Giorgio Mariani – research hero

What is the biggest challenge you have faced during your career?
From October 2019 until November 2020, I joined an executive MBA in Paris, scheduled on a two-weekends-per-month basis. It was hard to carry on the ‘normal’ job from Monday to Friday and, in parallel, attending the lesson, the exams and the projects groups in the weekends.

Let us say I considerably reduced the average hours of sleep per week, but the result was very satisfying. The new skills I learned and a fresh mindset have been very useful since I have started my new journey at Alligator.

What will be the next big trend or development in the research industry, and why?
The next big trend, in my opinion, will be a re-styling of the questionnaire layout that will record, more accurately, the deep emotional of panellists joining a face expression recognition (FER) survey.

Because the development of AI, I propose these tools will be less expensive and easier than today, so the market research industry will potentially have more accurate data, a deeper understand of trends at individual level and faster final data delivery thanks to the automatisation of tasks.

I think this will allow all the companies working in the sector to play a key role in the AI revolution, that has already started.

Who inspires you as a researcher?
Maria Butylina is the person who inspires me every day. She is a very smart, multitasking and passionate manager able to support and solve any problem I could have.

Her empathy, mindset and energy are out of the ordinary, so I try to apply her very positive attitude every day, and it works.

View the full list of Research Heroes 2023