Overview
Who We’re Looking For:
We are seeking a creative and established research strategist and experience leader to join our team.
This is an opportunity to evolve new teams and relationships within an established, successful firm already offering fully built, top-notch services and a wealth of capabilities.
As a VP, you’ll be the lead researcher and strategist collaborating on the development of new customer and brand experiences that drive business growth for many of the world’s best loved and well-known brands.
You’ll shape a growing team and play a critical role in expanding the scope of Kelton’s Experience tool kit.
You should already excel at designing and pitching solutions that leverage insights to help brands develop deep, loyal connections with their customers across journeys and complex ecosystems.
You should be an experienced researcher who loves the work and can guide others in the execution of the work.
You should have direct experience and a perspective on all aspects of Human Centered Designed to from HCI to experience design.
You should be action-oriented, enjoy working hard and have a good time doing it.
You should thrive on moving fast and tackling meaty, complex challenges.
As a leader, we need you to bring exceptional capacity for solving complex problems; for working collaboratively; for growing client relationships; and for putting people in a position to succeed.
You must have the persistence and proven ability to develop innovative products and solutions that engage and wow clients.
If this sounds like you, we’d love to connect and get to know each other better.
Company Description
We are a strategic consultancy that builds brands and businesses from the insight out.
We help organizations chart new pathways to growth by taking a creative, thoughtful, and rigorous approach to interpreting insights, developing strategies, and designing solutions that deliver on consumer desires.
We have a leadership team made up of seasoned research, brand marketing, and innovation professionals.
We are proud of having an entrepreneurial, start-up culture where training is very “hands-on” and there’s an atmosphere in which teams are tight and colleagues really help each other.
We serve as a strategic partner to a broad array of cross-industry clients including Target, Coca-Cola, Google, Harley-Davidson, ABI, DICK’S Sporting Goods, and more.
With our consumer insights platform, we’ve built a team that is uniquely positioned to develop solutions for clients that keep their customers at the center of brand strategy, marketing, and innovation efforts.
Responsibilities
What You’ll Do:
Client Leader:
- Lead teams across projects, ensuring we meet client ambitions with excellence and creativity.
You’ll act as a thought leader throughout Kelton’s business development process, crafting Kelton’s offering, and playing a lead role in new business proposals and pitches.
- Play an active role in building Kelton’s client portfolio and reputation, both by generating new business opportunities from your own network and by extending relationships with existing clients through the delivery of great work.
- Liaise and collaborate with Kelton and Material experts across disciplines to design integrated, multi-layered approaches to address a wide range of client challenges.
- Serve as a thought leader in the space of Human-Centered Design; orient teams around different goals and objectives of design research, UX, and CX
- Serve as the lead researcher on engagements that are explicitly or implicitly about experiences
- Work with teams to deliver analyses, insights, experiences, and actionable recommendations that create meaningful impact.
- Create and oversee a network of relationships across accounts to develop deep and broad connections within the client organization.
- Work with other leaders to extend Kelton’s and Material’s capabilities, including scoping, forecasting, and helping recruit future talent as the offerings grow.
- Lead by example to motivate and grow teams, consistently providing clear feedback to raise performance and motivate team members.
- Advance experience research & strategy understanding within Kelton and Material.
Spearhead regular internal training and education, and lead by example to motivate and grow teams.
- Maintain an elevated position with the client, but not be afraid of rolling up your sleeves and leading a lean project team as required.
Know when it is necessary to get involved in day to day work in support of the team.
Requirements
What You’ll Bring:
- 10+ years of relevant experience working within insights, CX, UX innovation, brand strategy and/or experience design.
- A belief in human-centered design and a proven track record leading insights and strategy projects and multi-disciplinary teams in a reputable consulting or agency environment is a must.
- Significant previous experience with growing revenue and managing client/account relationships highly desired.
- A proven workshop-leader with an understanding of, and ability to lead others through, design thinking fundamentals.
- Superior people leadership skills; strong track record as a manager, motivator, and developer of young talent.
- Exceptional verbal and written communication skills.
- An action-oriented, entrepreneurial, flexible, and innovative approach to relationship growth and management.
- Assertive, proactive, direct, articulate, and charismatic