About Us

Introduction

Zen Research launched in early 2013, just when Myanmar began to open up and re-integrate with the world. It was a time of unprecedented change and growth, and an exciting time to be in the country. Since then, we’ve seen and experienced so much change. Through it all, we’ve grown into who we are today.

The political, economic and consumer landscape has transformed in the past ten years, and so have we. As a result, we are well-positioned to embrace new ideas and move forward with our dynamic and creative approach to each client’s unique requirements.

We have a large, spacious office in Thingangyun Township in Yangon, where we have our own purpose-built focus group facility. Our office is also home to a training facility where we run large-scale in-house CLTs.

Our Culture, Philosophy, and Values

Culture is everything in an organisation, and we’re immensely proud of ours. Our values are reflected in everything we do, from the way we work together, manage our projects, and collect and analyse our data, to how we communicate with our clients and deliver our findings. Our pursuit of excellence knows no bounds, and we are meticulous and uncompromising in our approach to quality control so that we can always provide the very best to our clients.

While professionalism and integrity are paramount, we also ensure Zen is a fun and enjoyable place to work. BBQs, events, team-building days, and Zen holidays have all become part of our culture. We cooperate, get closer, and work hard to achieve our goals and targets. Every team member makes sure to deliver the projects on-time. And after the deadlines, we would have fun together, to celebrate our success, one for all and all for one.

Our Facilities

We regularly hold focus groups at our office in Yangon, where we have our own purpose-bult state-of-the-art viewing facilities. Beyond Yangon, we have forget strong relationships with venues Taunggyi, Mandalay, Pathein, Magway, Monywa and Mawlamyaing.

We run focus groups, in-depth F2F interviews, gang surveys, team training, central location tests (CLTs) and client workshops. These days, we host a lot of these activities online as many of our clients are located overseas.

CLTs (Central Location Testing)

With many years of experience running CLTs for our clients in Yangon and other cities, we firmly believe Zen offers the best in the industry. CLTs are incredibly involved studies, often requiring weeks of set-up, training, and preparation to ensure we meet all requirements and achieve consistency down to the finest detail. CLTs often involve taste-testing and food preparation, meaning the highest standards of hygiene are imperative. We are fortunate to have a dedicated office building (that is actually younger than Zen Research), providing the ideal environment for testing our client’s products.

FGDs (Focus Group Discussion)

First and foremost, Zen have the best moderators in the business. Led by Su Myat, with almost 9 years’ experience, six of them working on Unilever’s entire product range. In 2023 alone, she has led qual studies on more than 20 Unilever brands.

We have numerous FGDs done with top FMCG clients throughout our presence in Myanmar. Most of the FGDs are held in Yangon, Mandalay, Taunggyi and Magway, and we expanded to SEA region in the past year 2023, holding FGDs in Vientiane, Laos and Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Meet The Senior Team At Zen

Our multilingual team is passionate and highly professional, and we all share the same values and a common goal. Together, we give our clients our all, providing them with the absolute best customer service, data, and results.

Richard Clarke

Managing Director

Read bio

Richard, the Founder and Managing Director of Zen Healthcare Asia, leads a team offering innovative solutions for pharmaceutical and healthcare clients in the Asia Pacific. With over 10 years of experience, he has successfully managed diverse projects, including patient journeys, physician insights, market access, and brand equity. Passionate about team building and mentoring across cultures, Richard, with an MBA, has lived and worked in various countries, currently residing in Myanmar for 11 years. He is pursuing Global Health studies at Harvard Medical School via online. Committed to improving healthcare outcomes, Richard also founded Zen Research Asia in 2013, covering diverse sectors including FMCG, media, telecoms, banking, and social research for UN agencies, The World Bank, and NGOs.

Su Myat Myint Swe

Research Director

Read bio

Our most experienced researcher at Zen Research is Su Myat, who has been with the company for over eight years. She has held various roles on her way to the top including head of the data management team, research executive in quant research and later transitioned to client servicing and moderation. Su Myat has proven to be an invaluable asset, and she moderates a diverse range of focus groups, IDIs, ethnographies, and home visits in various fields such as FMCG, personal care, pharmaceuticals, alcohol, banking, and social research.

Su Myat successfully completed an advanced moderator course with Firestar Research in Malaysia back in 2018. Currently, she leads our client servicing team and oversees our operations team. Her primary responsibility is to supervise all research projects and ensure the accuracy of report writing.

Myo Thu Ya

......

Read bio

Myo Thu Ya is a Quantitative specialist, With a bachelor’s degree in applied statistics from the University of Co-operative, Thanlyin. His professional journey has been solely focused on research, aligning perfectly with his academic background. Accumulating close to six years of research experience, he has undertaken a diverse range of surveys, including socio-economic surveys for Environmental Research and facilitated FGD work for numerous social projects, contributing significantly to various social survey reports. He harbors a distinct passion for data analysis, exhibiting a keen interest in extracting and formulating insights from raw datasets. Joining Zen Research Asia as a Research Executive in early 2022, he currently leads project management, effective respondent recruitment, interviewer team establishment, meticulous data monitoring, quantitative research interviewer training, social project moderation, and screener development.

Hnin Htet Htet Aung

Research Executive

Read bio

After studying medicine in Yangon, Jenny had a career in business development within pharmaceutical and SaaS sectors before joining Zen Research. She served as a business development executive at Global Wave Technology, where she oversaw the operations with client pitching, client servicing and project management.

After joining the Zen team, Jenny quickly proved herself as a natural fit for moderation with her ability to effortlessly connect with and build positive rapport with respondents. She now moderates focus groups and consumer immersion interviews in a range of FMCG categories to a very high standard.

With her diverse background combining medicine and business, Jenny undertakes wide range of functions in qualitative research within her role; from client servicing to analysis and report development in FMCG, personal care and home care

Phoo Thet Che Oo

Research Executive

Read bio

Vivian’s professional journey reflects her adaptability and unwavering commitment to understanding the intricate dynamics of the consumer landscape. Before embarking on her career in market research, she gained valuable experience in the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector. A graduate of the University of California, San Diego, Vivian returned home in 2019, armed with a solid educational foundation and a hunger for new challenges.

Driven by her innate curiosity, Vivian’s passion lies in deciphering current market trends and unraveling the underlying behaviors of individuals.

This passion led her to Zen Research Asia in early 2023, where she serves as a Research Executive. In this role, Vivian provides essential services to clients, including client servicing, report writing, screener and discussion guide development, simultaneous translation, and transcript translation. Her meticulous approach ensures that the research findings are relevant, accessible, actionable and ultimately valuable to our clients.