Competitive intelligence is both a science and an art.
This list is a tribute to experts in the space which not only excel at their craft, but also proactively share their knowledge with the broader industry. They are both leaders and influencers who often speak at conferences, write articles or contribute to podcasts and panels. If you are in the competitive intelligence space and would like to stay on top of the latest tools, trends and insights, you should definitely follow them on Linkedin.
Note this list is by no means a ranking! It has been ordered alphabetically and also includes professionals from a broad range of industries across the world. From consultants to FMCG to tech, what unites all the people here is their deep passion for competitive intelligence – and their shared ambition to push the boundaries of what can be achieved with it.
We hope you enjoy flicking through it, and recommend that you follow some of these influential voices in the competitive intelligence space. To make it easier, we’ve added a link to everyone’s LinkedIn profile.
Enjoy!
1. Andreas Dobler
Business Partner Market and Competitive Insights at Hilti AG
Andreas is responsible for Competitive Insights at Hilti, a global leader in technology-leading products, systems and services to the worldwide construction industry. Their success is driven by distinction, defying convention and powering some of the world’s most ambitious feats of engineering for our customers. Based in Austria, Andreas has been working with Hilti for over 17 years. Prior to leading market and competitive insights, he also worked in corporate market research.
2. Anuj Roy
Head of Strategy, Insights and Intelligence at Pernod Ricard
Anuj Roy is a consumer insight professional with a natural passion for unearthing deep-rooted consumer truths to unlock growth opportunities. He has nearly two decades of cross-cultural experience of leading transformational projects in the domain of insights, intelligence, and strategy. Anuj and his team have been in the forefront of tracking consumer sentiment and trends affecting travel and shopping behaviour, helping the business navigate the global crisis.
3. Benjamin Seror
CPO at SimilarWeb
Benjamin has over 14 years of experience leading product teams, and for the past decade he has defined and developed the modern standards for digital competitive insights. Since joining Similarweb in 2012, Benjamin designed and launched the entire suite of Similarweb solutions.. Prior to that Benjamin led the design and development of several multi screen ad networks, including a leading platform used by China Mobile and one of the first 3-screen ad networks.
4. Biju Nanukttan
Product Marketing Manager at Avionica
Biju is currently working for Avionica, a company that specializes in complete flight data and communications management solutions. Prior to that, he was a Senior Market Intelligence Leader with GE Digital, responsible for Smart Grid, Power, Oil & Gas portfolio of over $400+MM. An expert in Market Intelligence, primary and secondary research for bringing intelligence insights to Senior Leadership. In addition, Biju has published 12 papers in National Conferences & Journals.
5. Cindi Howson
Chief Data Strategy Officer at ThoughtSpot
In addition to being the Chief Data Strategy Officer at ThoughtSpot, Cindi is the host of The Data Chief podcast, and Women in Data’s Data Leader of the Year 2021. Prior to ThoughtSpot, Cindi served as Vice President in Data and Analytics at Gartner where she led the analytics and BI Magic Quadrant, with research in data for good, NLP/BI Search, and augmented analytics. Cindi specialties include bringing the best of data & tech to solve problems and AI Ethics.
6. Charles Homs
Vice President Global Competitive Strategies at Oracle
Charles has been with Oracle for over 18 years, building a distinguished career in competitive intel. He has been tracking SAP for three decades and Workday since its founding in 2005. Charles ensures that all Oracle lines of business, as well as Oracle customers, have accurate information about competitors. As part of his role, Charles trains sales teams on how to compete effectively, putting the emphasis on “the story” as opposed to features & functions. He also has a passion for writing articles on the subject!
7. Christian Niederauer
Global Head of Insights at Colgate-Palmolive
Christian’s ability to transform data to insights to action stems from 15 years of thought leadership across various industries, and from different perspectives including academic research, strategy consultancy, and business insights. Before starting his current position as Global Head of Insights at Colgate-Palmolive, he led the European Insights and Consumer Affairs organization. Prior to Colgate, Christian worked 7 years at Reckitt as Global Insights Director for Health Wellness &Transformation.
