Interview with Juan de Rus Gutiérrez
- Merle van den Akker
- 22 minutes ago
- 8 min read
Behavioural Science is a rapidly expanding field and everyday new research is being developed in academia, tested and implemented by practitioners in financial organisations, development agencies, government ‘nudge’ units and more. This interview is part of a series interviewing prominent people in the field. And in today's interview the answers are provided by Juan de Rus Gutiérrez.
Juan is the Managing Partner at Neovantas and Adjunct Professor of Behavioral Science and Marketing at IE Business School, University Carlos III of Madrid, and the University of Barcelona. Specialized in banking, insurance, and telecommunications, he has led projects across Europe and Latin America focused on the application of behavioral data to improve revenue, profitability, and customer experience. Juan holds an MSc in Behavioral Science with distinction from the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE), and an MBA from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. He is also a certified member of GAABS.
Who or what got you into behavioural science?
It’s a good question. I wouldn’t say I was actively looking for behavioural science at the beginning — I think I found it almost by accident. More than fifteen years ago, I started reading some of the early popular books, the ones that were more consumer-facing. I don’t even remember exactly which one was the first, but it was around the time when titles like Predictably Irrational started circulating widely.
At that point, I was already working in consulting, mainly in the financial and insurance sectors, and what struck me was that many of the ideas I was reading felt immediately applicable to the work we were doing around commercial influence and persuasion. So I started experimenting — not in a rigorous way at first, but by applying some of these ideas in real projects.
That pushed me to read more: Cialdini, Kahneman, Lindstrom, and others. Once I realised this wasn’t just interesting but actually aligned with what I wanted to do professionally, I decided to get formal training and enrolled in the behavioural science master’s at LSE, while continuing to work and teach marketing. From there, behavioural science became the natural evolution of both my consulting and teaching work.
What is the accomplishment you are proudest of as a behavioural scientist? And what would you still like to achieve?
What I am most proud of is bringing academic rigour into environments where it simply didn’t exist before. Before I formally studied behavioural science, I was already consulting and teaching, but I didn’t have the tools to properly design experiments or challenge how decisions were being evaluated. Going to LSE gave me that foundation, and from that point on, I started introducing concepts like randomised control trials, lab experiments, and field experiments into consulting projects where previously decisions were made largely on gut feeling.
I’m proud that I’ve been able to challenge the way initiatives were launched without control groups, or how user testing was treated as evidence when it really wasn’t. In that sense, my contribution has been to raise the bar — to say that consulting doesn’t have to be anti-academic, and that rigour and business relevance don’t have to be in conflict.
What I still want to achieve is closely related to that. My main aspiration is for behavioural science to be properly positioned within organisations. I don’t want to see it end up like other approaches I’ve worked on in the past — such as advanced analytics in contact centres — that were never considered relevant for strategic discussions and eventually disappeared.
I want behavioural science to be part of strategic planning, sitting alongside strategy, finance, and data. I’ve seen this work in practice with an investment fund we support across four European countries, where behavioural science is one of their three strategic pillars. That’s the model I believe in. For me, success would be knowing that behavioural science is no longer an add-on, but a core lens through which organisations make decisions.
How do you think behavioural science will develop in the next 10 years?
If I had to place a bet on where behavioural science is going, I would say it will move towards what I call behavioural data science. Historically, especially in Europe, behavioural science has been very focused on the “last mile” — improving letters, changing wording, tweaking onboarding processes. And while that work has value, it has also limited how the field is perceived.
In ten years, I think behavioural science needs to be embedded much earlier in decision-making processes, particularly in advanced analytics and data architecture. Take banks, for example: they use thousands of variables to build credit models or manage customer relationships, but behavioural variables are almost never included.
If behavioural science is going to scale, it needs to be translated into data — into variables that can actually inform decisions. Imagine a CRM that knows when reciprocity has been activated, or when someone is experiencing a “fresh start” moment. Right now, those concepts exist in theory, but not in systems.
Moving from traditional CRM to behavioural CRM is not simple. It requires long-term investment, experimentation, and humility about what we don’t yet understand. But if behavioural science wants to be relevant at scale, it has to live in data, not just in communications. That, for me, is the future.
What are the greatest challenges facing behavioural science right now?
The biggest challenge is positioning. Behavioural science is still not considered a core function in organisations. Marketing, strategy, finance, and HR are automatically part of strategic discussions — behavioural science is often treated as an add-on.
We’ve done this to ourselves to some extent. By focusing too much on small nudges and communication tweaks, we’ve positioned the field as something that “makes things look nicer” rather than something that fundamentally shapes decisions. That puts behavioural science at the bottom of the organisational hierarchy.
Another challenge is overselling simplicity. To make behavioural science accessible and cost-effective, we’ve sometimes underplayed its complexity. When people see case studies about tax letters or organ donation, they conclude that behavioural science is just common sense. That’s dangerous, because it makes the field easy to dismiss or absorb into other departments.
