Director, Consumer & Market Insights (CMI), Häagen Dazs

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Great things are happening in the Europe and Australia (EUAU) region. Each day, our 2,500 plus colleagues bring their passion to our offices, manufacturing sites, R&D center, and commercial/distributor markets across Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. We are energized by over 150 years of bringing people together with the food they love. With beloved brands Old El Paso, Häagen-Dazs, Nature Valley, Betty Crocker, Fibre One, Latina Fresh and more, we are on a mission to become the undisputed growth leader in food for EUAU. In a world that's ever-changing, we look to stay ahead and seek people who share our love of food and are hungry to shape the future.

What your role is

Häagen-Dazs is a truly iconic and well-loved brand in the General Mills International portfolio. We have an exciting opportunity to be part of this highly dynamic brand as the CMI Director for Häagen-Dazs. This is a global leadership role spanning four regions (Europe/Australia, Brazil, China, and Global Emerging Markets) with you taking ownership for:

• Being the business partner for the Häagen-Dazs (HD) brand leadership team internationally- play a pivotal role in guiding & shaping the brand's marketing strategy & execution by providing critical consumer insights & analysis.
• Driving the development and execution of consumer-centric core renovation, incremental innovation and integrated marketing campaigns. This role will require strong business acumen, excellent strategic partnership, demonstrated storytelling and influence skills, and the ability to prioritize and be adaptable. The role will partner with the Global Häagen-Dazs Director and a strong team of marketers and cross-functional experts to accelerate HD growth across key geographies.

You will report to the CMI Director for International and coach a small team of consumer insight and data analytics experts for Häagen-Dazs. You will work closely with the HD marketing team, local CMI and market teams, cross-functional stakeholders, and external agencies to drive impact and influence at all levels by simplifying and clearly communicating insights and action.

Experiences Gained: Matrix Relationship Management, Brand Equity, Brand Experience (BX), Anatomy/Purpose, Management/Development, International Business Coordination, Cross Geography, Foresights, innovation, Renovation, Portfolio Planning, AI-enabled research.

Key Accountabilities

Team Leadership & Prioritization

• Develop and deliver strong CMI vision for HD & orchestration of all efforts to systematically support the HD strategy & step-change brand growth overall
• Lead and develop a high-performing insights team, providing coaching, setting goals, and fostering collaboration.
• Dynamically manage team resources to deliver impactful results on most important consumer/business questions, driving brand growth.
• Promote a safe space and culture of innovation within the CMI team.
• Participate in the international CMI leadership team to enhance capabilities and share best practices.

Strategic Partnership

• Identifying and translating consumer & customer needs, insights & data into powerful actions or growth levers for the brand strategy - develop and deploy learning plans to help shape and deliver HDs short term and long-term growth strategy
• Identify HD learning gaps then develop and execute a comprehensive consumer insights programme to address this.
• Proactively identify biggest business opportunities to incrementally grow HD across geographies & work cross functionally to translate this into reality.
• Simplify & be the champion of prioritizing the biggest efforts that have the biggest consumer & business impact.

Brand Performance Steering

• Understand key brand performance metrics & consistently (with partnership with local CMI teams) provide actions needed by business to grow.
• With your team, track and analyze campaign/launch performance, providing regular reports on key metrics (e.g., reach, engagement, conversion rates, ROI). Identify areas for improvement and make data-driven recommendations to optimize future campaigns or launches.

Renovation & Innovation

• Drive clear consumer understanding on key demand spaces for HD to play with our core & innovation, driving the choice of priorities for our big bets, plan makers and other projects
• Ensure core& NPD pipeline sufficiency in close partnership with the cross functional teams and delivering consumer relevance with clear consumer problem or joy that enables us to drive full value of any our renovation & innovation efforts.
• Ensuring the prioritization of resources to the right renovation and innovation projects
• Drive best in class learning programmes & follow tested best practices in delivering a consumer relevant mixes from the start to end of the process.
• Partner closely with Marketing, ITQ and GPD to continuously drive remarkability in our brand offerings in market

Brand Experience Development & Execution

• Partner with the Global Brand lead & team (with support from your team) in crafting a consumer centric brand positioning & support global brand consistency on guidelines and execution.
• Develop and deploy (with your team) the learning programmes needed to deliver all relevant Brand Experience learning plans across the world, ensuring we apply best practice especially on tier 1 design markets.

Consumer Centricity & Foresights

• Ensures business teams are at the forefront of evolving marketplace dynamics and consumer behavior to make the most informed and current decisions.
• Maintain a deep understanding of current and emerging trends in consumer behavior, flavor/ingredient/culture trends, and the competitive landscape.
• Proactively identify new growth opportunities for our brands by tapping into new moments, needs, locations, tribes and latest trends to reach more users more often in a more relevant way

What you will bring to the team

Minimum Qualifications

• At least 12 years of experience in market research or relevant fields driving holistic brand growth through deep and broad consumer insights & foresights.
• University degree in Marketing, Market Research, Statistics, Mathematics, Data Analytics, Economics, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, or a related field.
• Extensive professional experience in Consumer Insights, Consumer Research, or related field,
• Ability to synthesize data to build and tell a compelling consumer story with credibility- build strong brand propositions into market success.
• Experience leading a team and working with interdependent cross-functional teams in a highly dynamic, fast-paced, and challenging environment.
• Experience working in an agile environment with shifting priorities and multiple concurrent work streams.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills.

Preferred Qualifications/Competencies

• Independence and passion: ability to handle multiple projects & brands at once whilst keeping passionate about excellence & impact- ensuring prioritization is at play
• Action & results oriented: Track record of developing work which is fact-based rather than fact-filled, focusing on actionable recommendations and outcomes. Proven record of strong follow through of the work until action.
• Resilience & Agility: Strong resilience through volatility & ambiguity, ability to flex when needed to achieve goals
• Positive & Hero mentality: A positive attitude and can-do outlook to keep the agency teams motivated and inspired to work with the team.
• Ability to successfully navigate matrixed organizations and foster effective relationships.
• Track record in turning around a business.

What you get from us

• 25 days of holidays plus statutory and bank holidays.; Competitive Package and Salary.
• Flexible working with 2 days in the office; Subsidised canteen.
• Headspace account and wellbeing activities;Enhanced Parental and Carer Policies
• Equal Employment Opportunities.

At General Mills, we are committed to recruiting, retaining, developing and advancing an inclusive workforce that reflects the diversity of the consumers and communities we serve globally. Join us the General Mills team today - Hungry to Shape the Future.