Director, Consumer Insights

Position: Director, Consumer Insights  

Location: Toronto, ON (Hybrid - 3 days/week) 

Director, Consumer Insights at a glance...  

The Director of Consumer Insights will lead the function for the Canada market and will partner with the Business Unit President and Marketing leadership to enable consumer-first thinking to inform strategy, with a consumer-informed forward-thinking approach. This role is a key member of the North America Consumer Insights leadership team. 

The Director of Consumer Insights will set the Consumer Insights agenda and identify future growth opportunities / white space for the BU. The role is also accountable for driving the Enterprise-Wide transformation agenda for insights within the BU while championing the consumer and keeping the most meaningful business actions at the forefront across the relevant platforms, categories and brands. This influential role is responsible for identifying, developing and integrating consumer insights throughout these businesses to drive a growth mindset and agility while driving a consumer-obsessed culture. The Director of Consumer Insights will have leadership responsibilities – and will need to adapt and flex to needs on both leadership, management and day-to-day coaching – infusing the right behaviours throughout their insights team (e.g. prioritize, drive future mentality and synthesize / distill information into actionable insights, etc) – crafting a culture and focus of organic brand growth & innovation. This position will have input into the transformation agenda roadmap to include areas in foresight, prediction, agility, capabilities agenda, digital revolution, social listening, partner consortium, and more. 

What's on the menu? 

• Own the Consumer Insights agenda as a strategic growth function, setting direction on where to play and how to win—using consumer understanding to unlock profitable, sustainable growth. 

• Serve as a senior strategic leader and thought partner to BU Marketing and cross-functional leaders, shaping business and brand strategy through rigorous insights and clear point of view. 

• Drive end-to-end insight-to-action leadership, translating complex learning into decisive “so-what” implications, recommendations, and prioritized actions that accelerate growth. 

• Define and lead the integrated learning strategy across key marketing levers (e.g., communication testing, product/claim testing, packaging testing) for both existing and new products. 

• Identify growth opportunities and consumer tensions across the platform—pinpointing where to improve long-term brand equity, relevance, and conversion. 

• Lead innovation “dig sites” and pipeline development, partnering with Marketing and R&D to identify, develop, and size a multi-year pipeline of new products and concepts. 

• Shape the 3-year Growth Strategy and ensure pull-through into annual brand plans, including strategy, creative development, optimization, and go-to-market decision-making. 

• Influence at all levels of the organization (up, across, and down), aligning stakeholders around a common growth narrative and enabling faster, better decisions. 

• Create clarity in ambiguity by prioritizing multiple workstreams, setting a plan of action for the team, and driving strong project leadership and results. 

• Elevate enterprise capabilities by developing standard methodologies, tools, and ways of working as part of a Consumer Insights Centre of Excellence / transformation agenda. 

• Communicate with impact through storytelling, delivering distilled, empathetic insights that build understanding and catalyze action across the organization. 

• Lead and develop a high-performing team (3 direct reports) through coaching, mentorship, and talent development—building a strong bench of strategic insight leaders. 

Recipe for Success - apply now if this sounds like you! 

• Proven track record in leading strategic consumer insights / consumer research to drive business and brand growth 

• Strong people leader with experience coaching, developing, and inspiring high-performing teams; demonstrated leadership credibility in setting vision and driving direction 

• Manufacturer/client-side experience supporting a portfolio of products/brands (highly preferred) 

• Deep expertise across qualitative and quantitative research methods and tools spanning advertising/communication testing, innovation, brand building, and syndicated services 

• Demonstrated ability to distill insights into clear “so-what” implications and mobilize stakeholders—bringing the consumer to the forefront to drive measurable business impact 

• Strong track record operating effectively in ambiguity and leading through change management / transformation efforts 

• Hands-on experience with POS data (Nielsen/IRI), panel data, and social listening (required) 

• Advanced capability with analytical tools and translating data into actionable growth recommendations (required) 

• High emotional intelligence (EQ) with the ability to build trusted, effective cross-functional relationships and influence at multiple levels 

• Exceptional storytelling and communication skills—creative, influential, and executive-ready—with excellent organization and presentation abilities (written and verbal) and proficiency across the Microsoft Office Suite