Day, we explore the remarkable backgrounds and highlight the experience of CARMA’s all-women Insights leadership team.
In the dynamic world of PR measurement, these exceptional professionals serve as recognized experts, driving innovation and shaping narratives. They share their dedication and knowledge with clients, colleagues, and the community.
We spoke with each member, asking them about the team’s journey and their individual career accomplishments. Through their responses, you’ll not only meet each team member but also gain insight into the diverse paths that have led them to the forefront of the industry.
Join us as we share the stories of these inspiring female leaders, celebrating their achievements and honoring the significance of International Women’s Day in recognizing the invaluable contributions of women in the field of insights and analytics.
Khali Sakkas, Global Head of Insights
Khali is an experienced executive in the communications measurement industry, spending 20 years leading teams to deliver award-winning research to Asia Pacific’s top clients. Prior to joining CARMA in 2021, Khali served as Chief Insights Officer at Isentia where she directed Insights teams in multiple markets and helped to deliver strong business growth, innovative products, and ground-breaking research.
Could you elaborate on how the diverse skills and strengths within the team interplay and complement each other?
Our Insights leadership team brings together a diverse range of backgrounds and skillsets. We are blessed to have each other and have begun to recognise and leverage our different strengths. Our extensive experience in measurement and evaluation and our diverse backgrounds shine through in projects where we come together to innovate for our clients. The team is currently working on a number of new insights approaches to help measure impact, and it is these projects where our diversity and experience help to drive results.
Our differences are something to celebrate as they help us to innovate and see things from different perspectives. We bring together strong operational experience with exceptional leadership and technical expertise. It’s the balance of creativity and order that keeps us on track to deliver at pace.
While we are all motivated by different factors, we are all passionate about our industry and our teams.
In what ways do you support and advocate for each other?
We are lucky to work in a very supportive environment and this has now built to advocacy for each other and emerging leaders within the business. The support works on two levels.
Firstly, we always support each other publicly on social media and other public forums.
Secondly, we are there for each other to provide personal support whenever needed, so there is always a sense that we can reach out and have in-depth conversations. It requires team members to be vulnerable and it also requires a keen sense of observation to pick up when one of us needs more support than usual. We work across multiple times zones and regions, so we need to listen carefully and use intuition.
Advocating and supporting each other is not about always agreeing. One of the things I love the most about our Insights leadership team is that we are prepared to disagree with each other and speak our minds.
Rawan Hashem, Head of Insights – MENA
Rawan leads a team of 200+ insights professionals, showcasing 16 years of expertise in seamlessly integrating research and big data for captivating storytelling. Her collaborative efforts extend to global organizations such as HSBC, Aramco, G20, and KPMG. Since joining CARMA in 2014, Rawan continues to adeptly leverage insights, crafting client-centric solutions that address diverse industry challenges.
Can you share insights into your approach to leadership as a woman within the CARMA Insights team?
My journey as a woman and a mother has very much shaped my leadership style at CARMA. It has instilled in me values close to my heart: empathy, love, and care. I always seek heartfelt commitment from my team, not just compliance. I want them to feel connected with their work and understand the bigger picture and the contribution they are making to CARMA.
One big eye-opener for me was realizing that people act upon their own motivation not mine. Everyone perceives the world uniquely and as a leader, my task is to influence people, not have them see the world through my lens which doesn’t always happen, and surprisingly, that’s a positive thing.
The diversity of perspectives fosters innovation and creativity. I’ve come to appreciate and embrace these differences, realizing that tapping into this variety allows us to achieve more than if we solely rely on our individual knowledge and experience.
The greatest lesson I learned is that people need to be understood and need to share their feelings without fear or without being judged. My job is to create a safe environment for them to open their hearts and minds. That is what I call empathy.
Krysia Lucuk, Head of Insights West
Krysia has over 15+ years’ experience working in the media measurement industry, and has worked across multiple sectors and teams, continuing to build experience in managing global programs. She has managed several successful operational teams, who have been centered around delivering high quality output for client.
Can you discuss any female role models you look up to and how they can assist and guide emerging female leaders?
