Ajinkya Gogte joined the Highlight team as a Senior Research Manager in early 2025. His career has brought him both to the brand side with big names like PepsiCo, Unilever, Nivea, as well as the research solutions side with even more big names like Nielsen, Kantar, and now Highlight.
As one of Highlight’s in-house research experts, Ajinkya is hands-on in his approach to co-creating data-driven innovations with customers, analyzing retail and consumption trends to drive real impact for their businesses.
We sat down with Ajinkya to hear how his journey brought him all the way to Highlight’s Customer Enablement team.
Chelsea Stone, Content & Digital Marketing: Thank you for joining me today. We’re going to start with the basics. I'm curious to know about your pre-Highlight life. When did you become interested in research?
Ajinkya Gogte, Research Director: I grew up in India, studied Engineering followed by a Master’s in Marketing. I was always curious about the why behind marketing—like, what makes people want certain products, how companies create demand, and the strategy that goes into all that.
Fresh out of college, I landed a role at market research agency as a quantitative researcher. That’s where I really got my foundations down—designing surveys, building samples, digging into data, the whole deal. And honestly, I loved it. It clicked. I remember thinking, “Okay, this is something I could see myself doing for a while.” Market research started to feel like the right fit.
Next I was at NielsenIQ BASES—a great place to work, top-tier analytics team and a move that brought me into the world of innovation, including concept and product testing as well as sales forecasting, so it was a whole new side of research for me. I got to work on innovation for some of the biggest brands in India, which was a fantastic learning experience in those early years.
Working in innovation helped me find my sweet spot within market research—it was creative, analytical, and full of interesting challenges. That’s when I realized: this isn’t just a job I like. It’s a space I’m genuinely passionate about.
After a few solid years on the agency side, I was ready to switch gears and see what happened after the insights were delivered to customers—how brands actually use them to shape strategy and make decisions. That curiosity led me to the client side, where I took on insights roles at Beiersdorf and later Unilever. It was a great shift. I got to stay close to the consumer while being part of the bigger marketing picture.
Then came 2022, when I made a big move—literally—to Canada. I joined PepsiCo Foods in Toronto, leading analytics for the Frito-Lay business and focusing on some of Canada’s snack staples like Miss Vickie’s and Cheetos, plus a few BFY [better-for-you] brands. It was my first deep dive into the North American market, and a great opportunity to take everything I’d learned in India and apply it to a whole new set of consumers, behaviors, and retail dynamics.
I really enjoyed that role—it was fast-paced, full of learning, and a great challenge. But eventually, I started thinking about what was next. That’s when Highlight came into the picture.
I actually came across Highlight organically—shoutout to your team’s marketing [Chelsea: Thank you!] because it kept popping up on my feed. Being on the brand insights side, I was always scanning for innovative, interesting agencies and Highlight stood out.
The website caught my eye right away—super modern, clean. And the value prop felt genuinely innovative and different from what I'd done before. Plus I’d only worked at large organizations so the idea of joining a startup was really intriguing. A chance to help build something from the ground up, to be part of a company that’s growing and evolving in real time was attractive. That’s what ultimately led me to join the team at Highlight.
Chelsea: That's so cool. I love that. While you were talking, I was probably thinking about like 17 things to ask you because you've done so many interesting things! You don’t have to put one side down, but having worked on both sides—on the customer side and on the services side—what sort of environment have you preferred to work in?
Ajinkya: That’s a tough question—it’s hard to say I prefer one over the other, because both agency and brand-side roles brought very different but equally valuable experiences.
I really enjoyed my early agency days. There was so much learning, constant exposure to new ideas, and a strong sense of team. You’re surrounded by people doing similar work, so there’s always someone to bounce ideas off, or just brainstorm with. That’s something I’ve loved rediscovering at Highlight—being part of a collaborative team.
On the brand side, though, it’s a bit different. You're often working in silos, especially on smaller Insights teams. Most of your day-to-day collaboration is with teammates from brand or marketing—who, while amazing to work with, have very different roles and priorities. You don’t always have someone next to you who fully understands your lens as an Insights person.
That said, what I found incredibly rewarding on the brand side was the strategic exposure. That’s actually what drew me in about seven years ago. I was curious—after you run a concept or product test, what happens next? How do you take those insights and actually shape the product, define the messaging, or bring it to market? Being on the customer side gave me that full-circle view, and it really deepened my appreciation for how research feeds into real business impact.
Chelsea: Does the typical brand side team structure ever cause problems? Did you ever feel too separated from your coworkers?
Ajinkya: Sure, every team’s got their own expertise and priorities, but no new product gets anywhere unless all the teams bring their A-game. For any innovation, there’s a cross-functional squad moving it through the innovation funnel (what’s called "stage gate" at a lot of companies).
