Nicole Kyle is the Managing Director and Co-Founder of CMP Research, which offers evidence-based, high-quality advisory services to leading customer contact companies.
Using data as a storytelling tool, she provides premier future of work insights for executives looking to future-proof their businesses. Here, she discusses how she aligns her passion with her purpose.
Shiwon Oh: What’s your personal why behind your work? What drives and inspires you?
Nicole Kyle: I think I’m just a very curious person, which works well for research. I have a lot of thoughts and hypotheses, and I’m really driven by the intersections between things. For example, I might explore how AI affects people’s ability to work from home. That’s not always the first thing people think of. Most associate AI with cost efficiency or reduction.
I’m personally more intrigued by the employee experience and how the design of work is evolving. Drawing from my own experiences to explore those intersections and dig deeper into them is something I find really fulfilling.
Even beyond my role at CMP, I’m interested in topics like economics, especially how culture and pop culture influence economies and consumer behavior, particularly among women. Asking meaningful questions around those intersections is incredibly rewarding for me. It’s why I enjoy researching, writing, and exploring them deeper.
SO: Do you think this way of thinking about work culture started after COVID, when remote work became more common, or has it always been something you’ve thought about?
NK: Ever since I entered the workforce—well before COVID—this has been an area of interest for me. I think it started even earlier, growing up with my mom, who’s an entrepreneur and worked from home. So for me, that setup always felt normal. But when I started working, I realized it was actually the exception, not the norm.
Another big influence was a mentor, friend, and former manager of mine. She’s a mom of two boys and made the decision to go part-time and work remotely. She’s one of the most efficient, brilliant people I know, and now she’s also an entrepreneur. I’ve always been really inspired by her ability to make that choice and still perform at such a high level.
It made me wonder why more people don’t do that. Of course, I understand that it’s not always how the workforce is designed, even for digital roles. But COVID really accelerated the world’s openness to these conversations, and that only deepened my curiosity. It’s something I feel really passionate about researching further.
SO: How have your career experiences influenced your purpose and mission as a researcher?
NK: When I look back on my career so far, curiosity has always been the driving force. You can see it even in my earliest jobs—they were in journalism, reporting, and writing about news or local events. Obviously, that’s very different from researching corporate challenges at CMP. But the core skill set is similar: noticing a problem, finding an angle, and being guided by a central research question.
There’s a lot of overlap. In journalism, we often talk about how the scientific method can be adapted to the journalistic process, and of course, the scientific method is also the foundation of research. So those connections have always made sense to me.
And then there’s storytelling. Stories are how you persuade people, whether it’s a story in journalism or a story you’re telling through research. At CMP, we constantly ask: what’s the narrative here? What story will shift an executive’s mindset and get them to think differently, act differently, or change how their business operates?
That thread—curiosity paired with storytelling, especially storytelling for change—has really run through everything I’ve done in my career.
SO: How do you bridge your research expertise with your passion for gender equity and storytelling?
NK: It's been a real honor to research and focus on CX and customer contact. When you look across corporate functions, customer contact, call centers, and CX tend to have stronger gender diversity. There’s often more representation from women, which is really encouraging to see. So it’s been amazing to work so closely with a function that reflects that kind of inclusivity.
There's another layer I find fascinating. When we look at customer service, especially on the B2C side, it's pretty widely accepted that women drive the majority of consumer spending in households. So when we're researching consumer patterns or working to improve the customer experience, I often think to myself, this is exciting because it directly impacts a large proportion of women.
Leading CCW Research has also been a huge learning experience for me. I’ve been fortunate to learn from mentors and leaders, both men and women, but it's made me reflect a lot on what it means to be a future-of-work researcher and to actually lead a team and business based on those insights. It’s definitely easier said than done. Any consulting or research firm will tell you that putting best practices into action consistently is a real challenge.
But beyond that, I’ve also thought deeply about what it means to lead as a woman. How do I create a workplace or even just a team environment that’s more equitable? How do I make sure everyone feels heard, that we accommodate different working styles, and that we’re building something inclusive? That’s the meta part of this work—trying to live the values we research—and it’s both challenging and really rewarding.
SO: It's kind of like you're learning how to walk the talk. You have this really unique perspective: you’re personally passionate about the future of work, but you also have all these insights from research and from your new Prism product. You’re seeing things from both a personal and a data-driven lens. With that broad view, what do you envision for the future of work for women leaders?
