Meet the Psympl Team

Meet the Psympl Team is a series published under Psympl Answers in which a member of the Psympl team is highlighted to get to know them better and understand them on a more personal level. The series follows a Question & Answer format, much like an interview.

This edition of Meet the Psympl Team features Brent Walker, the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Psympl, Inc. 

What is your background? How did you get your start?

I graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1992 with a Bachelor of Science in Business. I majored in Finance with a minor in Decision Sciences, which is the study of how people make decisions using statistical analysis. Little did I know that would become the focus of my work decades later.

I started a twenty year career at Procter & Gamble in Brand Management with its Healthcare Division, developing promotions and marketing plans for the Vicks® brands and exploring Rx-to-OTC switch opportunities. I then went to work in P&G's Pharmaceutical Division managing prescription drug brands. One day, a very enterprising P&G Account Executive in the Sales function (Casey Albertson, who would later become my business partner after P&G) brought me to his meeting with one of his customers, a top insurance company covering drug reimbursement, to teach them about Brand Management and consumer insights. The value this insurance company got from these capabilities strengthened their relationship with P&G and made doing business with them easier.

P&G Pharmaceuticals leadership took notice of these results and assigned Casey, me, and other innovative marketing managers to a specialized team. This team, ultimately named the P&G Healthcare Consumer Institute (HCI), focused on conducting healthcare consumer research and bundling this with P&G marketing capabilities to consult P&G's top customers as a value-added service. This is when I got my start with psychographic segmentation, which is grouping consumers according to shared characteristics based on their attitudes, values, beliefs, lifestyles, and personalities. Psychographic insights inform P&G Brands' strategies, marketing and promotional executions, product development, and user experience.

In 2004, we knew Medicare Part D was coming, which covered Medicare eligible recipients' drug benefits and also promoted Medicare Advantage plans, in which most insurance companies -- customers of ours - would compete for new members. The HCI led a healthcare psychographic segmentation initiative focused on adults ages 65+ to help our customers and P&G brands deeply understand this population and market to them more effectively. This was extremely successful, so we continued with a model focused on Baby Boomers, who, at the time, were beginning to "age in" to Medicare. Again, P&G's healthcare customers across health insurance, hospitals & health systems and retailers found great value in this. In fact, I was assigned a nine month "Special Assignment/Executive on Loan" stint with the P&G Walmart team in Arkansas to help Walmart with its healthcare strategies leveraging our psychographic models, and Casey also played a big role there.

During this time, the various P&G Healthcare brands had category-specific psychographic models (e.g., respiratory, gastrointestinal, dental, etc.) and we wanted to know if a "grand-unifying healthcare model" could consolidate all of this work. A Pan-Health psychographic model was developed, which was validated across generations and even internationally, to help inform all P&G Healthcare efforts. 

What led you to leave P&G?

In 2012, two things happened to prompt my jump into the entrepreneurial world:

1. P&G engaged in its "Strengthening Global Effectiveness" initiative, which included a downsizing through voluntary separation and attrition. After twenty years at P&G, I figured if I were to ever go into business for myself, this was the time to do it. So, I accepted a separation package which helped finance the startup of c2b solutions.
2.  
3. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act (ACA), in which healthcare institutions managing risk would need to rely on patients making the right health and wellness choices to effectively manage that risk. The unique experience, knowledge, and capabilities we cultivated at P&G would be extremely valuable to these healthcare institutions.
4.  

On my 20th anniversary with the Procter & Gamble, I left P&G to start c2b solutions with Casey Albertson and developed a 4th generation healthcare psychographic segmentation model evolved from the previous three models. That psychographic model was highly predictive (>90%) and remained stable over the next 12 years. Over that time, we helped a variety of stakeholders better understand and engage healthcare consumers, including health insurance companies, hospitals & health systems, medical groups, urgent care, employers, and consumer products companies. c2b solutions was also involved in a series of acquisitions and that original healthcare psychographic model is still in use today.

What happened to c2b solutions?

While we demonstrated that psychographic insights and segment-specific messaging could have a significant impact on activating patient behaviors for both clinical and marketing applications, the work was time intensive and involved a lot of consulting. We needed a way to scale psychographic patient engagement.