8. Delia Staffieri
Insights & Innovation Market Intelligence at Electrolux
Delia is a Competitive Intelligence and Strategy professional, passionate about enabling fact-based decision making. She leads Market Intelligence at Electrolux since 2021. Before that, she spent over 14 years in competitive and market intelligence, strategy and bizdev in the home appliances and automotive industries. At Electrolux, Delia is the go-to person for market and competitive intel. This includes driving Market Intelligence research & analysis and supporting the Innovation process through Market and Competitive Intelligence.
9. Dennis Mink
Chief Marketing Officer at Liftoff Mobile
Dennis is an out-of-the-box marketing professional with a passion for all things Mobile & SaaS. A real storyteller needs to rely on insights and as a marketing leader Dennis deep understanding of the competitive market sets him apart. In addition to being the CMO at Liftoff, Dennis is a mentor and advisor for multiple fast-growing startups including Clarisights, Mamaya and CouponRoller.
10. Erik Glitman
CEO at Fletcher/CSI
Erik is the CEO of a strategic management and competitive intelligence consulting firm which he started in 1988. The company specializes in the analysis, collection, and integration of primary data to support strategic and tactical decisions. To meet their client needs, they operate and manage a global network of affiliated companies that are able to provide consulting data collection support and clients. Erik’s specialties include Primary Data to drive strategic advice, competitive intelligence, competitor intelligence, market research, sales intelligence, sales prospecting, win/loss, war gaming, and CI training.
11. Gabriela Tennhard
Global Head of Market & Strategic Insights at HSBC
Based in London, Gabriela is an experienced Head of Insights with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry with an international track record. Skilled in Strategy, Market Research, Business Development, Negotiation, Asset Management and Management. Prior to HSBC, Gabriela worked for KPMG in Luxembourg as an advisor to senior management. She was a speaker earlier this year at Cimicon in Berlin, where she spoke about how apps and analytics create superior insights for products and sales teams to improve the overall customer experience.
12. Guido Tirone
Head of OmniChannel Analytics at Neiman Marcus
At Neiman Marcus, Guido leads all aspects of analytics and experimentation for Neiman Marcus Stores & Digital Ecosystem, including data mining and machine learning. He leads the team responsible for delivering insightful analysis and recommendations across the entire organization. In addition, Guido is a Senior Lecturer for the University of Texas at Dallas, where he teaches graduate courses on Marketing Analytics and Insights and acts as a liaison between the faculty and the corporate world.
13. Jay Nakagawa
Director, Competitive Intelligence at Dell
Jay is a seasoned professional at creating and building out a competitive function and high-performance, winning teams. He leads a world-class competitive intelligence team covering Dell Technologies portfolio of servers, networking, storage, infrastructure, cloud, data protection, client (laptops, notebooks), and as-a-Service (aaS) lines of business. He is able to provide real-time data on how to beat the competition via a competitive portal reaching over 32,000 users in Dell’s sales and partner community.
14. Joel Renkema
Global Head of CMI at Inter Ikea CBF
Based in the Netherlands, Joel is a competitive intel powerhouse. Prior to joining IKEA he has held multiple customer insights, market knowledge and analytics roles at Procter & Gamble and Reckitt. Joel has a deep history of insights and analytics, driven by a passion to see companies grow, brands be built, meaningful change in the world to happen and our colleagues to have fulfilling careers.
15. Jonathan Gordon-Till
Sr Associate Principal Scientist (Global Knowledge Management) at Mondelēz International
Jonathan Gordon-Till is Principal at Oxford Business Intelligence, specializing in knowledge management strategy. He has worked for over 25 years at the intersection between knowledge & information management, competitive intelligence and library science. He is active in the global knowledge & information professions and has served on a number of professional bodies including the SCIP Ethics Committee. He has contributed widely to professional literature and was for many years a columnist in Information World Review.
