Sara strives to provide clients with the insights they need to move forward with confidence and succeed in meeting their strategic goals. As Willow’s leader, Sara is responsible for setting company strategy, and finding the kind of people who will allow Willow Research to tackle any new challenge on behalf of our clients. Sara believes each day at Willow is an opportunity for growth.

Sara’s research expertise is grounded in her academic training in the social sciences and 30+ years of experience working on hundreds of projects across a broad range of industries, doing deep dives into client issues and questions using a process that is both iterative and advancing. Her knowledge of the field allows her to lead the Willow team into the future and continue a tradition of collaborating with clients so they can use research to see around the corners.

Intellectually curious, Sara thrives on creating clarity out of complexity, a drive which spurred her to complete both an MA and PhD in Sociology, which earned her University of Illinois-Chicago’s “outstanding dissertation” award, all while working full-time. Versed in the full suite of qualitative and quantitative methods, she continues to stay abreast of the latest developments in social theory, research methods, and statistics. Sara is also a recognized survey expert who testifies in commercial litigation and presents on research methods and findings at professional conferences and seminars.

Sara pairs her belief in growth at work with exploration when she’s away from the office. She’s passionate about music and nature, and she enjoys hiking in the woods with her husband and their Tibetan Terrier.

As co-founder and company Vice-President, Vandana Razdan saw joining Sara Parikh in starting Willow Research as her chance to further a lifelong curiosity about human behavior. Having accumulated more than twenty years of experience in social and behavioral science research, Van’s curiosity is rooted in her BA from the University of Chicago in Psychology, which included time as a research assistant in the university’s Department of Psychology and a stint as a mental health counselor in Northwestern Medicine’s Norman and Ida Stone Institute of Psychiatry. Starting her market research career in 1998, Van felt like she’d found her perfect fit.

As an expert in both qualitative and quantitative research—from design to analysis to data inspection to reporting—Van thrives on answering the most difficult questions. To further her goal of giving clients information that drives their strategic direction, she completed an MBA in Marketing and International Business from Loyola University of Chicago.

In addition to her involvement in all aspects of the Willow business, with a focus on client relationships, Van serves as a kind of quality control officer, making sure that the company’s work is reflective of our values and delivers what was promised, and then some.

It is her client relationships forged over the years that Van values most, believing in the mission of giving clients information that they can act on with confidence, while building expertise and knowledge of the client’s business that allows her to add insights that clients sometimes didn’t know they needed.

Away from work, Van’s thirst for knowledge extends into her personal life, where she’s always searching for the next adventure. When she’s not planning her next trip or sampling Chicago’s many and varied dining destinations with friends, you can find her curled up on the couch with a good book.

As Project Director for Willow Research, Betsy Kniffen maintains a vigilant eye to make sure that even the slightest bumps in the road are anticipated long before arrival.

With both BA (DePaul) and MA (University of Baltimore) degrees in graphic design, Betsy finds that her educational background fits well with a job which requires her to keep an eye on the big picture and on each of the project’s individual parts simultaneously. As projects move phase-to-phase—from initial research design, to questionnaire development, to sample management, data collection, quality control, and reporting—Betsy manages the flow of information, while coordinating with outside vendors and ensuring that the project will meet its deadline and exceed expectations.

Starting her market research career in 2010, Betsy realized that she’d entered a field that rewarded her natural curiosity about human behavior. She used to say she’d love it if she could get paid for people-watching, and now she does it for a living. She still looks forward to coming in to new data first thing in the morning and seeing the answers to client questions develop in real time.

Joining Willow at the company’s founding in 2015 has allowed her to put her personal stamp on the Willow process, as she works to find the best route to gathering the data and information which will result in the best possible work product.

Both disciplined and spontaneous, Betsy enjoys wandering a farmer’s market with her toddler and watching documentaries on all kinds of subjects.