In 2014, the well-respected head of a local (Cincinnati) Venture Capital firm introduced us to the Chairman of a company called PatientBond. PatientBond was a platform for digital patient engagement, using various channels (email, SMS, automated calls) to interact with patients to address things like appointment setting/reminders, chronic disease management, patient financial responsibility payments, and a litany of other use cases. PatientBond was looking to differentiate in a competitive market and psychographics could help. Between 2014 - 2017, c2b solutions partnered with PatientBond in a very synergistic fashion with great results. In 2017, Casey and I decided to sell c2b solutions to PatientBond and I became the head of Marketing & Analytics for the company, while Casey became President, reporting to the CEO.

We were blessed with a high performance team at PatientBond with a shared vision and passion for the work. There was great chemistry and we all enjoyed working with each other. PatientBond achieved placement in the Inc. 5000 for four straight years as we grew aggressively.

That said, PatientBond's Board wanted to take the company to the next level and in late 2022 agreed to merge with Upfront Healthcare, another platform for patient engagement, to essentially double the entities' revenue and drive a higher valuation. I served as a strategic advisor and psychographics Subject Matter Expert, but missed the startup life, working with a small team focused on innovation. Once the healthcare psychographic model was solidly integrated with Upfront's systems, I looked toward starting a new company.

Is this how Psympl started?

Yes, but the story of Psympl goes back several years. Ran Mullins, the CEO of Psympl, also owns a successful brand strategy and marketing agency, Relequint. c2b solutions hired Relequint as its agency in 2014 and this continued on with PatientBond. Over the years, Ran, Casey, and I had discussed starting a new venture together focused on psychographics outside healthcare, but PatientBond's acquisition of c2b solutions required our attention. Moreover, the creation of psychographic content was still resource-intensive and would divert us from our other commitments and responsibilities.

Fast forward to early 2024 and several considerations made a partnership more feasible. First, I was getting the entrepreneurial "bug" again and mentally ready to start a new venture. Second, Ran was still open to the idea of a new venture, as he had seen the stellar results we achieved with psychographics over the years. Third -- and this is a big one -- Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) made scaling the creation of psychographic content feasible. Instead of requiring a team of copywriters to create different, psychographic segment-specific versions of content (words and images), GenAI could make it as simple as the push of a button.

Thus, in May 2024 I left Upfront Healthcare and got to work designing a market research study with Ipsos to develop a new financial psychographic model. Note, I have worked with Ipsos since my early years at P&G and have always trusted them to help me with excellent market research and the development of powerful psychographic models. Needless to say, the Ipsos team came through again and helped us craft a highly predictable, actionable, financial psychographic model, which is the foundation for Psympl. Psympl incorporated in November 2024 and we've entered 2025 developing Psympl's products and securing both alpha clients and pre-seed funding.

By the way, Upfront Healthcare was acquired by Health Catalyst (NASDAQ: HCAT) in January 2025, so it's great knowing our previous healthcare psychographic model will continue helping healthcare providers succeed.

Is Psympl engaged in fundraising?

We're raising a limited pre-seed round this Spring, though we already have several investors committed already. We invested our own personal money to launch Psympl, develop our psychographic model and products, and set up our website and initial marketing tools. This involved a significant amount of our personal money, but we are very confident based on more than two decades of success in healthcare, which is an acid-test of sorts... if you can motivate patients to adopt healthy behaviors and choose a specific healthcare institution in a highly competitive market, it bodes well for activating behaviors in other markets.

But I digress... we are pursuing limited pre-seed funding to support product innovation, team expansion, sales & marketing efforts, and administrative requirements. We want to be smart about fund raising and not get out over our skis; the amount we are seeking is designed to help us achieve our 2025 goals and give us the momentum needed for 2026.

What does Psympl mean?

We wanted to convey that we can simplify the process of truly personalizing client acquisition, retention, and upsell/cross-sell efforts. Psychographics and consumer psychology provide the insights needed to persuade and activate client behavior based on personal motivations. Psympl - pronounced "simple" - captured this perfectly. We want to help clients drive efficiencies while enhancing marketing efforts to maximize conversions and business results.

Why Psychographics?

Financial services companies and wealth managers currently segment prospects and clients using demographic and socioeconomic data. For example, they may approach Baby Boomers and Millennial clients with different products or investment strategies, or they may prioritize clients by the amount of assets under management. Demographic and socioeconomic characteristics define WHO a client is, but do not explain clients' decisions, behaviors, or motivations. 

