About
Performance-driven Consumer Insights professional with a passion for uncovering the insights that drive growth. A strategic contributor with a straight-forward communication style and excellent working relationships with brand management, agencies, and cross-functional teams. Develops high-performing teams by leveraging individual strengths and leading by example. Quick learner with exceptional skills on both the client and supplier side. Quantitative research experience: Advertising/Communication - tracking, copy-testing, claims/message testing Analytics - marketing mix, conjoint, maxdiff, syndicated tools (IRI, Nielsen, NPD) Brand - A&U, brand equity tracking Innovation - idea screening, concept testing, concept optimization, concept/product testing Packaging - visual identity, packaging graphics, packaging structure Product - product benchmarking, flavor sort (TURF), product optimization, IHUT Qualitative research experience: Consumer Targeting/Ethnography Communication Checks Hispa…
Experience
Consumer & Shopper Insights Lead
ACH Food Companies, Inc. · Oakbrook Terrace, IL
Present
ACH food is a multi-national company and a subsidiary of Associated British Foods (ABF) a diversified international food, ingredients and retail company. Retail brands include: Mazola, Fleischmann's Yeast, ARGO, Karo, and BakeGood. The Senior Manager, Consumer & Shopper Insights' mission is to create a competitive advantage for ACH Foods by delivering fact-based consumer/shopper understanding and insights that facilitate speed and accuracy of decision-making across the organization. Accountable for defining, leading and managing all aspects of the market research function.
Director, Research and Insights
The Coca-Cola Company · Greater Atlanta Area
Managed core research, strategy, and innovation to translate key consumer insights, trends, and market dynamics into growth opportunities. This role was in the corporate global center and research must be aligned to and coordinated with the local business units around the world. Key brands: Minute Maid, Del Valle, Fuze Tea, Aquarius, AdeS, Powerade Piloted a category-agnostic innovation idea screen to understand which type of beverage (water, tea, juice, or dairy) is best suited to deliver key benefits to consumers. Upgraded communication research by combining focus groups, quantitative research, and facial coding to understand how to bring Del Valle’s provenance story to life. Executed global research that led to the launch of a new Visual Identity System for Fuze Tea. Evaluated several approaches to concept development and optimization with live projects on tea, juice, and plant-based beverages. Led global communication development and testing for Powerade, Fuze Tea, Aquarius, and De…
Director, Consumer Insights
ConAgra Foods · Chicago, IL
The Director of Insights influences decisions with rigorous insights that drive results. This role encompasses a wide range of investigative research to define growth opportunities (brand renovation or expansion, new products, marketing strategy). Market research expertise is essential as this role also involves digging deep to uncover compelling consumer, category, and brand insights. Key brands: Slim Jim, Orville Redenbacher’s, Marie Callender’s Piloted new and innovative research techniques to efficiently address key business questions: video glasses within in-home ethnographies to understand unmonitored consumer behavior, a virtual convenience store to test different end cap racking solutions, and a mobile custom panel for a difficult to reach consumer target (young, blue collar men). Increased microwave popcorn sales for Orville Redenbacher’s and Act II via new packaging graphics, new product launches, and shelving assortment. Headed a cross-functional team through the Brand Build…
Manager, Consumer Insights
ConAgra Foods · Naperville, IL
The Manager of Consumer Insights manages a wide range of investigative studies to assess the organizations present and future position with regard to market share, the effectiveness of current marketing/sales programs, and feasibility of new products. Key brands: Reddi-wip, Hebrew National, Egg Beaters 2014 ARF David Ogilvy Award Grand Ogilvy winner for uncovering and implementing a new, off-season strategy: positioning Reddi-wip as a low-calorie option to enjoy with fruit. This led to a 6.6% increase in sales. Identified and developed new consumer growth targets for Egg Beaters and Hebrew National. Uncovered a new and compelling way to talk about Hebrew National’s kosher benefit; took this insight all the way to a new advertising campaign. Supported the expansion strategy for Wolf Brand Chili by understanding how the product would perform in new markets (BASES) and conducting focus groups with Latinos to understand how to position the brand with a new consumer target in existing marke…
Director
Millward Brown · Naperville, IL
