Stacey Castor brings over 20 years of expertise in qualitative insights, customer experience, innovation/new product development, foresight, and brand strategy to her AspireUp engagements. She has partnered with both a wide range of market leading companies, designing projects to uncover critical insights around evolving customer needs, finding new audiences, strengthening brand affinity, and uncovering opportunities for growth. She has also led numerous innovation initiatives from start to finish, including identifying strategic white space, facilitating ideation workshops, and developing high-scoring concepts ready for in-house development and launch.

Stacey’s work spans consumer and business-to-business engagements across a wide range of industries, including healthcare and pharma, CPG, financial services, insurance, media, travel, leisure, and manufacturing. Clients include PepsiCo, Brown Forman, Colgate-Palmolive, Henkel, Allianz, Darigold, AstraZeneca, Electronic Arts, IQVIA, Meta, Minnesota Public Radio, Allergan, and Winnebago.

Known for her business acumen, empathy, and curiosity, Stacey brings a hybrid creative-strategic lens to every challenge. A seasoned moderator, she adeptly navigates conversations with all types of consumers as well as senior level professionals and experts, on a wide range of topics, including highly complex or sensitive.

Previously, Stacey served as a principal at Upland, a foresight and innovation firm, and a director at Nimbly Insights and C-Space. Earlier in her career, she worked in brand management at Colgate-Palmolive and Masterfoods. Stacey holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, a J.D. from Boston University, and a Psychology degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.