Behavioral segmentation, grouping clients by response rates to marketing, investment history, or other actions define WHAT clients do. Predictive analytics seek to anticipate future behaviors based on past behaviors, and this has been very useful for segmentation and client engagement strategies, but this doesn't explain WHY people do what they do. Two people could be in the same income bracket and have invested in a similar asset, but their reasons for doing so can be very different. These same two people may also have very different preferences with regard to interactions with a wealth manager or financial services company; this has been covered in several of our blogs, such as our February 18, 2025 post, How Do Clients Want to Engage Financial Advisors?

Effective marketing and personalized client engagement need to resonate with a prospect's or client's motivations, priorities, and communication preferences. Psychographics help identify these factors and can be leveraged in marketing for advanced personalization. World class consumer products companies and retailers like P&G and Walmart use psychographics, as do popular brands like Porsche. It can be very costly to develop a psychographic model through proprietary market research and operationalizing it effectively; in terms of dollars, time, and personnel investment it can range from six to seven figures, and half the time the psychographic model may not be as predictive or effective as desired. The reason big companies invest in psychographics is because a good model can pay big dividends.

However, smaller companies may not be able to afford to develop a good psychographic model, and even big companies may not have the expertise to operationalize the insights and leverage psychographics effectively. This is why Psympl developed its financial psychographic model and products to benefit financial advisors, wealth managers, banks, credit unions, and other financial services companies. 

Why the focus on Financial Services?

It's funny... early on in our work with c2b solutions, our advisors and VC connections suggested we focus on financial services and wealth management rather than healthcare. Healthcare was challenging and bureaucratic, slow to make decisions, and risk averse. While financial services may also generally be conservative, decisions and speed to revenue would be much quicker. We stuck with healthcare based on our experience and track record; plus, we wanted to make a difference and help people live healthier lives. However, the idea of bringing our psychographic expertise to the financial services industry has been simmering on the burner over the past decade.

A few years ago, a health insurance client of PatientBond's was working with a leading market research company to do a national study (n=10,000 respondents) on consumers' interests, hobbies, purchase habits, and a variety of categories including finances. We were able to include our healthcare psychographic typing questions in the survey so the data could be analyzed by psychographic segment. We had hypothesized how the segments would answer the financial questions and we were dead-on with three of the five psychographic segments, and 50/50 with the other two segments. We knew we were on to something, but we couldn't use a healthcare-specific model in financial services.

The financial services and wealth management industries share a lot in common with healthcare; there isn't a lot of differentiation or true personalization and it can be complex for consumers. In fact, there's a strong adjacency between health and wealth, as they both evoke strong, emotional feelings and ladder subconsciously to vulnerability and peace of mind. Moreover, people need to trust and rely on an expert to make recommendations that impact their wellbeing.

Finally, circling back to my focus in college -- though 33 years later -- I get to apply my knowledge to an industry consistent with my degree. I'm very excited to bring Psympl to the financial services industry.

How can Psympl help financial services companies, specifically?

Psympl helps financial services companies (financial advisors, wealth managers, banks, credit unions, etc.) improve client acquisition, retention, and conversions using Psychographic AI™ wealth management solutions. We offer several products to achieve these goals:

• Motivation Decoder™: This short survey identifies a person's financial psychographic segment with 90% accuracy, based on their attitudes, priorities, and motivations regarding finances, wealth, and investments. Anyone can take the Motivation Decoder by visiting the Psympl website.
• Psymplifier™: This resource leverages GenAI to automatically produce marketing and client engagement content (email, text messages, social media, print/digital advertising, call scripts, etc.) specific to each financial psychographic segment, using words, images and layout that resonates personally. The Psymplifier integrates with a client's CRM or client engagement platform to enhance its channels of communication.
• Consumer Console™: This is an interactive, digital dashboard to access and navigate Psympl's proprietary market research on financial consumers and psychographic segment codebooks to inform strategies and improve marketing tactics with consumer insights. 
• Market Research Data Sets: Psympl's proprietary market research providing a comprehensive analysis of consumers' financial attitudes, intentions, and behaviors to drive strategic decisions, marketing, and client engagement. The data can be delivered in several formats, including Excel workbooks, ASCII, Comma Limited, or PowerPoint decks.

