Sarah Kotva, Vice President of Fieldwork Inc, joins Ponderings from the Perch host Priscilla McKinney for our new podcast miniseries, Flight Patterns with Fieldwork. This three-part series showcases a selection of Fieldwork leadership and their expertise – including our ethos of sharing ideas, collaborating, and being a resource for the insights industry.
In this episode, Sarah and Priscilla dive deep into how Fieldwork is much more than your average focus group facility. While many know us for our top-notch facilities, we like to explain ourselves as being the “concierge desk” of the market research industry.
Sarah began at Fieldwork as a Project Manager in 2000. From there, she’s helped the team navigate industry shifts and changes – moving her into her current role. With a Fieldworker’s mentality, she helped forge a path through uncertainty and kept a “collaboration is the new competition” mindset. Sarah and the team found that everyone wins when you care about the industry as a whole – clients, competitors and employees alike.
To further foster unity and collaboration, Sarah led the charge on a campaign around #facetofacemrx, an effort that has kept the industry in the know about ever-evolving safety concerns, restrictions, and creative solutions to perpetuate growth.
"We wanted our clients to know what was happening and to be that news source, and to collaborate with our competitors as well. We believe in the power of in-person and face-to-face interaction."
- Sarah Kotva
With best efforts in place to evolve to the current demands of research, Sarah stresses the importance that face-to-face research will always have in the industry. She explains how in-person research provides intimate insights that you only get from being face-to-face, such as nonverbal communication, full-sensory research, and the ability to capture in-the-moment glimmers of client and respondent wisdom.
In her conversation with Priscilla, Sarah highlights that it was Fieldwork’s adaptability and ability to crowdsource solutions that allowed them to perceive client’s needs during the pandemic and roll with the demands that were presented.
Don’t miss this dynamic conversation between two women who have worked their way through troubling times while lending a helping hand to those around them.
