Bringing Unique Perspectives to the Table
All Things Insights: Thank you so much for meeting online, Antoinette, to talk today about a very important topic in our community, women and insights. Just to mention a few details to our audience: TMRE 2025 is coming up this October and you’ll be one of the co-chairs of the event. You are also really involved in the second annual women in insights luncheon at the conference. It inspired All Things Insights to examine women in the insights profession and the leadership skills and career perspectives they offer to the field.
Why do you think that this is important to discuss, in general? Here we are in 2025 and what are your thoughts on women in the insights community? Why is this an impactful topic to talk about right now?
Antoinette Staples: Well, I appreciate the question, Matt. This is my third year attending TMRE. I’m so excited this year to also have the opportunity to serve as co-chair on the advisory board. It’s a really exciting year for me to be attending the conference. But I think when the TMRE team approached me after my first year attending, one of the questions that they asked was what else could we do and how else could we improve?And I said, well, I really think this is an interesting time for women. Women in corporate America, women specifically in the field of insights. And I really think we should do something centered around women. Now I will say that I’m a little partial in that I lead in ERG at McKesson, one of the largest chapters for my company. And so I am very passionate about women in the workplace, thriving at work, and in life.
I think women bring such a diverse and unique perspective.And representation is so important in the insights world to avoid bias, to ensure that we’re looking across the entire picture and complete landscape of the insights that we provide, that we produce.And ultimately how we begin to transform the way insights are considered. I think it’s very important to tap into what women have to say about that, because our experiences both lived, and professional are very different, and we should be bringing that perspective. So that’s why it’s important to me, and I’m passionate about it.
The Importance of Mentorship
All Things Insights: That’s really a great foundation here for our conversation. You mention that women are making an impact, about women being influential in the insights field, and I wonder what about in your career? What shaped you to carry this torch, as we go into this next era of insights?
Antoinette Staples: I think there is always one person who has to carry the torch, so to speak. When one person does it, then other people feel that they can do it, too. I really believe in that. We have some unique talks that are coming this year to the show. We have one speaker that will actually be speaking about the importance of mentorship and sponsorship. When you think across all of the different perspectives that women can bring, one thing that I feel is really important for us to consider is how can we be the voice in the room? How can we lead with influence? How can we make sure we have a seat at the table?
We are also consistently driving value. The first way to do that is to be the first person to raise your hand. The first person to speak up. The first person also to lean in and listen more intently and more deeply. Bringing women and insights to TMRE is a place for us to do that. First of all, being able to raise our hands, to lean in more deeply and start to really figure out how can we be that key contributor in our corporate spaces? How can we earn our seats at the table and continue to drive value in our roles?
Leading With Influence
All Things Insights: Speaking of mentors, how about specifically for your career? How do you feel your mentors shaped some of your perspectives in the field?
Antoinette Staples: I have two mentors today. One is from my previous company, a senior vice president, and she has had an exceptional career. Obviously, I will call out that she is also a woman, and I really love that.But that’s not the only reason she’s my mentor. Part of the reason she’s my mentor is because I have seen her do just some of the things that I spoke about. Lead with influence, show up in rooms with high emotional intelligence, lead our teams with integrity.
When I think about the world of insights, it is really about leading with influence, making sure that we show up with integrity in the work that we provide, the perspectives that we offer, not just the ones we like, but the ones that will drive the work forward. And so I’ve had a really great mentor in my career that is outside of the insights world, but has benefited from the insights space just because of her position and really leaning into insights professionals to help inform her decision-making. I’ve had a few mentors, I’ll name her as one, but she has been so instrumental in my career growth, and I feel like I am a better leader because of her and also a better leader in the insights umbrella because of her guidance.
Moving Forward with Vision
All Things Insights: What career advice would you give some of the younger crowd, the younger executives, the women and men just starting out in the insights field. What are some of your thoughts there?
Antoinette Staples: I think that it is really important to be flexible in your careers. The world is changing. Corporate spaces are changing. The ways we work are changing. It is really important to be flexible. Flexible in the teams that you sit in, really agile in the way that you work. But I think that that would be the first piece of advice.
