About Uptown Strategy Lab
The Firm
Uptown Strategy Lab is a New York City-based boutique analytical strategy consultancy built on a simple conviction: better decisions start with better questions.
We help organizations bring structure to complex and ambiguous problems, determine what evidence matters, and uncover what the evidence actually means before committing to a direction.
Our work sits at the intersection of strategy, analysis, and decision-making. We work with leaders navigating conflicting signals, unanswered questions, underutilized data, or decisions where the path forward isn't immediately clear.
Rather than beginning with a predetermined solution, we define the problem, develop and test competing hypotheses, analyze quantitative and qualitative evidence, validate what the findings mean, and translate that understanding into strategic direction.
Our work spans industries, with particular experience across government and public service, technology, and data-rich operational environments.
Christian Gamble
Founder & Lead Strategist · New York City
I started my career wanting to be a journalist—someone who asks the right questions, follows the evidence, challenges assumptions, and makes sense of what is actually happening.
That instinct never left me. It just moved into organizations.
Over the past decade, I've worked across Google, PwC, CapTech, and the public sector. The industries, problems, and datasets changed, but I kept finding myself drawn to the same kind of work: questions that didn't have obvious answers.
In government, that meant using geographic and program data to understand where services were reaching communities, where gaps existed, and what unusual patterns actually represented. In technology, it meant investigating why strong quality scores weren't consistently translating into customer and business outcomes—and questioning whether we were measuring the right things in the first place.
Across those experiences, I developed an approach that starts by defining the question, considers competing explanations, follows the evidence, tests the interpretation, and then asks what the findings mean for the decision.
Uptown Strategy Lab grew from that approach.
I founded the firm to focus on the part of strategy work I have always found most valuable: bringing structure to ambiguity, finding the signal within complex information, and helping leaders make decisions grounded in evidence rather than assumption.
I bring a researcher's curiosity, an analyst's discipline, a strategist's perspective, and a practitioner's understanding of how organizations actually operate. I work directly with every client. When you work with Uptown Strategy Lab, you work with me.
10+ years experience · Google · PwC · CapTech · Public Sector · Analytical Strategy · Strategic Research · Customer & Operational Insights
About the Founder
How We Think
We start with the question.
Before choosing an analytical method or recommending a solution, we establish what actually needs to be understood. The way a problem is framed determines the evidence we look for—and ultimately the decisions that follow.
We test explanations, not assumptions.
The first explanation is not always the right one. We develop competing hypotheses and examine what the evidence supports, weakens, or leaves unresolved. An unexpected pattern is a reason to investigate further, not a conclusion.
We use the evidence the question requires.
There is no single dataset, methodology, or analytical tool appropriate for every problem. Depending on the question, we may draw from quantitative data, qualitative feedback, operational metrics, customer information, geographic data, research, stakeholder knowledge, or multiple sources at once.
We distinguish findings from insight.
A finding tells you what happened. Insight explains why it matters. We go beyond reporting patterns to interpret their implications, validate what they mean, and connect them to the strategic question.
We connect analysis to decisions.
Analysis is most valuable when it changes what an organization understands or what it does next. Our work translates evidence into implications, options, tradeoffs, priorities, and strategic recommendations leaders can use.
