Program Manager

Questionnaire:
- Please list city/state.
-Do they have reliable internet at home?
-Do they have a quiet place to work at home remotely?
-Do they have insights experience with Retail and/or Client? How many years?
-Person needs to be experienced qualitative and quantitative research professional. Do they possess these skills?

Non-Safety Sensitive

Interview Process: 2 rounds. 1st IV w/ Supervisor, 2nd IV w/ Executive Director. Teams on camera, 30-60 mins

This role will partner with Merchandising with Category Insights. They will be responsible for the following:
Mining secondary insights and AI tools to address merchant-driven category and subcategory insights questions
Developing and executing primary research (both qualitative and quantitative) for category teams
Plan research agendas in collaboration with business partners
Familiarity, experience and usage of a range of research methodologies and analysis techniques (focus groups, shop-alongs, ethnographies, MaxDiff, Turf, Monadic testing, etc.)
Use storytelling to turn insights into a compelling narrative that steers decision makers towards what customers want/need
Serve as a subject matter expert in consumer research and category strategy

Position Summary:

This role will partner with Merchandising with Category Insights. The will be responsible for the following:

Mining secondary insights and AI tools to address merchant-driven category and subcategory insights questions
Developing and executing primary research (both qualitative and quantitative) for category teams
Plan research agendas in collaboration with business partners
Familiarity, experience and usage of a range of research methodologies and analysis techniques (focus groups, shop-alongs, ethnographies, MaxDiff, Turf, Monadic testing, etc.)
Use storytelling to turn insights into a compelling narrative that steers decision makers towards what customers want/need
Serve as a subject matter expert in consumer research and category strategy

Duties:

This position will act as a dedicated insights partner to Merchandising, responsible for:
Addressing merchant driven category and subcategory insight questions
Mining and synthesizing insights from Simile, Mintel, and Kantar
Translating research into clear, concise, decision ready insights
Serving as a subject matter expert in consumer research and category strategy

A core responsibility of this role would be creating and managing category specific agent banks within Simile, including:
Category and subcategory buyers
Client store brand buyers, explicitly modeled alongside competitive store brands
Competitive private label buyers where available
These agent banks would enable:
Consistent evaluation of Client store brands relative to competitors
Faster, more scalable category insights
Deeper understanding of store brand choice drivers and trade offs at a category level
This capability does not exist today and represents a meaningful step forward in applying AI to merchandising strategy.

Experience:

Required Qualifications:
7+ years of relevant experience - plan, analyze, and provide successful qualitative and quantitative customer research across a variety of methodologies that meets partner goals, including strong analytical skills.
A strategic mindset with an ability to connect insights across a variety of data sources
Compelling communication and storytelling skills
Independent program management skills
Ability to communicate clearly and effectively across internal team members, collaborators and vendor partners
Role may require occasional travel (?5% of the time)

Preferred Qualifications:
Prior Consumer Packaged Goods (Client) or retail or category experience
Experience choosing, managing, and working with research vendors, or experience at a market research vendor
Experience working in a complex organization across a variety of partner groups
PowerPoint, Word and Excel skills

Education:
Bachelor's degree

Education:

Bachelor's degree