Jen is one of Smarty Pants’ newest all-star managers. Aptly dubbed Insights Know-It-All, Jen is a master of qualitative and quantitative research methods who can lead a segmentation study and conduct a Max Diff or TURF analysis as swiftly as she can lead a focus group and virtual community. Most importantly, Jen is a seasoned business consultant who knows how to extract insights and convert them to product and branding opportunities.
While she currently supports Smarty Pants’ toy & game and entertainment clients, Jen has worked across a range of industries, including tech, insurance, telecom, CPG and retail. Her strategic leadership has been applied to business development, research design, fieldwork, analysis and the creation of story-driven deliverables that guide business. Jen is passionate about bringing research to life by thinking about solutions through the eyes of her clients and their target audiences.
Prior to joining Smarty Pants in July of 2021, Jen worked as a director of brand strategy at Kantar, where she led custom research and data analytics. Earlier in her career, she was a senior market research analyst at PSB, a New York-based, full-service research and strategy firm. She began her market research career as an associate at real estate consulting firm GAR Associates.
Jen obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Spanish Language & Literature from Manhattan College. She was a member of Epsilon Sigma Pi, an honor society for the college’s highest scholastic achievers, and Alpha Kappa Delta, an international sociology honor society.
After a move from New York to Washington, D.C., Jen earned a Master of Arts in Applied Economics from American University. During her time there, she interned at the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank aimed at fostering policy debate and enhanced cooperation within the Western Hemisphere. She analyzed education policy to identify best practices for providing high quality learning and skills-development to children across Latin America.
Jen grew up in Buffalo, NY, where she learned to appreciate the fine art of the Buffalo chicken wing. Following a few years in New York City, she moved to Hartford, CT, where she currently resides with her loyal feline sidekick, Cleo. Jen loves meeting new people and staying active by playing in recreational sports leagues. She also spends plenty of time at the park reading, people watching and playing rousing games of bocci.