These products can be leveraged for a variety of use cases. For example:

• Conversion of clients' assets held with other companies. A financial advisor's or bank's clients may have multiple accounts across several firms, representing significant assets that could be managed under one roof. Psychographic targeting and messaging can help in these conversions.
• Upsell/Cross-sell of products. Financial institutions offer many products and services, such as tax advisory, Trust establishment and management, lending, Long Term Care insurance, socially responsible investing. Psychographics can help identify clients open to these offerings and personalize the value proposition to be more persuasive.
• Prioritizing call lists. RIAs (Registered Investment Advisors) and wealth managers are given call lists targeting prospects, often based on net assets or income. Psychographics can help prioritize those targets with the highest likelihood of responding, increasing productivity significantly.
• Selling alternative investments. Certain psychographic segments have a higher risk tolerance and seek investments that others may not pursue. Whether this involves cryptocurrency, tokenized commercial real estate, PE and investments in startups, certain segments welcome the opportunity while other segments - even those with high net worth - avoid such investments.
• New client acquisition. This involves targeting and engaging prospects that are consistent with an offering or strategy. Marketing resources can be designed and concentrated on specific psychographic segments with the highest likelihood of conversion instead of using a shotgun, "one size fits all" approach with diluted effectiveness.

Those are just a few use cases for generating revue through wealth management personalization using financial psychographics; there are many more applications for these powerful insights and products.

What is Psychographic AI^TM?

Psychographic AI uses advanced algorithms to analyze behavioral data, values, interests, attitudes, and personalities to determine people's psychographic profiles to segment audiences and generate content specific to those psychographic segments. This allows financial services advisors and companies go well beyond demographic and socioeconomic data to engage prospects and clients in a persuasive way, consistent with their motivations, priorities, and communication preferences. Psychographic AI powers Psympl's products, which I discussed earlier.

What motivates you in your work?

I love to understand what makes people tick and understanding their personalities. I enjoy determining the probabilities around people's decisions and actions. I'm highly analytical and using statistics, data, and consumer insights to solve problems or innovate is very rewarding. I also like to take an idea and bring it to life. Whether it involves a new product or a new company, like Psympl, it's a great feeling to take a concept and make it real and watch it grow.

I want to work with people I like and who bring strengths that I do not have. I'll be the first to admit when I don't know something... take technology for instance. I know what I want technology to do, but I couldn't tell you how that technology works or is coded. That's why we hire an expert like our CTO, Deep Anandrao.  I may have grown up in Marketing with P&G, but I don't have Design expertise. Ran Mullins, Psympl's CEO, owns Relequint and is highly skilled in Design. Sales takes skills distinct from Marketing, so we need someone like Mike Schiller, our VP of Business Development. We all have a strong chemistry together and it makes it fun. We'll feature each member of the team in future editions of Meet the Psympl Team.

What are your interests outside work?

My family is my main focus. I got married in 2019 to a wonderful woman with two daughters, so at age 49 I went from being a single guy to a family man. My personal priorities changed pretty dramatically, I've had a blast attending the girls' school and sporting events and my wife is my best friend with my sense of humor and values. We have an awesome, very talkative, and somewhat rebellious Siberian Husky named Archer, who is gentle with the girls, but likes to wrestle with me. I wouldn't trade family life for the world. 

My wife and I are both into genealogy and love researching our family trees. Both of our families came to the United States in the 1600's - 1700's, and I'm a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. Interestingly, my fifth-great grandfather, who fought in the Revolution, lived in the same Eastern Ohio community as my wife's family from the same time period. We both have Scottish ancestry and we got engaged on a trip to Scotland in 2018, visiting the areas where our ancestors lived.

Relatedly, I'm a big history buff and have a lot of books on U.S. and world history. World War 2 has been a focus of mine since I was in grade school and I can get lost in WW2 documentaries and Youtube videos. 

How can people determine their own psychographic segment?

The Motivation Decoder™ is on the Psympl website and can be taken by anyone who wants to discover their financial psychographic profile. As I stated before, the Motivation Decoder is 90% accurate in identifying a person's psychographic profile from among five possible segments. It takes under two minutes to answer the Decoder questions and is very insightful.