Akshay's Profound AI Rep
Akshay's view on proxy research shows how he approaches markets where direct data doesn't exist.
Akshay Singh
Edges
Building Primary and Secondary Research Frameworks
Akshay's research instinct is to build the structure before the analysis. When data is thin or the market is poorly mapped, he identifies the right proxies, designs the primary research to fill the gaps, and sequences the work so the output is decision-ready. This pattern has shown up across his work at Bain and Korn Consult. For a US grocery retailer's market entry, he designed a consumer survey from scratch, including segmentation logic and screening criteria, and built the analytical model to generate the cuts that mattered. For the Korn M&A deal, he sourced targets through partner interviews and built the secondary research layer on the target's order book and customer dependencies. His independent thermonuclear energy thesis followed the same logic: map the value chain, identify the data sources, track the policy signals, and form a view before the market catches up. The distinguishing pattern is that he treats research design as a strategic choice. The proxy metrics he used for frozen food consumption, refrigerator size trends and working hours data, are a good example of how he approaches a market that resists direct measurement.
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Structuring Ambiguous Problems into Decision Frameworks
When Akshay faces a vague market or a noisy data set, his first move is to build the logic map before touching the numbers. He designs the decision tree, identifies the branching conditions, and maps the available evidence to each node. This converts qualitative inputs into a structured set of levers. This approach appeared clearly in the retail supply chain engagement, where he built parallel decision trees for out-of-stock and spoilage problems, translating anecdotal store manager and customer feedback into a root-cause framework the client could act on. The same instinct shaped his market entry work, where he used proxy metrics, refrigerator size trends, working hours, and household income, to assess a category question that had no direct data source. And in the M&A deal, he mapped OEM dependency to design the sequencing of negotiation conversations. The pattern is consistent: structure first, then evidence, then recommendation.
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KSpotting Consumer and Market Trends
Akshay reads consumer and market signals as a habit, not just as a project task. He tracks newsletters, podcasts, and product launches across sectors, and regularly forms independent views on where markets are heading. This has produced concrete calls. During the US grocery market entry engagement, he identified reselling of the client's SKUs in the target geography through social media and marketplace data, surfacing latent consumer demand that shaped the expansion case. He also identified a limited-edition product trend that subsequently became a global collector wave. His thermonuclear energy thesis, developed independently in late 2023, mapped the Indian energy demand picture, benchmarked it against international transitions, and identified publicly listed beneficiaries ahead of legislative action and market moves that followed. The pattern is that he forms views from a combination of structured research and ongoing market observation, and is willing to back those views with his own capital.
Spotted in 2 Stories
Akshay Singh
About Me
Akshay Singh is a strategy analyst at Bain and Company's Retail Center of Excellence, with experience spanning market entry, supply chain optimization, consumer research, and M&A deal support across retail and automotive sectors.
He currently works with grocery, apparel, travel, and premium merchandise retailers across B2B and B2C segments, owning research and analysis across the full retail value chain.
At Bain, he led primary consumer research for a US grocery retailer's geographic expansion, designing and analyzing a survey of around 1,000 consumers to map category fit and consumer behavior in the target market.
He contributed to Bain's annual retail holiday newsletter, a macroeconomic outlook on retail sales by segment and geography, cited by several media agencies.
At Korn Consult, he supported an M&A deal for an Indian automotive supplier seeking a technology acquisition in EMEA, owning order book analysis and negotiation brief preparation. The deal closed successfully.
Akshay Singh
When the data doesn't exist, I find the proxy. The refrigerator size tells you more about frozen food consumption than any category report.”
Akshay Singh
On researching unmapped markets