NK: Any time you're making a business case, whether it's for a promotion, flexible work, or going part-time, you will need data. Your argument will be much stronger if it's backed by both quantitative and qualitative evidence. So yes, gather the hard numbers, but also go speak to people who’ve done the role or worked flexibly or remotely. Ask them about their experience, what changes they had to make, and how it played out. That kind of anecdotal insight helps demonstrate not only that something can be done, but that it’s been done successfully before.
I don’t want to reduce women’s leadership challenges down to just working part-time or flexibly, because of course it’s broader than that. But take something like salary negotiation or renegotiating your compensation package—variable comp, for example. Data is still critical there. You can use external sources like Glassdoor and also have real conversations. Even if it’s not someone at your company, talk to someone in a similar role elsewhere. Ask questions like, “How many salary reviews have you had in the last two years?” If they say two, and you’ve had none, that’s a data point you can use: “I know peers of mine are receiving annual salary reviews, and I haven’t.”
Beyond the data, though, it’s crucial to think about who you’re trying to influence. Who’s sitting across the table? How many layers of approval do they need to go through? What kind of information or framing will give them the confidence to advocate on your behalf? You want to think not only about what they need to hear, but also about what they want to hear. For example, your manager or their boss may need reassurance that you’re committed, that you love the work, or that you're invested in the company long-term. Or maybe you know they don’t respond well to anything that sounds like a complaint, so that’s a cue to frame things positively wherever possible.
All of this is to say: building a business case is more than just presenting facts. It’s also about tailoring your message and flexing your communication style to make it as compelling as possible to the audience you're trying to move. That’s not necessarily new advice—but it’s still critical.
SO: In what ways can women leverage data to empower their stories?
NK: As a researcher, I’m essentially in the business of selling data. I sell evidence that supports certain conclusions or drives specific changes. And honestly, I wish more of the world operated close to 100% of the time by following what the data actually suggests. If that were the case, we wouldn’t be seeing DEI programs getting cut. Things would look very different.
But the reality is, a lot of decisions, especially in leadership, aren’t made based on data. They’re driven by inertia, legacy thinking, what’s most comfortable or beneficial for those in power, or just the way things have always been done. It’s a generalization, of course, and the best leaders don’t operate that way. But still, there are Fortune 500 companies where, if you ask the employees, they'll tell you, “We don’t make decisions based on data. We make decisions based on what the founder likes, or what the CEO feels is going to work.”
Sometimes that kind of instinctual leadership can lead to visionary breakthroughs, but other times, it doesn’t. So don’t assume that presenting good data will automatically win people over. That’s why it’s so critical to consider the human side of decision-making. Ask yourself: what are the individual incentives in play? What emotions or objections might come up? What matters to the person you're trying to influence?
We don’t live in a world where the best evidence always carries the day. I wish we did, but until then, we’ve got to meet people where they are, not just where the data is.
In an ideal world, people would be more willing to make decisions based on evidence. But, as we know, that's not always the case. The data is clear. There’s no evidence that shows diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) harms outcomes. There’s no evidence that DEI contradicts merit or leads to unqualified people being involved in roles. In fact, the data shows the opposite. Yet, despite this, the narrative that DEI is harmful or detrimental is somehow gaining traction.
It’s incredibly frustrating, especially for those of us doing the work to generate that evidence, and to prove that these misconceptions are, in fact, untrue. But the bigger question is, are we getting the necessary support and funding to keep creating this data? It feels like we're caught in a self-fulfilling cycle, and the more it persists, the scarier it becomes.
Shifting gears here, just to give one best practice—I’m a creative person, and I write. I understand why AI can be intimidating, especially with the threat of job displacement. I get it. But I encourage everyone, particularly women, to get familiar with AI tools. Start using them, start reading about them, and see how they can make your life more efficient. The more time you free up, the better your quality of life becomes.
When it comes to AI, if your first instinct is to feel threatened, I suggest consciously working against that impulse. Ask yourself: How can I use this tool to improve my work? How can I use it to make my life better? What strengths do I have, like my deep organizational knowledge, that can make our company’s use of AI even better?
I often hear people, including women, say, "I'm not tech-savvy. I don’t know anything about AI." But AI impacts every aspect of every organization. And that means that someone familiar with the inner workings of a company has something valuable to contribute. The best deployments of AI tools, whether they’re autonomous agents, generative AI, or conversational tools, are the ones built with input from multiple voices around the table. They go much more smoothly when diverse perspectives contribute to identifying where processes are broken and how to fix them.
If you’re a professional, think about your strengths. What do you know about your company that could improve its experience with workflows and AI? I promise, everyone can add value to how these tools are deployed. The key is embracing it and experimenting with it, rather than running away from it just because it’s intimidating. It’s a valid fear, but AI can be a powerful tool when used correctly.