A Director interacts with key clients on a day-to-day basis, proactively addresses needs, provides thought leadership, and solves business problems that drive satisfaction. The ability to translate data into insights and craft compelling stories is essential. This role includes management of a team of mid-level research professionals. A director is also responsible for specific account revenue targets. Key clients: WhiteWave Foods, Energizer Holdings Helped CPG clients to address key strategic business issues such as: identifying target markets, determining the success of new product launches, understanding how sub-brands complement/detract from the base brand, optimizing communication plans, assessing the viability of a global strategy for advertising, and exploring options for market share growth. Analyzed Millward Brown research results in conjunction with sales, pricing, media, economic indicators, and data from other vendors to provide a complete picture of the marketing issues be…
Account Executive
Millward Brown · Naperville, IL
An Account Executive is responsible for effectively leading a team on the full product lifecycle for multiple accounts (including proposal, study design, execution of the study, and completion/delivery of an issue-focused analysis). Driving client satisfaction and organic sales growth, this role serves as the key client consultant by knowing clients' businesses, providing Millward Brown thinking/learning and seeking out opportunities to gain new business. I took a hiatus from this position to work at Lansdowne Market Research (a company that was bought by Millward Brown) in Dublin, Ireland. Key clients: Nationwide Insurance, State Farm Insurance, Kraft Foods, BP (British Petroleum), WhiteWave Foods, and Anheuser Busch. Gained the trust of a dissatisfied client who was thinking of terminating their relationship with Millward Brown prior to my placement on the account. Initiated a “super-fast” approach to copy-testing (results ready over a weekend) for a Super Bowl advertising campaign.…
Senior Research Executive
Millward Brown · Naperville, IL
A Senior Research Executive takes ownership of studies and manages direct reports on the full product lifecycle for multiple accounts. This role also focuses on developing a true trusted adviser relationship with clients. Key clients: BP (British Petroleum), United Airlines, ACH Foods, State Farm Insurance Managed direct reports including mentoring, motivating, setting career objectives, and completing annual review process. Instrumental in landing a $3MM/year contract. Executed large and complex projects including managing deadlines, ensuring quality, creating internal efficiencies, and maintaining profitability. Led efforts to update an internal tracking database including creating and conducting internal training sessions.
Research Executive
Kantar Millward Brown · Naperville, IL
A Research Executive independently manages projects, analyzes and thoughtfully interprets data to create insightful presentations, and handles day-to-day questions/requests from clients. Key clients: Nestle Purina, American Airlines Wrote and independently presented presentations for dog and cat treats at Nestle Purina. Increased efficiency of media data input and output through the use of excel macros and pivot tables. Developed and implemented a new procedure to accurately record coupon and FSI activity for client reports. Trained junior staff on research fundamentals.
Assistant Research Executive
Kantar Millward Brown · Naperville, IL
An Assistant Research Executive learns research fundamentals and understands how to apply them to their clients' business. Clients: General Motors (Chevrolet Truck Division), Goodwrench Service Plus, GMAC Finance, ACDelco Auto Parts Created and disseminated a census database (based on the 2000 census). One key use of this database was used to ensure that our studies accurately represented the U.S. population in regards to key demographics like age, sex, and race/ethnicity. Coordinated internal processes including monitoring field production, checking program scripts (CATI), making adjustments to questionnaires, and facilitating communication between internal departments. Prepared presentations by extracting data from data tables, running cross-tabs through Quanvert, calculating statistical differences, and summarizing the key facts on each slide.
Research Project Manager
LANSDOWNE MARKET RESEARCH LTD · County Dublin, Ireland
Research Project Managers are responsible for all qualitative and quantitative research from sales pitch through to final presentation. Clients: Thomas Crosbie Holdings (Irish Examiner), RTE (Ireland's National TV station), Irish Distillers, Barry's Tea, NIVEA, Calvita, Fyffes, Beamish & Crawford, Rehab Lottery, BreastCheck, Miller, Meteor, Eagle Star, Friends First, Grant Thorton, Irish Yogurts, John Players. Moderated focus groups and conducted one-on-one depth interviews. Improved processing time and data comparability by introducing a common structure for data processing on studies that were repeated across geographies. Improved quality of analysis across all clients by training Irish colleagues on the Millward Brown suite of common analytic techniques (e.g. regression, correlation, correspondence maps). Managed a large number of studies concurrently including A&U, customer satisfaction, brand tracking, concept/product testing, conjoint, and segmentation. Worked across a wide varie…
Education
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Bachelor of Science, Business Administration
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