Romina Brown
CEO and Founder of Strategic Solutions International (SSI), a Chicago-based, Black female-owned category management and market insights consultancy specializing in the beauty industry.
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APPEARANCES
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PODCASTS
Sep 1, 2026
Deanna UtroskeHOST
Do you have a quick example you can share from some of your work that might help us think about that further?
Romina BrownGUEST
Well, the storytelling is very specific around our client needs, but a large part of what we do is rooted in consumer insights.
Romina BrownGUEST
And so I can share an example of, you know, generally for the category weaving in insights into data, like harmonize all the data from the different points of view.
Romina BrownGUEST
of origin, like beauty supply store data, retail chain data, as well as Amazon data, which is now such a large part of the consumer.
Romina BrownGUEST
And then we marry in, what are consumers saying about this? How do they arrive at these decisions? It really helps to support.
Romina BrownGUEST
So for instance, a good part of storytelling, we think about, this is very specific.
Romina BrownGUEST
Out of the research, when we were conducting it, consumers told us that they preferred black-owned brands.
12 MINS LATER
Deanna UtroskeHOST
I'm wondering if you can maybe say more about who's involved in the process, particularly in terms of maybe the tasks and activities that they do, the input that goes largely unseen.