Leadership Team

Meet Our Executive Team

Marisa Kopec

Chief Executive Officer

Scott Wilson

Chief Financial Officer

Ujwal Arkalgud

Executive Vice President

Marisa Kopec

Marisa Kopec is the Chief Executive Officer at Lux.   She leads a talented, experienced team focused on a purpose-driven mission of studying novel sciences, emerging technologies, and consumer behavior to enable “sustainable innovation” for Lux clients. Her passion is growth through innovation and helping corporate leaders reach their sustainability and net zero targets.

Marisa joined Lux in January 2021 as Lux’s Chief Research Officer. She was responsible for Lux Research’s syndicated research and consulting services as well as new product development and management. Over the last two years, Marisa has orchestrated a brilliant transformation of Lux’s product strategy, from pricing and packaging to reinvention of the digital and service delivery that has been instrumental in the company’s ability to scale and grow.

Marisa is a seasoned market research leader with 30+ years of experience. She served as the Senior Vice President of Research Product Management at Forrester. She was commercially responsible for the SiriusDecisions product line and successfully led a new go-to-market strategy for Forrester following its acquisition of SiriusDecisions in 2019.

Before Forrester, she was Head of Product and Innovation at SiriusDecisions and an executive team member that grew the start-up research and advisory firm into a $100M business. She was responsible for designing and implementing the organization’s product management processes and governance. Also, Marisa transformed SiriusDecisions’ product strategy and go-to-market architecture while leading the digital transformation of the company’s intellectual property origination and delivery.

Before SiriusDecisions, Marisa spent 12 years with Gartner, most recently as a managing vice president and product leader for Gartner’s High-Tech and Telecom business unit. She also ran global marketing at Gartner and was the Chief Privacy Officer.   In addition to her managerial experience at market research organizations, Marisa is known for her innovative and industry-recognized methodologies (e.g., The SiriusDecisions PMM model, Messaging Nautilus, and Buyer Persona Framework) that have been widely operationalized across B2B organizations today.

Scott Wilson

Scott Wilson is the Chief Financial Officer at Lux Research and is responsible for the company’s financial function including planning and analysis, accounting, tax, treasury, and business finance operations.

Scott has over 15 years of financial and operational experience with both public and private global technology companies. Prior to Lux, he was the Vice President of Finance at LogicManager, a software-as-a-service company focused on enterprise risk management. Scott helped lead the Company through exponential growth and oversaw its first international expansions. Prior to that Scott was the Corporate Controller at QuickBase, a low code development platform that sold to Vista Equity Partners for > $1 billion valuation. Prior to QuickBase, he held roles at Amazon, Backstage LLC, and Nuance Communications.

Scott received his Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting from Ithaca College and his Master’s Degree in Accounting from Northeastern University. He also holds his CPA license in Massachusetts.

Ujwal Arkalgud

Ujwal is an award-winning cultural anthropologist and a pioneer in digital ethnography and the study of implicit and symbolic meaning using the internet. In 2015, he co-founded MotivBase, which is the world’s first predictive anthropology research technology that enables the study of meaning and consumer beliefs with big data. He speaks passionately and keynotes on the value of anthropology to corporate innovation across major conferences around the globe and has written two books on the topic. His most recent book, Microcultures: Understanding the Consumer Forces That Will Shape the Future of Your Business, was published in 2020.

Since the acquisition of MotivBase by Lux Research in April 2022, Ujwal serves as the Executive Vice President and Group Director for the Anthropology and Consumer Insights portion of Lux Research’s business.

Arij van Berkel, Ph.D.

Chief Product Officer

Steve Dodman

Chief Sales Officer

Arij van Berkel, Ph.D.

Arij is the Chief Product Officer (CPO) at Lux Research in charge of all research and Lux Expertise teams. Arij joined Lux Research in 2015, leading the energy research and Lux Expertise teams until 2023, when he became CPO. As CPO, it is his mission to make sure Lux supports all its clients with the most relevant, highest quality and most up-to-date information, insights, analyses, and opinions to inform and improve the innovation decisions its clients make every day.

Prior to joining Lux Research, Arij worked for Shell and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), the public research and technology organization of the Netherlands. At Shell, he conducted research in process safety and combustion. At TNO, he worked on a variety of topics including food preservation, emissions reduction, and biomass conversion. Later, as TNO’s innovation director for the chemicals industry, he was responsible for TNO’s entire project portfolio for the chemicals industry and liaising with the Dutch and EU governments on innovation policy.

Arij earned his M.Sc. in mechanical engineering from Twente University and a Ph.D. from Eindhoven University.

Steve Dodman

As Chief Sales Officer, Steve Dodman leads Lux Research’s global sales organization by providing leadership, direction, and an executive vision to ensure alignment with the company’s financial and strategic goals. With 20+ years’ experience driving revenue, profitability, and performance in the professional services industry, Steve brings strong business acumen and creative energy to Lux. Working collaboratively across sales, marketing, research, and consulting, Steve is responsible for leading the sales team in their pursuit to deliver solutions to clients as they seek to drive sustainable innovation and growth.

Prior to joining Lux Research, Steve held senior-level sales and marketing positions with Insider Intelligence, Richardson Sales Performance, Sirius Decisions, IDG, and GBMP. His experience includes defining and executing go-to-market strategies and building award-winning sales teams. Steve holds a B.Sc. in Business Management from the University of Massachusetts and an MBA from Babson College. He was selected as an Emerging Leader in the City of Boston and is currently a fellow at the Center for Collaborative Leadership. Steve resides just outside of Boston, Massachusetts with his family.

Meet Our Research and Consulting Leaders

Michael Holman, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Group Director, Lux Research

Michael Holman, Ph.D.

Senior Vice President, Group Director

Samhitha Udupa

VP Product Operations​

Naveen Krishnamurthy, Vice President, Executive Partners, Lux Research

Naveen Krishnamurthy

Vice President, Executive Partners

Michael Holman, Ph.D.

Michael Holman is SVP and Group Director for Manufacturing and Materials at Lux Research, leading a team of analysts and consultants who help clients, primarily large global corporations, with new opportunities in emerging technology areas from 3D printing to advanced materials to the circular economy.

He has been with Lux since 2005, shortly after the company was founded, and held a variety of positions in research, consulting, and client service. Michael earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Columbia University, where he worked at Columbia’s Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center. He also holds a B.A. in Chemistry and Philosophy from Rice University.

Samhitha Udupa

Samhitha is the VP of Product Operations at Lux. Her contributions in advisory projects have facilitated commercialization of technologies in advanced building materials, nanomaterials manufacturing processes, building-integrated photovoltaics, novel drug-delivery technologies, and nano-catalysts, to name a few. Prior to her consulting work at Lux Research, Samhitha was a major contributor to the Biosciences Intelligence team, where she has conducted extensive primary and secondary research in biofuels, biomaterials, targeted delivery, synthetic biology, and other areas of emerging biosciences.

Samhitha joined the Lux Research team from University of Pennsylvania where she co-designed a diagnostic instrument that measures torque and range-of-motion of rotator cuff muscles in patients suffering from chronic shoulder pain (patent pending).

Samhitha holds a B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

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