I reflected on the countless women I could have chosen when asked this question, Marie Curie, Malala Yousafzai, Serena Williams. All serve as an inspiration to me with their extraordinary achievements and resilience and importantly, their courage in overcoming challenges and adversity! However, closer to home and if I’m honest, my role model has always and will always be my sister, Anna, eight years my senior.
Anna has paved her way in the communications and PR world, across retail, beauty and trade, leading European and Global teams, while balancing the joys and challenges of raising two incredible kids and a menagerie of animals. From helping me find my first real corporate role, Anna has been my professional confidant and mentor. She embodies the essence of leadership, teaching me the importance of personal goals, treating everyone with respect and fairness, and the value of hard work. Most importantly, she instilled in me the courage to stand firm in my beliefs and confidently voice my opinions, regardless of the audience.
As a professional woman and working parent, the greatest lesson I’ve learned is the important of authenticity. Being true to yourself, embracing differences, and acknowledging our privileges is crucial. Humility is an essential skill for personal and professional growth!
Inspired by my sister and the many role models in my life, I am committed to uplifting my team, supporting emerging female leaders, and creating an environment where we can celebrate our achievements and overcome obstacles together. My goal is to always empower other women.
Maria Talakina, Insights Director
Maria is a researcher and consultant with 14 years of experience. Before joining CARMA, Maria spent most of her career at Nielsen working with clients across the automotive, pharmaceutical, consumer goods, and sports and entertainment industries. At CARMA, Maria is responsible for the Market Research division which is a natural extension of the wider Insights business, delivering the WHY behind data and giving the voice of the consumer to brands and agencies.
Despite being scattered across several continents; how do you effectively collaborate and work together on a global scale?
I think the key to collaborating effectively is establishing personal connections no matter how close or how far you are. I enjoy having conversations beyond work and getting to know people across the world, and with time it feels like we are almost sitting in the same room. It definitely requires presence, undivided attention, and human touch – exactly the same effort you should put if you were working with someone across the room.
I think sometimes we lose connection by taking the screen in front of us too literal, we build an online wall and limit ourselves to the tasks we just need to complete together. But there’s so much more we can embrace! I remember being saved so many times by teams who spoke the languages I don’t or helping me turn things around overnight in my time zone. It’s so much fun working across cultures and by knowing people a little more we can achieve infinite results.
Rifa Khoder, Insights Director
Rifa, with over a decade of experience from a Fortune 500 company, has been with CARMA for four years. She leverages her expertise in media measurement, data analytics, process improvement, quality assurance concepts, and artificial intelligence to provide actionable insights to clients. Currently, Rifa leads a team of media analysis professionals overseeing a portfolio of over 100 accounts across the MENA region.
Can you discuss any memorable achievements or successes that our Insights leadership team has accomplished together?
It’s challenging to pinpoint a single major success achieved by this remarkable group, given their multifaceted contributions. When they’re not spearheading award-winning projects or playing essential roles in developing industry-wide methodologies, they’re assisting the communication teams of leading global brands in measuring their brand’s reputation and achieving their objectives.
However, if I were to highlight some of the team’s successes, they would include both individual and collective contributions to CARMA, securing gold at AMEC’s Global Measurement Effectiveness Awards every year, with notable achievements such as winning 16 awards in 2023. Moreover, they have played a pivotal role in securing contracts with some of the most prestigious brands worldwide, enabling CARMA to extend its services on a global scale.
On a broader scale, we are a collective of highly experienced individuals and leaders. However, at a more granular level, we represent a diverse group of women from various nationalities and backgrounds who have united to deliver impactful results for our clients.
Therefore, in my perspective, fostering a culture of inclusion and empowerment stands out as a significant accomplishment. This culture fosters collective intelligence and knowledge sharing, allowing us to harness the full potential of our diverse perspectives and talents to drive meaningful impact.
Orla Graham, Insights Consultant
In her role as Insights Consultant at CARMA, Orla advises clients on how to create meaningful, impactful and best practice measurement, leads insights product development and is a thought leader within the industry. She was recently named AMEC’s Executive Professional of the Year.
How do you see the role of women evolving in the field of insights and analytics in the coming years?
