Insights Lead

Position Overview (office-based in Rosemont, IL with hybrid flexibility; relocation is not available for this position):

We are seeking a Consumer Insights thought leader responsible for devising and championing meaningful insight and measurement of consumer behavior, perceptions, and market impact in the development of industry-wide communications and new product innovation for foodservice, retail, eCommerce, dairy co-ops, and processors.

You will be the voice of our consumers, generating high-quality insights and intelligence to increase sales and trust in dairy among the next generation of consumers. You will have a strong role in developing innovation pipelines for key partners from platform identification, ideation and concepting through to commercialization and assessment.

This high impact role requires a combination of strong analytical skills and strategic thinking, to translate data into actionable insights and identify implications, opportunities and potential threats for partner organizations and Dairy industry, as well as master storytelling abilities to inspire and drive activation.

In this role you will lead strategy work, design and direct research, dive deep into the data to extract relevant insights and work with internal stakeholders and external partners to inspire and drive activation.

Business Acumen:

• Have proven experience in influencing business strategy through consumer and market insights
• Ability to work well in x-functional team environments being the voice of the consumer/customer
• Comfortable with various syndicated data including IRI, Technomic, Euromonitor, Innova.
• Ability to ‘connect the dots’ and proactively integrate data from multiple sources, including proactively seeking and complementing custom consumer research with syndicated data, trends, learnings from prior studies, etc.
• Agility in working with different innovation approaches (e.g., design thinking, jobs to be done, accelerators, in-market pilots, etc.)
• Innate curiosity to seek out the why behind the data and illuminate it for others

Functional Skills:

• Expert in leading different types of domestic and global research studies – e.g., long-term opportunity/ threat identification, new business development, segmentation, domestic and global market structure, strategy development.
• Ability to lead insights through new product development process – including ethnography, jobs-to-be-done, co-creation, idea / concept testing, in-market pilots / testing.
• Proven capabilities in advancing an organization’s ability to understand consumer engagement, consumer value, and the impact of our sales and marketing investments
• Ability to design marketing measurement strategies to determine which channels and messages have the greatest impact on sales and trust
• Creation of insight reporting/dashboards
• Experience in uncovering communications and new product opportunities through market immersions and ethnographies
• Experience in working with and leading global research and communication agencies

Leadership Skills:

• Trust - Can establish strong working relationship with all external and internal stake holders
• Influence - Has passion, conviction, and command of the facts to influence senior management and industry of potential opportunities and threats
• Dealing with Ambiguity – Proven effective at working in an extremely ambiguous environment with limited guidance with resolve to break down barriers and solve problems
• Agility – Comfortable quickly pivoting and adjusting strategy and tactics in an ever-changing environment