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.

Your role and responsibilities

Leadership & Team Development

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.

Quantitative Research Excellence

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.

Insight Interpretation & Business Actionability

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.

Modernization & Future-Readiness

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.

Stakeholder Influence

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.

Operational Excellence

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.

Required education

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred education

Master's Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

Experience

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.

Skills

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.

Tools

Data visualization expertise (Power BI, Tableau).

Preferred technical and professional experience

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.

YOUR LIFE @ IBM

In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.

Being an IBMer means you’ll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you’ll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.

Are you ready to be an IBMer?

ABOUT IBM

IBM’s greatest invention is the IBMer. We believe that through the application of intelligence, reason and science, we can improve business, society and the human condition, bringing the power of an open hybrid cloud and AI strategy to life for our clients and partners around the world.

Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we’re also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 500 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business.

At IBM, we pride ourselves on being an early adopter of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain. Now it’s time for you to join us on our journey to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world.

IBM 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, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, or other characteristics protected by the applicable law. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILS

IBM offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits program. Eligible employees may have access to:

- Healthcare benefits including medical & prescription drug coverage, dental, vision, and mental health & well being

- Financial programs such as 401(k), cash balance pension plan, the IBM Employee Stock Purchase Plan, financial counseling, life insurance, short & long- term disability coverage, and opportunities for performance based salary incentive programs

- Generous paid time off including 12 holidays, minimum 56 hours sick time, 120 hours vacation, 12 weeks parental bonding leave in accordance with IBM Policy, and other Paid Care Leave programs. IBM also offers paid family leave benefits to eligible employees where required by applicable law

- Training and educational resources on our personalized, AI-driven learning platform where IBMers can grow skills and obtain industry-recognized certifications to achieve their career goals

- Diverse and inclusive employee resource groups, giving & volunteer opportunities, and discounts on retail products, services & experiences

We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.

This position was posted on the date cited in the key job details section and is anticipated to remain posted for 21 days from this date or less if not needed to fill the role.

IBM will not be providing visa sponsorship for this position now or in the future. Therefore, in order to be considered for this position, you must have the ability to work without a need for current or future visa sponsorship.

The compensation range and benefits for this position are based on a full-time schedule for a full calendar year. The salary will vary depending on your job-related skills, experience and location. Pay increment and frequency of pay will be in accordance with employment classification and applicable laws. For part time roles, your compensation and benefits will be adjusted to reflect your hours. Benefits may be pro-rated for those who start working during the calendar year.

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