Y-Pulse | Chicago Food-focused Youth Marketing Research and Consulting | Kids, Millennials, Foodservice Professionals

Meet
the
team

Sharon Olson

Sharon was a founding partner of Y-Pulse^® in 2004. She spends much of her time on college and university campuses and is captivated with understanding young consumers’ complicated and ever changing relationships with food. She is often quoted in consumer and trade media as a leading authority on food trends with young consumers, and she loves delivering the annual Y-Pulse^® global trend forecast to clients and at industry conferences.

For fun: Sharon is the perennial student—she always loved school and still does. She will rarely pass up an opportunity to take a class or seminar to learn a new skill or language. She enjoys exploring the world’s cultures and cuisines and approaches everything she does with child-like enthusiasm.

Susan Wagner

Susan is a seasoned marketing strategist. She has been part of the team since the beginning; and she is the person digging into thousands of comments from the kids in the Y-Pulse^® studies. She will be the person who manages our projects, mines the research and keeps everyone abreast of what’s likely to be on tomorrow’s menu.

For fun: Susan approaches practical jokes with the same intensity as her work. She is legendary for her highly imaginative and intricate April Fool’s schemes. Every year she continues to pull a masterful “fast one” on her target—always done with the greatest affection and good humor.

Fred Fleischbein

Fred has been the numbers guy since he was a kid and reveled in his math class. He will be the one digging into the quantitative analysis on all Y-Pulse^® research projects. Fred will be involved on research projects from the beginning to be sure that questions are crafted to reveal the “a ha!” that makes the difference in gaining insight rather than confirming the obvious. He is well known for looking beyond the numbers to help clients hone in on innovations that hit home with their customers.

For fun: Fred loves to teach and explore. He often guest lectures on marketing research and enjoys making a required course captivating for college students. When he’s not on dry land, he is seeking out unique underwater wonders as a master scuba diver.