Senior Client Partner - Innovation

London - Hybrid

Who we are:

We’re the world’s leading data, insights, and consulting company; we shape the brands of tomorrow by better understanding people everywhere.

Our Insights colleagues are the masters of using data to resolve challenges. They help brands define what they should stand for, how to reinvent and renew their offer, how to better reach audiences, and how to win with consumers and customers. By collecting substantial data from across the world, they blend human expertise with technology, making sure we can deliver innovative insights to brands everywhere.

We are the Innovation team within Kantar Insights. A friendly and dynamic team who are smashing all targets and are therefore seeking new talent to add additional perspectives and further accelerate our growth at this exciting time!

We are lucky enough to work with one of top innovators and support them to truly embrace a more iterative and agile innovation journey. Their business and the spaces where they operate are going through wholesale transformation, and they need our support to identify, build and launch meaningfully different innovation in this changing landscape. Our work is characterised by strategic deep dives, rapid experimentation and a real focus on human driven learning, and, increasingly, groundbreaking research techniques based on the latest behavioural sciences and lean innovation thinking.

Our client is already feeling the impact.

“I would never have been so brave with the products I am creating. The work you have provided has given me the confidence to push the boundaries.”

“It’s been an eye-opening experience. It’s brought us closer to our consumers, their language, their needs, what really makes them tick, this has helped understand what really matters to consumers”.

“You are driving us to better outcomes, and this has been a really rewarding experience, you’ve delivered strong strategic insight wrapped up in high quality storytelling”

This role:

Owning the overall client relationship, credibly acting as the senior innovation research sparring partner with senior client collaborators to influence decision-making. Building a network of relationships with decision makers across insights, brand, innovation, R&D, Executive/C Suite teams in the creation of value through new product and service propositions.

Contributing to our core programmes with the client by elevating the storytelling and commercial impact of our work, and identifying strategic connections across various workstreams.

You will be responsible for the team to deliver trusted advice on strategic innovation and product development issues. This will help business leaders settle right strategy and execution plan to deliver commercial advantage through the application of the breadth and depth of our offers.

You will engage with clients and stakeholders, generating new conversations to win business, collaborating with internal partners ensuring our client is seeing the best of Kantar’s offering to achieve their growth ambitions. 

Clients would say: I love working with you because….

You know me and my business inside out. You help me build powerful innovation by bringing me the market leading insights and product development expertise. You make me look great within my organisation & make it easy.

What you’ll be doing

Know Your Specialism

• An innovation expert, with a proven track record of developing (or supporting the development) of human centric innovation
• Leverages deep Kantar innovation knowledge to take the best of Kantar to address specific client’s needs
• Excellence and expertise in quantitative research and product testing is crucial, but also a data agnostic knowledge base is valuable i.e. comfortable working with and blending different types of data to tell powerful client stories
• Experience of working within or with brands in the tobacco and nicotine industry is preferable

Client Leadership

• Owns & leads the client relationship across all innovation areas
• Builds long term trusted client partnerships, with most senior client contacts, beyond Marketing & Insights, supported by having a regular on-site presence with the client
• Stewardship of projects, ensuring high impact with clients at the critical points throughout the project and quality of delivery within budget and timescales – not day to day project management
• Leads all aspects of the creation and delivery of powerful insights to support and shape the clients innovation strategy and tactical plans
• Proactively seeks out client feedback & implements strategies that will drive improved client relationships

Commercial Leadership

• Delivering against net sales/gross margin target per annum through winning high-value business within the client organisation
• Unlocks growth from new & multiple budget holders
• Handles an active pipeline, uncovering opportunities to grow and service new, emerging needs
• Leading business development outreach activities leveraging thought leadership collateral and personal networking

People Leadership

• A role model for driving change and transformation; influences others to create a relentless pursuit of industry leading change
• Leads & motivates the innovation client team across practice areas to optimise client impact, ensuring casting creates successful client partnerships
• Role models our core values and behaviours, and creates a collaborative culture where the team can flourish

The skills & experience needed

• Able to engage a range of client archetypes and surface business development opportunities.
• An effective networker, building relationships and partnerships crucial to winning work.
• An inspirational leader, with the ability to bring the organisation with you, engage and excite colleagues and teams in pitching and winning high value business
• Motivated by being external and client focused - a self starter and originator of client opportunity
• Highly commercial and focused on the top (new business activity, proposals and pipeline) and bottom line (effective costing, scope management, job recovery)
• Thrives working in a dynamic environment and is able to adapt quickly to changes along the innovation cycle, thinking outside of the box to continue to be meet client, people and commercial expectations

Why join Kantar?

We shape the brands of tomorrow by better understanding people everywhere. By understanding people, we can understand what drives their decisions, actions, and aspirations on a global scale. And by amplifying our in-depth expertise of human understanding alongside ground-breaking technology, we can help brands find concrete insights that will help them succeed in our fast-paced, ever shifting world.

And because we know people, we like to make sure our own people are being looked after as well. Equality of opportunity for everyone is our highest priority and we support our colleagues to work in a way that supports their health and wellbeing. While we encourage teams to spend part of their working week in the office, we understand no one size fits all; our approach is flexible to ensure everybody feels included, accepted, and that we can win together. We’re dedicated to creating an inclusive culture and value the diversity of our people, clients, suppliers and communities, and we encourage applications from all backgrounds and sections of society. Even if you feel like you’re not an exact match, we’d love to receive your application and talk to you about this job or others at Kantar.

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