It usually kicks off with insights and brand folks digging into what’s already out there, spotting gaps, and brainstorming ideas to fill them. Then R&D/ Finance pitches in to say what’s doable and what’s not—because some ideas might sound awesome but just aren’t realistic with resources or budget.
Everyone’s got their own goals—marketers want innovation to grow sales and market share, R&D wants to make the best quality products that deliver on promise, Finance wants to keep a check on budgets, etc.
As the Insights lead, there’s a balancing act to manage. You have to decide how strictly to follow what consumers are saying. Do you pull the plug on an innovation, or do you identify opportunities to optimize a product that’s nearly ready? The goal is to make those final tweaks before launch so the sales teams can confidently push the product and marketing can invest in the right campaigns.
It’s important to look at the bigger picture—it’s rarely black and white. If you automatically label anything that misses a mark as a failure, you’d halt a lot of promising innovations. It’s a collaborative, consultative process where everyone brings their perspective, all aiming to launch a strong, viable product for the company.
Chelsea: How does product testing support the stage gate process?
Ajinkya: I think product testing is super critical. It's one of the most important stage-gate check-ins that any innovation has. You might have ten great ideas, but unless you have a product that delivers, it's only going to last one trial. We’ve seen it happen—brands invest heavily in launches, with strong marketing and sales support, but if the product doesn’t meet consumer expectations, interest fades quickly. Even with initial push, these products often lose traction and eventually get pulled from shelves.
Also shelf space is limited, and you're often making room for innovation by trading off another SKU- so the stakes are high! Product testing thus is an important check for any innovation to prove its long-term potential. Can you go beyond that first trial to also keep building loyalty, keep building repeats?
Chelsea: Looking back now, is it possible to pick a project or a product that you worked on that was your favorite?
Ajinkya: It's hard to pick just one! Top of mind though, I think the launch of Magic Masala chips in Canada was a fun one. It's an Indian-inspired Lay’s flavor that we brought to Canada. It was a huge success (not just with South Asians, but all Canadians) and we ended up expanding it to other brands. The innovation went through the full research rigor of concept-product testing, positioning and packaging work to ensure it was set up for success, and seems to be doing pretty well so far.
Americans, if you’re looking for exciting new chip flavors, take a trip up to the Great White North.
Chelsea: I love that. What a great story. Okay, so I'm curious to know, you've done so many product tests over the course of your career. Do you still get surprised by the results? Do you feel like now that you've done this long enough, you can guess what the response is going to be, or are you still surprised every time?
Ajinkya: Oh, I am surprised every time. I think the way consumers can react to different products is just so interesting. It's not at all predictable, which is why we have to test different prototypes and multiple iterations even, to make sure you are moving the needle based on whatever tweaks were made.
You obviously would have some usual suspects, like certain flavors that are popular versus some that don’t click. So there might be elements that are predictable. The product as a whole, though, you never know how consumers are going to receive it. It really depends on how well the product lands and delivers on the consumer’s expectations from the product. So, yeah, if it became predictable, I think our jobs would get boring.
Chelsea: Good, I'm glad that you're not bored. Looking ahead, five years from now, ten years from now, what's something that in your career you would really like to accomplish? Do you have a big goal in mind?
Ajinkya: I honestly don't right now. I really enjoy what I do on a daily basis. I love the consultative part of the role, being a strategic partner to our customers and being super involved. I think that's a learning that I've carried forward from my brand-side days: having that perspective of what a marketing or R&D team might be doing next, and therefore already trying to have some of that conversation at a debrief, and thinking ahead. That's something that I enjoy, those consultative conversations of, "How do we use these results? What do we do next?"
Chelsea: Ok sorry, but you keep saying interesting things and I keep thinking of more questions! One last question and then I promise I'll let you go. The question is: You’ve obviously ended up in the consumer goods space. You started studying marketing. I assume your research spanned a lot of different industries. Are you happy that you've ended up in this CPG world? Does it make it interesting to walk into a grocery store and be like, "Oh, I know that brand. Oh, we helped test that product." Is there something exciting about being in CPG for you?
Ajinkya: Yeah, for sure! Exactly what you said. I get excited about all the products that I see on the shelf. A lot of times, innovation funnels are long, right? It might take a year or two years to see an innovation from idea to being on the shelf. And that's the best part about CPG: you see your innovations right in front of you. You can hear from friends, "I tried this snack," or "I tried this skincare product," and you know you worked on it, and you can brag about it. Also creatives or ads. On the customer side, I worked on creative development as well, so you could see an ad on TV, maybe during the Superbowl, and you can say, "I worked on this ad, helped get it to the best shape, and I tested four other versions which did not make it through." So yeah, it is so exciting.
Chelsea: I think that’s the perfect ending note for this piece. Thank you so much!
Ajinkya: Thank you so much for setting this up!
Get to know our other in-house research professionals: Lauren Rappaport and Alex Maxwell.