There may be a way that you like to do things, but be open to trying something new, really, especially now. And, you know, as we talk about the next era, the new era of insights, and also thinking about the future, in the years to come: Where do you want to be? And I think you should always work from the place of where you want to be. What is it that you hope to accomplish when our leadership puts priorities in front of us? It’s not about the work we’re doing today, but it’s how to move us forward and how to progress us. We should always be thinking about what we are striving towards, and how can you align with that bigger vision?
What do you do that contributes to the big picture? And if you are not clear, don’t be afraid to ask. Ask your immediate leader. Ask other leaders around you. And I also will go back to that mentorship and sponsorship conversation. There are people who are watching and witnessing your work and your contributions. Don’t be afraid to talk to them. But when you go to them, make sure you also can bring to that conversation who you are, what you can contribute, and the value so that it is reciprocal that they can give something to you, but you can also remind them of your benefit and value as well. Bringing that value to the team, bringing that voice to the team, that individual voice, is so important.
Make Room for Your Voice
All Things Insights: From your perspective, can you share a personal experience, relating to your own career of navigating these gender dynamics in the insights industry?
Antoinette Staples: Yes. I think that it’s important to say that in many rooms that I sit in, I may be the only female. Also in some instances, you might be the only minority. And so I think that it is important to remember that you’re there because you deserve to be there. The insights function in general is a function that is essential to most conversations within the business. If in fact, we want to make sure that we are making data-driven decisions, that we are not going on our own gut feeling or intuition, but we are leaning into our consumers and the customers that we are supposed to be serving.
Insights brings that perspective better than any other group within the organization most times. It’s important to be reminded of that before you enter into those rooms. Now I will say that that was very difficult for me in the beginning because I did not have the conventional path to get here. I did not map out a career, and think it was what I set out to do in the beginning. But like many, I think I landed here, and I’m so happy that I’m here. Initially, it was really first being comfortable with listening. Listening not only outside, because I think insights professionals, sometimes we have an outside-in perspective.
We are bringing in the insights that come from the market, that come from our competition and also our consumers. But then when we are sitting in these rooms with our corporate team members, we have to be intent on listening to their pain points. My first experience, especially when I came to McKesson—I’ve been at McKesson for three years—and right away, I was joined with our executive team members who lead distribution.
This was a new world for me. Insights is not new, but this business is new in how it operates and functions. Moving from solely B-to-C to now B-to-B is the transition that many people make and may be able to relate to. So I think in the first encounter that I had, I was almost frozen silent in that I was like, I don’t know if this is the right time to interject. Should I wait? What should I say? That initial experience, it was a little intimidating because I was in a new company. And although I had that background and expertise, not knowing when the right time was to raise my hand, which is what I talked about earlier.
I had my leader who was very in tune, just aware and posed the first question to me. What it taught me is what I spoke about. Don’t be afraid to raise your hand. You have a thought and more often than not people want to hear it. And so not being afraid to speak up. It taught me that very early on in my time here at McKesson. And it also taught me that, oftentimes we want people to make room for our voice when in fact it is our responsibility to make room for our voice for our teams and for what insights can contribute to the conversation.
Keep the Customer at the Core
All Things Insights: We’ve talked a little bit about the next era of insights. There is AI but on the counterpoint of that there are human insights, human centricity. Where do you see the future headed for the insights community?
Antoinette Staples: I think at our core, we have to remember why we do this. And at the end, for most of us, there is a person tied to what we do.We can never get away from that no matter how much we advance in the technologies that we use or how we evolve in this space. I once had a leader say this, that when we take care of the people, they will take care of our customers and the rest will take care of itself. I believe that applies even in insights. There are core human interactions that have to happen, but also there are consumers and people tied to the businesses and the products that we offer. It is remembering that at our core. That at the end of the day, who do we serve and who are we doing this for?
When we do that, we will always shape solutions with people in mind. Even as we begin to advance the way insights is done, the way that we perform our work, and the way that we share across our organization, we still want, at the end of the day, for our consumers and our customers to feel that we’ve done the work with them in mind. We want them to benefit from what we’re trying to accomplish. Keep the core and be open to all of the exciting things that technology has to offer in terms of efficiencies and our ways of working, in terms of reshaping and redefining our ways of working and interacting across team members, and also speed and agility.
Because when we think about advancing these technologies, it makes us better. And that is the end thing. Keeping our people at the core, remembering who we do this for, and getting excited that we’re just scratching the surface around what we will be able to accomplish.
