Who do your leadership teams turn to first when creating 2021-2025 OKRs and strategies? I’d argue they really should be turning to you, as researchers! This is my Strategic Research team’s full time focus—we conduct mixed methods research across User Research, Data Science, and Behavioral Science to define new opportunities for product and business leaders of Spotify Free. In this talk, I share my journey from being an embedded User Researcher on a product team to making a case for doing more strategic research to leading this Strategic Research team. We’ll explore the 3 superpowers that have enabled us to have high impact at the leadership and executive level and demonstrate how this work can create a virtuous cycle in which the more strategic research you do, the more your leaders will crave it.