Maria Palla
Valiente

Maria’s career in insights and brand strategy has been paved both at agencies and client-side, working hand in hand with clients like Unilever, PepsiCo, Estée Lauder, Britvic, Colgate-Palmolive, McDonald’s, Sky, Novartis, GSK, and Roche. Her work has taken her across industries, from FMCG to luxury and beauty to tech and pharma, but also across the world – she has conducted intercepts in Turkey, run ethnographies in Mexico, facilitated IDIs in Spain, and moderated focus groups in France.

Some of her favourite work has included understanding the emotional and functional uniqueness of ginger, dissecting the importance and rituals of meal times from South America to the Middle East, informing the UX of a skincare app, deep diving into what beauty means in Russia vs Spain, projecting what the Future of Plastic will look like, and getting cozy with what family time entails in the UK.

A proud aesthete and gourmet, the way to Maria’s heart is definitely through the senses, so on weekends you will find her experimenting with flower gardening, seeking out antique and vintage art in street markets, listening to any and all kinds of music, or trialling a new restaurant (anything Spanish is a must).