The human skills that earn insights teams a seat at the table
Editor's note: La Sridhar is an insights and analytics leader with 25+ years of experience, shaping portfolio, launch and commercialization strategies across pharma, CPG and nonprofit sectors. She holds an MBA from Michigan State, an M.S. from the University of Missouri and received innovation training from MIT Sloan. As an adjunct faculty member, she teaches innovation, business intelligence and international marketing. Find Sridhar on LinkedIn.
In today’s data-driven organizations, influence increasingly comes from those who spot patterns, connect people and turn insights into action, not just those with the biggest titles. Call them intrapreneurs – innovators who work from within, using curiosity, influence and persistence to drive change.
They are the individuals who identify a business challenge, connect the right stakeholders and prove value through a focused initiative. What differentiates these efforts isn’t better data; it’s the willingness to act on insights and bring others along.
The anatomy of an intrapreneur
Based on my personal experience across industries and what I’ve seen in mainstream literature, seven traits consistently show up in professionals who turn insights into organizational momentum.
Pattern spotter: Sees inefficiencies, unmet needs and emerging trends early.
Connector: Bridges marketing, analytics, R&D, finance and leadership to create shared understanding and alignment.
Momentum starter: Prototypes, tests and shares early ideas without waiting for permission or waiting for the perfect conditions.
Resilient operator: Navigates setbacks, shifting priorities and resource constraints with calm and adaptability.
Strategy translator: Connects research and analytics to business priorities, helping leaders understand which decisions should change and why.
Champion builder: Communicates value clearly, secures support and makes insights impossible to ignore.
Guardian of psychological safety: Creates environments where teams feel safe to explore and challenge assumptions.
The common thread is influence. They understand that an insights team only creates value when it changes a decision, a behavior or an outcome.
Generating value
Intrapreneurs generate value in ways that extend far beyond regular projects:
They modernize processes by automating repetitive reporting tasks, allowing teams to spend more time interpreting data and guiding decision-making.
They ease access to outputs such as dashboards, forecasting models, customer journey frameworks and decision-support tools that create lasting organizational capabilities.
They uncover hidden opportunities by combining quantitative evidence with customer understanding to identify emerging trends and unmet needs.
They accelerate organizational learning by sharing insights across functions, helping knowledge become a multiplier rather than remaining isolated within individual teams.
Most importantly, they model initiative. They demonstrate that activating insights is not solely the responsibility of leadership but a shared responsibility across the organization.
How do they create impact? By turning insight into impact using the pitch → pilot → scale approach. This simple method works because it allows time and resources to crawl, walk and run with new ideas, technologies and processes. It might begin with a simple add-on analysis to strengthen segmentation or a new methodology piloted on a single brand or market.
Pitch: Build belief. Strong initiatives begin with a clear business opportunity – a customer pain point, a process improvement or a decision that could be made more effectively. The goal is curiosity, not perfection. Help stakeholders see the potential of a different approach. Maybe it’s a question not answered by your current research plan; maybe it’s out-of-the-box thinking or new AI-related tools. Look to demonstrate the time, money and uniqueness to deliver on the objectives and outreach to varied stakeholders.
Pilot: Reduce risk. Start small, be patient. By testing new approaches with one brand or market, teams can demonstrate value quickly, gather feedback and refine before broader deployment. Pilots provide proof and build confidence. A successful small experiment can build organizational momentum.
Scale: Make it stick. Secure resources. Reuse learnings. Build repeatable processes. Scaling transforms a successful pilot into a durable part of the organization’s operating system.
Curiosity and courage
The insights function is no longer about delivering reports – it’s about enabling action. It’s a collective behavior, a way of thinking and collaborating across the organization. Intrapreneurs model this behavior even more. They show that leadership is defined by initiative, not title, and that progress comes from curiosity and courage.
AI can supercharge insight discovery, expand creativity, speed up reporting cycles, help teams think like stakeholders and surface patterns we might otherwise miss. But AI cannot build champions or foster trust. It cannot navigate organizational politics. It cannot decide which insights deserve investment. It cannot translate strategy into action.
This is where intrapreneurs step in – bringing empathy, judgment, context, storytelling and influence to ensure insights drive meaningful change.
A call to action for insights leaders
To unlock the full potential of these intrapreneurs, leaders must create the right environment. Let us provide psychological safety to question assumptions, permission to experiment within clear strategic guardrails, access to the right tools and data and leaders who champion their ideas.
When these conditions exist, we shift from a support function to a true strategic partner that drives action across the organization. As AI democratizes data, intrapreneurs will democratize insight – ensuring that the insights function earns its rightful seat at the table.