Vanessa Thompson, IDC

Being an industry analyst you need to have a Swiss army knife of skills at your disposal to succeed. She has come to realize that a strong combination of being outgoing, diligent, detail-oriented, conceptual, articulate with both quantitative and qualitative information, time-sensitive, and at often times being a heretic, are all part of what makes up the role of an analyst.

In the span of her career she has learnt some core characteristics of her personality; She has strong relationship skills and that building a quick rapport is a particularly useful trait in an analyst, She loves solving problems and that a fact base and critical reasoning are so important in the decisions we make every day (particularly where small changes add up to larger changes), and finally she loves sharing insights in a meaningful way.