The Farnsworth Group, the leading custom market research firm serving exclusively the building, home improvement, and lawn & ranch industries, is proud to announce that Dave King has joined the firm to serve as the VP of Insights at The Farnsworth Group and as the Executive Director of The Home Improvement Research Institute (HIRI).
HIRI, the leading secondary market research organization for over 100 of the largest names within the home improvement industry, has been managed by The Farnsworth Group since 2017. The Farnsworth Group continues to invest in additional resources to ensure the success of the HIRI organization.
“HIRI can be understood like a co-op. Member fees are pooled to fund the breadth and depth of market research studies that are commissioned on behalf of all the members,” explains Pam Heidel, the Operations Director of HIRI. “If each individual member commissioned all this research on their own, we’ve calculated that they would be spending a million dollars annually on market research rather than a tiny fraction of that cost as a HIRI member.”
Part of The Farnsworth Group’s 2023 investment into energizing the efforts of HIRI is incorporating Dave King into The Farnsworth Group’s team as the VP of Insights. Within that role, Dave will also fulfill duties as the Executive Director of HIRI.
The Farnsworth Group Welcomes Dave King as VP of Insights
Dave has spent the past two decades in the strategy, research and advanced analytics space. Nine of those years were focused directly in the home improvement space as VP of Strategy, Research & Analytics for EnerBank USA (now Regions Bank), a home improvement lender.
Prior to joining EnerBank, Dave spent four years as Chief Statistician of The Cicero Group, a strategy and research consulting firm, while also teaching numerous graduate courses in data science and advanced business analytics. Dave’s passion for the housing industry started in his early twenties and is stronger than ever today; this passion has led to broad exposure of the housing and home improvement industries through his experience working directly with contractors and other organizations focused on the home improvement industry.
HIRI Welcomes Dave King as Executive Director
“I am thrilled to serve as Executive Director of HIRI. I’ve loved the mission and vision of HIRI from the very beginning and believe we can build upon the current foundation.” remarks Dave, who has been a HIRI member and a volunteer on the HIRI board the last several years.
“Information without a voice is largely unheard,” shares Dave. “We’ve had this sense that what HIRI was providing has been somewhat akin to academic research; there’s a lot of data and information out there, but how much of that is used to act? Very little. And we, as HIRI, don’t want to be a data publisher; we want to influence the strategies organizations are taking because of the quality of insights, not just information, provided to members.”
Learn more about the role of HIRI in the home improvement sector and about membership opportunities at hiri.org.