One of the biggest challenges in insights, analytics and research is overcoming confirmation bias – there’s a real danger that we can use data to back up our pre-conceived ideas, and dismiss data and trends that don’t align with our understanding of ‘the norm’.
So the more diversity – not just gender, but all sorts of lived experiences, backgrounds and cultures – amongst researchers, the richer our insights and the more useful our research can be. This will become even more important as more data and research increasingly uses automation and AI, where bias can sometimes be quite hidden and difficult to overcome. We need a diverse array of analysts and thinkers to spot the biases, question the status quo, and find more robust interpretations of the data.
Communications and PR insights specifically is an interesting field when it comes to gender diversity – perhaps because PR is a female-dominated industry, we do tend to see a strong representation of women within the field. But that doesn’t mean that more can’t be done – particularly to make sure that women aren’t just entering the field, but are being supported into leadership positions.
It’s a great industry for women who are interested in research, but don’t necessarily want to go down a very STEM or academic-driven route. The range of skills needed – research, analysis, written and verbal communication, project management, presentation skills, visual storytelling, relationship building, to name just a few – makes it a varied, engaging and ever-evolving career path.
Jennifer Sanchis, Insights Consultant
Having studied Journalism, PR and Crisis Comms, Jennifer is passionate about PR research. At CARMA, she provides strategic guidance on gold award-winning global measurement and evaluation programmes. She is one of the best young talents in the industry – in 2023, AMEC awarded her Young Professional of the Year and in 2019, the CIPR East Anglia named her Outstanding Young Communicator. Outside of her day-to-day job, she volunteers at the CIPR Greater London group as a Committee member.
What advice would you offer to other female leaders in the industry, based on your experiences?
Based on my experiences of being a woman and an expat who had to start their career from the bottom, my advice to other female leaders would be to build resilience and continuously invest in themselves.
Leaving one’s home country and starting all over again in a country where you have no friends, and no family has definitely thickened my skin. Be it in your private as well as your professional life, the ability to withstand and recover from difficulties is an absolute essential to becoming a leader.
Resilience comes from putting yourself outside your comfort zone a little bit more every day. It doesn’t always have to be big changes – it starts with taking a client call, leading a presentation, applying for that job or just striking up a conversation with a stranger.
Following other female leaders like Bozoma Saint John, former CMO at Netflix, Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, and Malala Yousafzai, education activist and learning how they overcame hurdles in life inspire me to grow and become more resilient.
I would also advise female leaders to continuously invest in themselves – invest in their professional development, invest in their life experiences, and invest in their own wellbeing. If I have learnt one thing during my (short!) life, it’s that this kind of investment is the safest you can make. It is the best return on investment you can ever get.
Women should never stop prioritising themselves and what is right for them. Deep down, we know our needs and we know when something isn’t right. We need to be better at investing our time and efforts in the endeavours that fulfil us most.
Paige Lingwood, Insights Consultant
With well over a decade of experience, starting in marketing and moving over to measurement, Paige has had the privilege of working with some of the most prestigious brands in the world. Her expertise initially had her understanding the intricacies of consumer behaviour, leveraging that knowledge to create successful marketing campaigns, while now she thrives on helping her clients build a successful insights programme to shape their strategy as a brand.
Have you encountered any barriers or obstacles in your career journey as a woman, and how have you overcome them?
As a woman who originally began her early career in an industry dominated by men with very little female presence (approximately a quarter of the workforce are women to date, a number which has certainly increased recently), I learned very early on that I needed to, unfortunately, prove my worth in any room.
On a regular basis, my views or opinions were questioned as viable options, especially during large-scale workshop or presentational environments. This adversity really shaped the formative years of my career and still plays a part to date. While it forced me to work far harder, I also learned the art of resilience.
Looking ahead, this year’s theme of IWD is to inspire inclusion, which I find extremely fitting for me personally when I compare my early career to my experience here at CARMA. Although I only joined the team in 2024, I can certainly see how strong inclusivity is to the business and how much value each and every staff member brings, regardless of gender.
Fale com um dos nossos experientes consultores sobre a sua monitorização de media e comunicação ainda hoje!