About - Insights Company Singapore

ABOUT HEIST

Heist is a design firm driven by cultural insights.
Working with the world’s most ambitious brands, we uncover the behaviours and cultural nuances that underpin consumers’ choices, and together design the products and services that will shape the future.

Founded in 2016 by Kajal Vatsa, former Insights Lead for Emerging Markets at frog, Heist’s unique ethnographic approach has helped its Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 clients to develop solutions to some of their most complex problems. We have designed a new online-only bank for Millennials in Hong Kong, helped re-imagine the Asia onboarding experience for a French luxury brand, and given a Middle East-based investment firm the tools they need to better engage with female customers

Heist’s approach starts with understanding people’s beliefs, behaviours, and cultural context. We are entrepreneurial, efficient, and enthusiastic in our work. Partnering with us on a project means exposing your team to new methods and ways of seeing – impact that extends far beyond the bounds of an engagement. We are your partners in transforming the way you bring new products to market, and by association, the approach your team members employ in their work.

OUR MILESTONES

2019

Heist opens its new studio in Singapore’s historic Jinrikisha Building.

Visa works with Heist to identify emerging financial behaviours in Vietnam.

More than 30 designers and students join Heist in its studio to explore fieldwork methodologies as part of Singapore Design Week.

Heist runs its first project in Saudi Arabia, working with a Bahrain-based investment fund to understand Saudi women’s mindsets around wealth management.

2018

Standard Chartered Bank tasks Heist with developing the user insights that will serve as the framework for SCB’s first virtual bank.

Heist helps LVMH re-imagine its onboarding experience.

The Working Capitol, one of Singapore’s leading co-working spaces, works with Heist to design a health and wellness programme for its members.

Fortune 500 insurance provider Sun Life partners with Heist to design new insurance solutions for the Philippines’ emerging digital market.

2017

Singapore Design Week invites Heist to take part in its signature programme, as host of a design and ethnography workshop.

2016

Heist runs its first multi-market Design Programme in partnership with a leading Shanghai-based studio. Heist’s approach of creating specialist partnerships and seeking out problem-specific talent becomes a core part of the firm’s approach.

Heist begins work on its first financial services project, which will become one of the core industries the firm specialises in.

Grameen Foundation invites Heist to run social innovation design sprints in Dhaka. A groundbreaking educational programme for rural Bangladeshi girls is born, and still thrives today.

2015

Heist is founded to inject entrepreneurialism, efficiency, and deep client collaboration into the process of design.

2013

Heist Founder and Principal Kajal Vatsa leads multi-regional projects at Frog for 3M and SCJohnson. In designing new products for these CPG giants, she sees an opportunity to disrupt the traditional model of innovation and design consultancy.