16. Kimmo Havu
CEO at M-Brain Group
Based in Finland, Kimmo is a senior leader with over 20 years of experience in enterprise software, technology solutions and business transformation. Earlier this year, he was appointed CEO at M-Brain, a leading global provider of competitive and market intelligence solutions. Before M-Brain, Kimmo was Finland’s Managing Director for SAS, the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. Prior to that, Kimmo worked for over 12 years at IBM in different leadership roles in the Nordics region.
17. Lexi Sydow
Head of Insights at data.ai
As the Head of Insights at data.ai, Lexi Sydow’s team is responsible for providing actionable insights from aggregating and assessing mobile market trends. As the company’s lead analyst on its annual industry reports, Lexi specializes in observation and analysis of trendlines in high-growth app categories and strategies for businesses looking to win on mobile. Prior to App Annie, Lexi held roles in digital strategy, data analysis and research at ntegrity agency, Peazie and the EPA.
18. Maciej Preis
Head of Insight & Price CE at Tesco PLC
Maciej has more than 15 years experience in FMCG retail. In his current role as Head of Insight at Tesco, he provokes and inspires the business to make positive changes based on better understanding of customers, markets, business performance. He leads a team of analysts and researchers to identify opportunities for growth and turn them into action. Maciej is an expert in delivering comprehensive customer, market and property insight driving business growth.
19. Matthieu Panont
Competitive Intelligence Manager, Corporate Strategy, Innovation and Venture at Amadeus IT Group
Matthieu is a specialist in strategy management, currently managing the competitive intelligence team for Amadeus. Amadeus’ solutions connect travelers to the journeys they want, linking them via travel agents, search engines and tour operators to airlines, airports, hotels, cars and railways. As part of the corporate strategy team, Matthieu is in charge of identifying and analyzing market developments and changes impacting the competitive position of the company, and ensuring insights are shared throughout the organization.
20. Nicole Prodoehl
Manager Market Intelligence at Rakuten Advertising
Nicole has over 19 years of experience with online business focused on driving revenue through ecommerce. She helps clients understand the market and how to use their strengths as a company to drive sales in a competitive industry is something that I specialize in. Nicole is passionate about competitive insights, and enjoys researching industry trends and digging into niche topics that could result in better revenue.
21. Ronald van Loon
Principal Analyst and CEO at Intelligent World
Ronald is a real influencer. His continuous pursuit to advance education and thought leadership in big data, IoT, AI, machine learning, 5G, deep learning, predictive analytics, cloud, edge and data science made him a Top 10 Global Influencer and Thought Leader, with a combined social media reach of over 340,000 active fans. He takes this knowledge, experience and connections and developed a platform called Intelligent World, a thought leader, analyst and influencer network that connects businesses, experts and influencers, empowering them to collaborate, create and share.
22. Rufus Weston
Head of Insight at JUST EAT
Rufus is a commercial digital specialist with extensive experience in media, retail and eCommerce. He is an expert in using data to help businesses make better decisions is what I do. Prior to his current role at JUST EAT, Rufus was the Insights Director at HarperCollins Publishers and prior to that, he was for over 7 years at the BBC as the Head of Digital Research. He is a regular speaker in the space, delivering thought leadership pieces using qual and quant market research.
23. Ubald Kragten
Founder of Eye on I
Based in Netherlands, Ubald is the founder and owner of EyE on I, advising start-ups, investors and companies on their insights, investment and innovation strategy and processes. He works with future-focused companies and technology experts creating the leverage to support both small and large companies connecting market needs with technology opportunities. Prior to starting his own company, he was co-leading the design, implementation and execution of the future trend spotting and opportunity shaping process at DSM, a global company focusing on health, nutrition and biosciences.
A Little About Watchful
Watchful.ai provides an advanced way to gain product intelligence and competitive insights. We provide the measurement tools, industry benchmarks, marketing insights and competitive intel to gain unprecedented visibility into competitor activity. Our platform is at the core of the decision-making process of business, strategy and dev teams of Fortune 500 companies.
Watchful gives you ongoing reports, alerts and indications for tests and features in development. Our team of engineers and analysts have created a new way to understand the digital landscape and visualize what your competitors are doing today, and planning for tomorrow.
Want to learn more? Get in touch.
