Ice Cream Consumer & Market Insight Director EU/ANZ

UNILEVER IS LOOKING FOR AN ICE CREAM CONSUMER MARKET INSIGHTS ANALYTICS DIRECTOR

JOIN OUR ICE CREAM TEAM!

Location: Amsterdam.

Local conditions apply

Full-time

For the recruitment of this position, we would like to emphasize that local conditions apply to the position and for this vacancy in principle we will first consider candidates based in the Netherlands. If you are based outside of the Netherlands and you are interested to apply, please feel free to do so but we can only take your application on if a decision is made to also recruit outside of the Netherlands.

If you consider choosing to work for the Unilever Ice Cream business, you will work for the Global, leading Ice Cream player with €7.9bn Turn Over in 2023. The Ice Cream business is operating in a highly attractive category, as we are part of the 1 trillion snacking and refreshment industry, growing consistently at high pace. We have strong brands equities: 5 of top 10 selling brands including Wall’s, Magnum, Ben &Jerry’s. We are investing to unlock the full growth potential of Ice Cream as a standalone entity, once we separate from Unilever, which is planned to happen by November 2025.

Ice Cream has distinct characteristics from Unilever’s other operating businesses and the growth potential of Ice Cream will be better delivered under a different ownership structure. As Ice Cream company we are committed to developing and nurturing talent within our Ice Cream company. You will have ample options for career growth and exploration, allowing you for you to explore roles and opportunities across the new organisation. Your career development will be a priority for us, and we are dedicated to supporting your growth journey within the new company. We hope that you will want to build the new chapter of our Ice Cream history together with us.

JOB PURPOSE:

The main purpose of this role to lead consumer-focused strategic planning and end-to end- execution of Ice Cream Portfolio in EU ANZ and the foundational insights to grow the category. Partnering directly with the IC EUANZ Chief Marketing Officier, Customer Strategy and Planning Lead, and the countries General Managers.  Inspiring, provoking and challenging some set beliefs and practices, and amplifying success pockets backed by educated intuition & experience, fact and penetrating insight.

WHAT WILL YOUR MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES BE?

You will be responsible for the identification and translation of consumer, customer, market and channel needs & desires, multi-source insights and behaviours to guide the brand crafting strategy, innovation and portfolio, digital marketing and commerce, channel & shopper insights as well as drive performance and insights to drive growth alongside with the Consumer Insights market leads.

• Motivate and lead a direct and indirect reports team across the BU EU ANZ

• Understand the Ice Cream category and the bigger universe of category we operate in, customers and channels, the key business objectives and challenges, and be able to set relevant research programmes to deliver against the objectives

• Implement the insights in line with best practices, and ensure that all research work is actionable and strategically aligned; this includes all practical aspects of Insights end to end

• Determine & focus optimised insights needs for the platforms and allocate resources according to business priorities, pushing back on small scale and grunt work effectively and stretching the brands into the future of CMI and Marketing

• Growth Performance and Analytics:  keep senior business leaders and custodians on “pulse of business”, provide analytical support to steer key strategic activities evaluate and track our business performance across growth lever. Add value via a deep understanding of key business issues, applying rigorous analysis and bringing multiple sources of insight to the table

• Innovation: Lead e2e innovation program for the innovation plaforms in EUANZ

• Product Experience: custodian of  superior quality of product and pack performance.

• Brand Crafting: lead comms and brand identity research programs

• Bringing Outside in: Continiously gather and integrate the voice of the consumer along with the news from the market and competitors to ensure competitive intelligence is also core part of our strategy.

• Hold business partners accountable for implementing Insight-led recommendations and solutions. Actively participate & thought lead in leadership foruns.  Advise, challenge and guide the teams and contribute to the strategic direction of the business

• Continue to build on insights capabilities and expertise both current and new by working with other functions (R&D, CD) and external agencies & subject matter experts to drive best Insights and practices into execution in business action and outcomes

• This role is expected to drive transformation on how we do research in the future – from more traditional approaches to leveraging ai and technology, from claimed and survey based to real-time behavioural and consumer experience, making sure it changes the whole insight organization to be future fit.

THE QUALITIES WE LOOK FOR

SKILLS, EXPERIENCES & QUALIFICATIONS:

• Seasoned senior director with suitable years successful achievements. Demonstrable ability to cope with and manage internal & environmental change, uncertainty, and provoke/challenge the business.  

• Demonstrable ability to cope with and manage internal & environmental change, uncertainty, and provoke/challenge the business. 

• Preferably, hands on experience of Marketing and/or Consumer Insight. Particularly in setting up and structuring teams, partnerships and leadership alignments in a virtual org.

• Experience in qualitative, quantitative, cultural, digital, social, media and continuous research, including market analytics, forecasting, modelling, AI and panels

• Self-Confidence in business partnering senior leaders and global leadership teams

• Track record in leading category strategy development and reviews, including retail & competitor landscape, pricing, predictive/modelling analytics

• Must be data, digital, AI, digital marketing and e-commerce savvy

• Problem solver with the ability to simply distil and interpret multi-source data at high speed, derive actionable insight and influence business action to insight for short and long-term strategies and executions.

• Clear analytical thinking, capable of breaking complex requirements into simple solutions.

• Ability to act strategically and operationally with an equal dose of lateral thinking and rigour

• Curiosity to proactively identify business needs, opportunities and threats, independently scans the market, and assess our portfolio identifying growth opportunities to influence the business.

• Organisation/Attention to Detail – outstanding organisational skills, including the ability to manage multiple overlapping priorities to meet key deadlines, whilst ensuring high quality output.

• Big picture thinker with a Local mindset – genuine interest in learning about and understanding regional, and local markets and their consumers, shoppers, retailers, and competitive dynamics

• Externally focussed – obsessed by market, consumer and customer digital trends with an eye to convert them into tangible business action.

WHAT DOES UNILEVER OFFER?

Unilever is the place where you can be yourself and bring your purpose to life with the work that you do – creating a better business and a better world. We offer an exciting & dynamic work environment where you can make things happen. Furthermore, we offer some great reward and benefits!

• Attractive total remuneration package; excellent company pension, bonus, share scheme.

• Flexible cross-disciplinary career opportunities and a wealth of training opportunities & wellbeing resources whenever and wherever.

• Plenty of company-paid holidays to further ensure your work-life balance is maintained.

• We encourage an inclusive culture, which comes to life with interchangeable public holidays, paid paternity leave of 6 weeks and our transgender policy.

• When you are at the office , you can enjoy our tasty canteen with prepped food and own products.

• Informal culture and being the first one trying our new products. 

• My Fitness Plan (reduction on your Fitness Subscription).

• Home work allowance

• Company laptop and mobile phone

• Green Mobility Policy.   

EXCITED?

Join Unilever and our team! To apply, you must do so online. Please do not forget to upload your CV and a motivation letter.  Your application will be reviewed against our requirements and we will be in touch shortly after the closing date to provide you with an update on the status of your application.

Looking forward to meeting you! 

Please note this is a Direct Search led by Unilever. Applications from agencies will not be accepted, nor will fees be paid for unsolicited CVs.

Equal Opportunity Employer: Unilever is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regards to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, disability, age, parenthood, pregnancy or any other basis protected by applicable law, and will not be discriminated against. 

By highlighting the gender diversity at the workplace, Unilever encourages women equally men to apply. If you look for a job after a long career break or after any type of leave, do not hesitate to apply.

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