Director of North America Insights, FBS and RTD

What makes this a great opportunity?

As a world leader in premium spirits, Suntory Global Spirits inspires the brilliance of life by delivering great consumer experiences through its world-class portfolio of brands. Known for its craftsmanship of premium whiskies, including Jim Beam®, Maker's Mark®, Basil Hayden® and Knob Creek® bourbons; Japanese whiskies, including Yamazaki®, Hakushu®, Hibiki® and Toki™; and leading Scotch brands including Teacher's, Laphroaig® and Bowmore®, Suntory Global Spirits also produces leading IMFL brand Oaksmith in India.

A global company with approximately 6,000 employees in more than 30 countries, one of Suntory Global Spirit's core values is Growing for Good and through its Proof Positive sustainability strategy, the company has committed to ambitious goals and investments to promote environmental sustainability in its operations, ensure the company has a positive impact on the communities where employees live and work, and programs to educate and inform consumers to make the right personal choices about drinking. Headquartered in New York City, Suntory Global Spirits is a subsidiary of Suntory Holdings Limited of Japan.

For more information, on our brands and commitment to social responsibility, please visit www.suntoryglobalspirits.com and www.drinksmart.com. The Director of North America Insights leads development of category, market, consumer and brand insights for the Full Bottle Spirits and Ready to Drink portfolios. The US market is Suntory Global Spirit’s key revenue driver, with responsibilities for diverse brands, geographies, consumer targets, and stakeholders.

Role Responsibilities

• Manage and direct a team of insight leads – spanning the categories of Whiskey, Tequila, Gin across our iconic brands – Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, Hornitos, El Tesoro, Tres Generaciones, On the Rocks, -196, and the House of Suntory franchise.
• Lead team to develop insights in service of identifying business growth, enabling excellence in communication strategy, consumer targeting, innovation execution, and brand investment.
• Lead team to develop and embed rich consumer insights across brands by leveraging category, brand, and human insights. They will lead their team to clearly communicate opportunities for brand growth that tap into deep understanding of consumer behavior.
• Act as key architect in defining consumer learning plans to identify, develop and integrate insights to build meaningful relevance for Suntory Spirits brands. 
• Ensure work conducted by the team goes beyond the “what”, focusing on the “so what” and “now what” to strengthen Suntory’s competitive advantage and drive sales growth. 
• Partner with the US Brand and Global Brand House marketing teams to enable consumer-centric decision making, drive excellence in execution, and support adaptation and scaling of global brand strategies in the US market.

Skills 

• Proven track-record of leadership experience and people management skills
• High degree of intellectual curiosity and creative insight, coupled with a drive for actionable, tangible impact on the organization
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively with a cross functional team, agency and suppliers 
• Experience setting, aligning, and delivering an insights agenda / learning plan and accountability, and ability to ensure agenda is delivered with excellence. 
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills – experienced and comfortable communicating, influencing, and aligning executive-level management 
• Strength in story-telling – succinct and impactful style • Demonstrated Flexibility and self-direction to work/lead autonomously 
• Collaborator with ability to work well in a fast paced, unstructured entrepreneurial environment 
• Highly adaptable, works well in an environment of change 
• Manage multiple projects/brands/direct-reports simultaneously and deliver work with excellence 
•  Lead qualitative and quantitative custom research projects throughout all stages including design, execution, analysis, and recommendation 
• Experience with range of research methodologies; concept testing, advertising, vis-id/packaging, positioning, consumer segmentation/demand spaces etc. 
• Experience developing, aligning, and owning a team research budget. 
• Resourceful and fiscally minded, leveraging previous custom research and other internal resources to inform POV on brand strategy and guide business decisions 
• Experience with syndicated sources (e.g., Nielsen, IRI, Panel data, MRI etc.) and ability to generate category or brand insights and to form recommendations 
• Strong analytical skills and demonstrated ability to draw conclusions and extract meaningful insights from data

Qualifications

• Relevant bachelor’s degree required – Master’s degree a plus 
• Minimum 12-15 years of custom insight/research experience 
• Extensive Client-side experience in leading CPG companies necessary, Alc-Bev an advantage 
• Experience leading qualitative and quantitative research methodologies and suppliers with a broad range of research techniques (including new to the world approaches) 
• Experience leading custom research across a variety of methodologies and business applications 
• Demonstrated experience in managing teams / leader of leaders

Salary Range - The salary range for this role, based in Chicago, is $190,000 to $210,000, along with an annual bonus, 401K match, profit sharing, and medical and wellness benefits. The salary range is commensurate ,with the candidate’s location, experience, and skillset. The range will vary if outside of this location.