Sr. Manager- Consumer Insights - Platform Innovation

General information

All posting locations: Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Job Function: 05 - Marketing

Date Published: 07-May-2024

Ref #: R-82079

Description & Requirements

The Senior Manager Consumer Insights

• Innovation will champion the consumer and lead the innovation agenda for the Meals brands in North America Including Kraft Mac and Cheese, Velveeta Shells and Cheese, Ore-Ida, Delimex, Just Crack and Egg and more! The Sr. Manager will have accountability for leading, planning, implementing custom strategic market research and must also draw from a variety of information sources and internal/external resources to develop insights that provide a competitive advantage to the Kraft Heinz Meals innovation agenda. You will identify, develop and integrate consumer insights throughout these brands to drive a consumer first innovation vision and pipeline.

The Role

• Key Skills:

• Strategic: Be a key strategic business partner to Marketing team and a transformative leader. Leverage their understanding of the consumer, research methodologies/techniques, standard processes and experience to drive the business forward

• Influential: Influence at all levels of organization (above & below) and work seamlessly with cross-functional teams

• Impactful: Drive to "so-what's" by making actionable recommendations routed in deep understanding of marketing, business and consumer

• An Owner: Be "hands on", think and act like a start-up, and build out a function against a blank slate without buying pre-packaged solutions or methodologies.

• Flexible: Be flexible and creative to adjust to changing priorities and business challenges. Deal with ambiguity, while showing strong drive for results and project leadership skills; Highly adaptable, thrives in an environment of change

• Strong Communicator: Showcase strong interpersonal skills through distilled clean/concise insights that drive empathy and storytelling behaviors though the organization

• Self-motivated: Ability to handle many workstreams, competing agendas and distill a plan that can be implemented for the team

• Analytical: Ability to see through data and recognize patterns to advise brand actions

• Collaborator: Team player, works well in a fast-paced entrepreneurial environment

• Mentor & People Leader: Share knowledge and develop a high-performing team

• Curiosity & Action: High degree of intellectual curiosity and creative insight, coupled with a drive for actionable, tangible results

• Influence: Ability to influence at senior levels of an organization and drive focus and impact

Key responsibilities

• Key strategic insights' partner to the North American Meals Team.

• Leads, plans and implements the Consumer Insights innovation road map development inclusive of whitespace identification research, ideation and co-creation sprints, and validation research as you shepherd concepts through the stage-gate process.

• Create risk-based learning plans, challenging status quo while working collaboratively with the cross-functional team.

• Shape the long term (3, 5 and 10 year) category story and innovation go to market strategy for the Meals categories through right-sized consumer learning and influential storytelling.

• Requires working in high levels of ambiguity; creating strategic direction for growth opportunities.

Qualifications

• Strong experience in strategic insights/consumer insights roles, preferably at a CPG manufacturer or a combination of CPG and vendor/agency side experience showcasing increasing responsibilities and scope.

• Proficient in various market research techniques, including both qualitative and quantitative methods; Experience using these tools for innovation development strongly preferred.

• Thrives in agile ways of working and has a track record of strong collaboration with cross-functional partners like Marketing, R&D, Supply Chain, Sensory and more.

• Experience working with both primary and secondary data sources

• Solid understanding of syndicated research tools (e.g. Nielsen, Circana, Mintel, etc).

• Ability to distill insights and drive impact into an organization - bringing the consumer to forefront.

• High level of tolerance for working in ambiguity, leading change and change management.

• Excel at storytelling in creative and impactful ways - excellent communication, organization and presentation skills (written, oral, and across Microsoft Office Suite).

Location(s):

• Chicago/Aon Center

• Hybrid 3 days a week in office (Tues / Wed / Thurs), 2 days remote