Qualitative Research Director

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Deliver key data driven insights and recommended actions in a persuasive manner that influence client decisions and drive the decision making process.
• The Qualitative Insight Director consistently and effectively executes projects and is ready to take on more account management and coaching responsibility in their current role; with expertise in translating research findings into strategy, both mining for the insight and providing clear ways to activate against it. 
• Attend and present at various industry leading conferences.
• Engage in interactions with clients in both the market research and qualitative world to drive client loyalty.
• Develop strong working relationships with clients while on assigned projects; must have the ability to manage, meet and exceed client expectations.
• Consistently make strategic leaps from research findings; to achieve insight on every project and develop ways to share insight that are clear, creative, inspirational, and lead to client alignment.
• Create a vision for the Qualitative team and rally employees and clients around that vision to drive future business.
• Lead the evolution and transformation of qualitative content.
• Facilitating the publishing of papers/articles on industry techniques.
• Be a company-wide thought leader of qual and humanization.
• Express leadership, knowledge, and execution of qualitative innovation.
• Leverage personal network to help drive thinking and perspective on client work and areas for exploration.
• Have a point of view on the methodology as well as possible outcomes from the research that are actionable for the client.
• Manage, mentor, and collaborate with qualitative team.
• Develop and retain world class moderating talent (continuously updating the skill-set of our seasoned qualitative professionals, developing our junior moderators and managing our contract moderator pool).
• Accountable for excellences on qual deliverables.
• Actively moderate – especially highly strategic sessions or sessions that allow experimentation with new techniques or where client loyalty is critical.

 Projects:

• Accountable for ensuring all aspects of the project are delivered on time and against client objectives.
• Consistently thinks proactively throughout the project to anticipate and quickly address changes to approach, design, objectives, etc.
• Effectively designs studies and writes proposals.
• Creatively and quickly connect the dots, identifying emerging themes and how they connect to the bigger story.
• Consistently incorporates strategic elements into the report including the story flow, emerging implications, and recommendations.
• Begins to leverage client / industry knowledge and external frameworks, anecdotes, constructs, macro and micro-trends, psychological understanding, etc., to elevate the strategy.

Client Relationships:

• Commands a confident, captivating, respectful, agile, consultative presence when engaging with the client.
• Develops rapport and builds empathy for and with the client, leading to long-term relationships.
• Develops and continually deepens understanding of the client's business and the individual client to ask the right questions, anticipate needs.
• Proactively addresses issues or opportunities in their business, including further research or strategy work.
• Stays calm and collected even with difficult clients, and helps the team do the same.

Leadership:

• Supports department specific initiatives
• Provides guidance and mentorship to team members assigned to their projects.
• Is an outstanding strategic thinker, writer, and presenter.
• Their work should always produce results — be it positive client feedback, referrals, repeat business or case studies.
• Develops positive relationships with clients.
• Successfully represents the firm in external facing settings.

Requirements

 REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 7+ years of experience working in a qualitative capacity including strong moderating experience
• Vast knowledge of qualitative techniques to answer business objectives
• Track record of positive, direct management of a team and experience developing and retaining the talent within the team
• Ability to convey complex conceptual topics in an easy to understand manner at professional conferences, academic meetings business round tables, etc.
• Well networked in business, market research, technology and math circles

 PERFORMANCE SKILLS REQUIRED

• Strategic business thinking and development
• Demonstrate strong qualitative skills
• Demonstrate professional maturity and general business knowledge
• Strong client management and interaction skills (i.e., ability to establish solid client relationships)
• Excellent leadership skills
• Effective communication skills, both written and verbal
• Strong sense of accountability
• Strong organization, time management and attention to detail skills
• Proactive planning and prioritization skills
• Well-rounded problem solving and multi-tasking skills
• Effective writing skills
• A passion for training and developing qualitative talent
• Strong creative thinker and innovative spirit
• Continuously inculcate a qualitative mindset throughout the organization