Kirsty Laing

Dr Kirsty Laing is an experienced qualitative research specialist with a career spanning academia and commercial insight. Currently Associate Insight Director at Explain Market Research, she leads complex, large-scale research programmes across a range of sectors, with particular expertise in regulated industries including the utilities.

Kirsty is passionate about advancing the role of qualitative research as a driver of meaningful organisational change. She champions the use of innovative methodologies—particularly ethnography, observational approaches such as digital ethnography, and co-creation with stakeholders—to bring deeper, more human understanding into traditionally risk-averse and highly regulated environments.

With a strong academic foundation, including a PhD in Public Health and early career research at Newcastle University, Kirsty combines methodological rigour with commercial creativity. She is committed to ensuring that qualitative insight is not only robust but also accessible, actionable and impactful, helping organisations make confident decisions grounded in real human experience.

Across her work, Kirsty brings a clear mission: to push the boundaries of qualitative research within sectors that have historically relied on more traditional approaches, embedding richer, more collaborative and insight-led ways of understanding people and behaviour.