John W. Martin
CEO and President
Search Google for "intellectually curious" and you're bound to find John W. Martin. He is one curious guy. It's no surprise that he's well-informed, thoughtful, insightful, and a natural leader. In the early 2000s, John left corporate marketing — after almost 20 years in the advertising agency business — to take over SIR from its founders.
In the years since, John has built SIR into one of the most well-respected research and consulting firms in the country. Clients frequently tell us they would hire no one else now that they have benefited from engaging SIR on a project. Most of that is due to John's ability to identify the core issue and direct his band of inquisitive minds to dig hard for solutions. Clients say he's smart. His co-workers know he's kind.
John is also a gifted keynote speaker and a remarkable leader of SIR. He is on several nonprofit and community boards and when he's not in front of a whiteboard mapping something out, he spends time making both RVA and Norfolk better places for everyone.
Looking Upward and Onward:
My father held an almost divine reverence for total solar eclipses, and when we’d share that phenomenon together, things I knew perhaps only instinctively suddenly would become more real to me. Since then, I’ve lived my life in relentless pursuit of the “a-ha,” and the greatest satisfaction I receive from the work I do every day is helping to make those “a-ha” moments come alive for our clients.