Estelle North exists to close the distance between the two.
At Estelle°North, the recommendation comes from the same place as the analysis, so the answer is not only rigorous, but ready to act on.
We keep strategy grounded in what the evidence can support, while taking analytics beyond findings into insight, recommendation, and direction.
The people closest to the evidence stay close to the decision, preserving the context, nuance, and judgment that can otherwise get lost along the way.
What we believe
The value of insight is in the decisions it improves, sharpening the choice in front of you and clarifying what comes next.
More information does not automatically make a decision better. Knowing what deserves weight does.
We believe the role of evidence is to cut through noise, surface what matters, and make the tradeoffs behind a decision easier to see. Context gives the signal meaning. Insight turns that meaning into direction.
The goal is not to make every decision simple. It is to make it clearer, more deliberate, and easier to stand behind.
Because clarity is not the end of the work. It is what makes the next move possible.
Why we built Estelle North
Built to bring rigorous decision making to more problems, more teams, more consequential decision environments, and more moments that matter.
Estelle North grew from an ambition to take deeply embedded data and strategy work beyond one company, one function, or one kind of problem.
The questions we are most drawn to rarely belong neatly to analytics or strategy. They sit across revenue, growth, product, and operations, where the evidence is complex, the context matters, and the decision can meaningfully change what happens next.
Estelle North was built to work in that space, close enough to the evidence to understand the problem deeply, and close enough to the decision to help shape what comes next.
And the name reflects that ambition: Estelle means star. North means direction. Together, they represent a point to navigate toward when the path itself is not obvious.
The story behind the studio
[ A note from our founder ]
Taniya Thakkar, Founder
My path into data was never really about data alone. I was drawn to understanding how businesses actually work: what moves an outcome, what sits beneath the numbers, and how the right question can change the direction of a decision.
A decade in San Francisco became a defining part of that journey. I spent those years inside fast moving technology companies, working across data, revenue, finance, product, growth, and strategy. The pace was high, the information was rarely perfect, and the questions almost never arrived neatly contained within a single team.
I learned to follow the question, not the org chart.
The most consequential problems rarely belong to one function.
Following those questions meant learning to move across boundaries too. To understand the data deeply, but also the commercial context around it. To challenge the obvious explanation. To connect signals that lived in different places. And to stay with a problem long enough to understand not only what was happening, but what it meant for the decision in front of us.
Over time, those became the problems I was most drawn to: the ones without obvious answers, where context mattered as much as the numbers, and where getting to the right answer could materially change what happened next.
Estelle North is a continuation of that journey.A place to bring everything I have learned to more problems, more teams, more consequential decision environments, and more moments that matter.
And to keep asking the questions that have always pulled me in:
What are we really seeing? What does it mean? And where do we go from here?
Taniya ThakkarFounder, Estelle North
[ A note from our founder ]
Chart the course.
Capabilities
Three ways in, depending on where you stand. Start with any one. Nothing here requires anything else first.
01
The Horizon
Look outward
Big decisions get expensive when the assumptions underneath them are still fuzzy.
D2C
Launch Diagnostics
B2B
Go-to-Market Foundations
02
The Compass
Look inward
If the numbers can’t be trusted, nothing built on top of them can be either.
D2C
Measurement Systems
B2B
Analytics Engineering
Scaled BI
AI & Agentic Analytics
03
Onward
Move forward
Insight is useful. Direction is better.
D2C & B2B
Analytics & Insights
Decision Science
Data-Led Strategy & Decisions
Not sure which one you need? That is usually the first conversation.
Every problem is different. The way we approach one should not be.
These are the principles we come back to when the data is messy, the answer is uncomfortable, or the decision carries weight. They shape how we question, how we interpret, and what we are willing to stand behind.
Bearing 000°
No shenanigans. Say what the data shows, what the evidence supports, and what it doesn’t.
Clarity starts with intellectual honesty.
If the evidence is strong, we say so. If it is partial, inconclusive, or carrying assumptions, we say that too. We separate what we know from what we infer, and confidence from certainty.
The goal is not to make every answer look cleaner than it is. It is to make sure the person making the decision knows exactly what the answer rests on.
A clean story is never worth a shaky conclusion.
Bearing 090°
The first answer is a hypothesis, so test before you trust and earn the answer before you stand behind it.
The obvious explanation is often useful. It is just not automatically right.
We pressure-test assumptions, look for competing explanations, examine what would have to be true, and follow evidence that contradicts the first story as seriously as evidence that supports it.
Because the point is not to prove the hypothesis we started with. It is to find the explanation that survives scrutiny.
The first answer gets a hearing. Not a free pass.
Bearing 180°
The data can be right and the interpretation still wrong, because evidence without context is only part of the story.
A number does not carry its own meaning.
What happened matters, but so does where, when, why, and to whom. A change in performance can look very different once you understand the market, the segment, the operating environment, the customer, or the behavior underneath it.
Facts do not speak for themselves. Context is what gives them meaning.
The number tells you what happened. Context tells you what it means.
Bearing 270°
The work is not finished until the evidence moves hearts and minds, builds conviction, and inspires action.
Insight that never reaches a decision has stopped too early.
We believe analysis should ultimately create direction. That means understanding the tradeoffs, being clear about what the evidence supports, and turning what we have learned into a point of view people can actually use.
Not every decision will come with certainty. The standard is not certainty. It is enough clarity to move with conviction.
Do the analysis. Build the conviction. Make the call.
Trace the proof
The decisions behind the outcomes.
A closer look at the questions, evidence, and choices that shaped the work.
Not every name belongs on the map. The proof matters, and so does discretion.Some of our engagements are anonymised by design, allowing us to share the question, the thinking, the decision, and the outcome without compromising the trust behind the work. If a case feels close to your own, ask us directly. We’d be glad to share more where appropriate.
You have seen how we think.Bring us the messy question.
The market you are not sure is worth entering°The number nobody can explain°The forecast you have to defend°The decision everyone has an opinion on°The market you are not sure is worth entering°The number nobody can explain°The forecast you have to defend°The decision everyone has an opinion on°