There’s also a risk of behavioural science disappearing entirely — being absorbed into marketing, CRO, or digital teams without recognition of its distinct contribution. If that happens, we lose the ability to influence decisions at a strategic level.
To avoid that, behavioural scientists need to collectively reposition the field, demonstrate value beyond surface-level interventions, and be clear that real behaviour change often requires structural changes, not just clever messaging.
With all your experience, what skills are needed to be a behavioural scientist? Are there any recommendations you would make?
One of the good things about behavioural science is that it allows for many different skill sets. When I entered consulting, everyone looked the same — same suits, same backgrounds in economics or business administration, very little variety. Today, that has changed, especially in behavioural science consulting.
We now have psychologists, sociologists, data scientists, designers, and people with strong quantitative backgrounds all working together. In behavioural design, for example, creative profiles are essential. In AI-related projects, we need people who are highly quantitative. Behavioural science gives space for these different capabilities to contribute meaningfully.
What I usually tell students and junior colleagues is that they shouldn’t feel blocked because they don’t have the “perfect” consulting background. What matters is having an open mind, a basic business perspective, and the ability to think about behaviour as a gap between what we want people to do and what they are actually doing. Solving that gap requires creativity, data literacy, and contextual understanding.
Looking ahead, I also see a clear role for behavioural scientists in AI and data-driven environments. Behavioural knowledge is not yet embedded in AI systems in a meaningful way. AI doesn’t understand uncertainty, heuristics, or context in the way humans do. Teaching behavioural science students how to translate these concepts into systems, data, and decision processes is where I think the real opportunity lies.
What advice would you give to young behavioural scientists or those looking to enter the field?
My advice would be not to think too narrowly about what a “behavioural scientist” looks like. Many people I work with didn’t start in behavioural science — I didn’t either. What matters is building a strong base in something else first: psychology, sociology, economics, data science, even physics or philosophy.
From there, behavioural science becomes a powerful complement rather than a standalone identity. I also think it’s important to understand business reality. Behavioural science doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and if you want to influence decisions, you need to speak the language of organisations.
Finally, be patient with the field. Behavioural science is still evolving, and many of its big promises haven’t fully materialised yet. That doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable — it means there’s still a lot of work to do, and that’s an opportunity.
What is your biggest frustration with the field as it stands?
My biggest frustration is that behavioural science is sometimes not taken seriously — and that this is often our own fault. Instead of demonstrating value, we sometimes blame organisations for “not understanding” behavioural science. If someone doesn’t see your value, it’s your responsibility to show it.
I’m also frustrated by how behavioural science is confused with making things more emotional or more beautiful. That’s not what this field is about. It’s about understanding decision-making, heuristics, uncertainty, and context. When we reduce it to aesthetics or emotion, we undermine the discipline ourselves.
If you weren’t a behavioural scientist, what would you be doing?
Honestly, I would probably still be a general consultant — although I’m not even sure I’d have a job today. Behavioural science gave me a way to differentiate my work and bring something genuinely new to the table. Without it, I think I would have stayed in traditional consulting, following the same patterns and frameworks as everyone else. And given how much the consulting world is changing, I’m not convinced that would have been sustainable in the long run.
Do you apply behavioural science in your personal life?
Yes, I do — probably more than I realise. I apply it a lot with my wife and my daughters, although I try not to be too obvious about it. But I also use it on myself, especially when it comes to habits like going to the gym or running. I use a lot of Katie Milkman’s ideas, particularly temptation bundling. For example, I won’t let myself listen to certain podcasts unless I’m exercising. I’ve listened to all of Choiceology and read How to Change, and I genuinely use those tools in my own life.
Which other behavioural scientists would you love to read an interview by?
In the Spanish-speaking context, I think financial institutions are doing some of the most interesting work right now. You’ve already interviewed Quique Belenguer, from BBVA, which is great, but another person I would strongly recommend is Juan Guerra, who leads behavioural science at Banco Santander.
What makes Juan particularly interesting is that he is currently running a behavioural science department while also completing a formal academic master’s in behavioural science. That combination — leading in practice while deepening academic training — raises really interesting questions about credibility, expertise, and learning.
His background is in strategic consulting at Oliver Wyman, so he brings that perspective as well. Interviewing him now, while he’s in the middle of that transition, could give real insight into why formal behavioural science education still matters, even for people already in leadership roles.
More broadly, I think it would be valuable to talk to people who are shaping behavioural science from within organisations, not just from academia. Especially in Spain and Latin America, there are a few key individuals — maybe three or four — who acted as catalysts for the recent boom. Understanding their motivations and constraints would say a lot about how behavioural science actually spreads.
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions Juan!
As I said before, this interview is part of a larger series which can also be found here on the blog. Make sure you don't miss any of those, nor any of the upcoming interviews!
Keep your eye on Money on the Mind!
