Senior Manager, Stills & Global Sprite, Technical Consumer Data Research

Job Overview

Senior Manager, Technical Consumer Data Research (TCDR) reports to the Senior Director, TCDR, NAOU and leads consumer research for the North America Operating Unit (NA OU) Stills Categories and Global Sprite. The role delivers front‑end, consumer‑centric insights to drive a prioritized innovation pipeline across Product, Packaging, and Equipment for right‑first‑time, high‑impact outcomes. It functions as a senior individual contributor, shaping research strategy and influencing innovation decisions across categories and brands within the Innovation, Technology & Strategy team.

• Lead end‑to‑end delivery of consumer research projects and initiatives for NA OU Stills Categories and Global Sprite, ensuring stakeholder engagement, governance, and alignment.
• Drive global TCDR community initiatives, standardizing and embedding best practices across markets and categories.
• Translate business needs into actionable sensory and consumer research plans, building end‑to‑end learning plans that incorporate future‑forward approaches, digital capabilities, and sound data & insights.
• Design studies, apply rigorous statistical and advanced analytical techniques, and synthesize findings into evidence‑based recommendations.
• Deliver data‑driven strategic recommendations that inform business solutions and decision‑making, leveraging advanced consumer research and AI capabilities.
• Actively contribute to the GDI Global TCDR community, partnering on research‑on‑research initiatives to advance methodologies.
• Champion external orientation and innovation, identifying, developing, and adopting new agile research methodologies and data‑science approaches with the Global TCDR Capabilities team.
• Drive continuous improvement in TCDR practices, evolving methodologies and implementing cutting‑edge AI‑enabled tools.
• Lead a multi‑year category research strategy, generating critical product, sensory, and consumer insights, and driving competitive benchmarking across Product, Packaging, and Equipment.
• Execute front‑end exploration research, identify key drivers of consumer choice, and translate them into optimal sensory and consumer research experiences.
• Use data storytelling to translate strategic visions into actionable plans, delivering insightful reports, trend dashboards, and clear business recommendations.
• Serve as a strategic business partner to cross‑functional teams (R&D, Marketing, Human Insights, GDI, etc.), building and managing strong internal and external relationships.
• Apply technical risk management, identifying and mitigating risks to ensure project continuity and system integrity.
• Collaborate with suppliers, academia, and external agencies to advance organizational and innovation goals.

• Education:
  
  Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Food or Sensory Science, Engineering, Behavioral Psychology, or a related field, and technical mastery of Sensory, Consumer, Applied Statistics and AI, Data Science, User Experience.
• Experience:
  
  10+ years in the FMCG Beverage/Food industry with proven experience in sensory and consumer research and delivered business impact in a matrix organization.
• Leadership:
  Global brand leadership and strong cross‑functional influence across SRA, HI, Marketing, GDI, ITS, Strategy.
• Technical expertise:
  Advanced statistical analysis (ANOVA, regression, ML, AI, LLMs, PLS), data science tools (JMP, SPSS, SAS, Python, R, SQL, Power BI, Azure ML), and modeling techniques.
• Knowledge:
  Stills Category and preferably Global Sprite Brand, consumer‑centric innovation frameworks, demand‑space & need‑state frameworks, psychographic, synthetic personas, and cross‑fertilization with Human Insights.
• Communication:
  Strong written and oral skills, capable of simplifying complex information, data storytelling, and influencing technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Travel:
  Up to 10% of the time.
• Reporting:
  No direct reports.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class.