Customer Insights Leader

Introduction

We are looking for a Customer Insights Leader to head our customer insights team and elevate how the organization understands brand, customers, audiences, products, and market dynamics. This role oversees all major research programs—brand tracking, U&A, ad‑hoc quant and qual, etc. and provides insights that translate into practical, business-driving decisions across marketing, product, and strategy. The ideal candidate brings deep quantitative research expertise, excels at interpreting data into clear, pragmatic business recommendations, and brings a future-ready mindset to modernize how insights are generated through AI, automation, and synthetic audiences.

This person will lead a team of insights professionals and serve as the organization’s senior‑most authority on customer understanding.

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of insights professionals.

• Serve as the head of the customer insights function, setting priorities, standards, and operating rhythms.

• Build a culture of rigor, curiosity, and business relevance.

• Oversee design, execution, and interpretation of brand health tracking, U&A studies, ad‑hoc quant and qual (creative/messaging tests, concepts, product positioning)

• Ensure high standards in questionnaire design, sampling rigor, data quality, and vendor management.

• Translate quantitative findings into clear, concise, business‑ready recommendations.

• Synthesize data across sources to highlight the "so what" and "now what."

• Guide stakeholders toward pragmatic, actionable decisions, not just insights decks.

• Anticipate business implications, risks, and opportunities based on patterns in the data.

• Introduce and scale modern approaches such as:

• AI‑assisted analysis and insight summarization

• Synthetic audiences for rapid directional guidance

• Automated reporting and dashboarding

• Apply new tools practically, ensuring they enhance speed, clarity, and impact.

• Partner closely with senior marketing, product, and strategy leaders.

• Present compelling insights narratives that drive decisions at the highest levels.

• Establish customer insight as a strategic input to planning and business cycles.

• Oversee research governance, ethics, compliance, and quality standards.

• Manage relationships with research vendors and platforms to ensure ROI and methodological rigor.

• Collaborate with analytics, data science, and marketing operations teams to integrate insights into a unified customer view.

Leaders are expected to spend time with their teams and clients and therefore are generally expected to be in the workplace a minimum of three days a week, subject to business needs.

• 10+ years of experience in customer insights, market research, analytics, or related fields.

• Proven leadership of insights teams and research programs.

• Strong background in survey‑based quant, including trackers, U&A, and ad‑hoc studies.

• Experience influencing senior stakeholders and guiding business decisions.

• Mastery of survey design, sampling, quant analysis, and insights synthesis.

• Exceptional ability to translate data into pragmatic, business‑driving action.

• Strong strategic thinker with the ability to simplify complexity.

• Comfort with modern insights methods and tools, including AI and synthetic approaches.

• Excellent communication and storytelling skills.

• Data visualization expertise (Power BI, Tableau).

Deep Market Understanding:
Deep expertise in analyzing market trends, competitor activity, and customer needs to inform marketing strategies that drive business growth and improvement in market identity, relevance, and preference.

Advanced Data Analysis:
Experience with sophisticated data analysis techniques, including predictive modeling and data visualization, to measure marketing performance and identify areas for optimization.

Strategic Partnership Development:
Deep expertise in fostering partnerships across communications, businesses, and marketing teams to align on strategic objectives and drive IBM leadership.

IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal‑opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, caste, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, veteran status, or other characteristics. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.