About Us.
MADO is a boutique Consumer Insights and Strategy studio based in Portland, Oregon. We offer close partner relationships with our founders and hands-on collaboration with our vibrant team of global researchers, designers and strategists.
Jaclyn Suzuki
Founder, Director of Insights + Strategy
Jaclyn is hard to define, which is kind of her super power. She’s able to talk to executives and creatives in their own languages, while giving each one a dose of the curiosity and courage necessary to dream big.
She once asked product designers to imagine what a vacuum would look like if it could fold up like origami. Another time with VP’s, she created a 50-year roadmap for the future of toothpaste. That’s right. Fifty years of toothpaste!
HOW SHE GOT HERE:
After working as an engineer for a global tech firm and researching new materials for an artisanal glassmaker, Jaclyn found a home at Ziba Design, where she led consumer insights, trends and innovation strategy programs for major brands — and spent a few years in the Tokyo office to boot. She was already incorporating future-forward approaches as a creative director when she and Kat decided to form MADO.
IN HER OWN WORDS:
“My dad’s an engineer and my mom’s an artist, so I bounce back and forth between the right brain and left brain a lot. I try to bridge creative vision for the future — let’s be bold and go farther — with a practical, business mindset. That guides how I design research programs to have impact.”
Kat McMillan
Founder, Director of Foresight + Creative
Kat combines the skills of a visionary designer with the curiosity of a philosopher.
She sweats every detail of an ideation workshop or insights report. It has to be thought-provoking and engaging, “because who wants the future to be flat?”
HOW SHE GOT HERE:
Kat spent nearly a decade overseas at design consultancies in Sweden, the Netherlands and Spain before focusing on product design, strategy and trend research for Portland-based organizations. While serving as design lead at Cinco Design, she met Jaclyn and the two realized they were both informally bringing future-based consumer insights, creativity and strategy to their client teams. Soon after, MADO was born.
IN HER OWN WORDS:
“My perspective is that it's not about the blender; it’s about the way that people want to nourish themselves. It's not about the chair; it’s something in the chair’s tactile quality that adds beauty and comfort to their life. That kind of perspective is what I bring to any program. What’s the human story with your brand and products, and why is it possibly shifting?”