Ideally, the SaaS market research platform, has appointed Kirsty Harding as its first research strategy director as it enters its next phase of growth.
Harding brings more than two decades of experience across consumer insights, marketing, innovation and ventures, with a background in FMCG and alcohol. Most recently, she led innovation and ventures at Lion, where she was responsible for building new growth platforms beyond the core business and driving future-facing product and brand innovation, and departed from the agency in July of 2025.
Harding’s new role will focus on ensuring research scales on the Ideally platform in a way that expands creative potential, strengthens decision-making and delivers better commercial outcomes. She will work closely with enterprise customers to modernise research programs, embed best practice and shift internal behaviours toward always-on learning.
Across her career, Harding has worked at the intersection of insight, brand, creativity and commercial growth, transforming established brands for future relevance while also scaling challenger propositions. Her experience spans consumer strategy, portfolio development, innovation frameworks and capability building.
“Ideally is reinventing how research shows up in innovation and creativity,” said Harding. “I’m excited to join a product-led business that uses technology to put consumer insight at the start of idea development, so teams can test, iterate and build confidence early, rather than relying on research too late in the process.”
Ideally CEO and co-founder James Donald said the appointment reflects Ideally’s ambition to modernise research and make insight more accessible across organisations.
“Too often, research has been treated as a gate at the end of the process,” Donald said. “Kirsty’s role is about helping our customers move beyond that. As adoption of Ideally grows, we need research to scale in a way that unlocks creative ambition, not constrains it. She understands how to drive that change inside complex organisations.”
