Associate Director - Commercial Strategy Consulting
About the Role
As an Associate Director within Kantar’s Commercial Strategy Consulting team, you will be a senior leader responsible for shaping, steering and delivering growth strategy engagements that help our clients solve their business and brand challenges. You will partner with CMOs, growth leaders, and executive stakeholders to unlock sustainable, insight‑led growth through segmentation, portfolio strategy, long‑term growth visioning, and forward‑looking activation.
Associate Directors lead multiple projects or large-scale programmes, own senior client relationships, and ensure our commercial, strategic and quality standards are consistently exceeded. You will contribute significantly to business development, develop our consulting offers, and build a high‑performing team environment across levels and markets.
Key Responsibilities
1. Client Leadership & Commercial Growth
Serve as the senior client lead on engagements, building trusted partnerships up to C‑suite level and acting as a subject‑matter expert in Commercial Strategy
Deeply understand client business models, market dynamics and organisational priorities to shape tailored growth strategies
Identify and convert growth opportunities within existing client relationships and proactively open new doors with lapsed or new clients
Lead proposal development, solution design and commercial negotiations, ensuring profitability and long‑term client value
2. Strategic Insight, Framework Leadership & Solution Development
Lead the design and delivery of insight‑driven, commercially robust strategic narratives
Guide teams to synthesise complex multi‑source data into clear strategic direction and actionable recommendations
Shape and refine consulting solutions, contributing to the evolution of Kantar’s IP, tools and thought leadership
Push the practice forward by challenging the status quo and innovating new ways of working
3. Project & Engagement Ownership
Own end‑to‑end delivery of multiple projects or large, multi‑market programmes across scoping, design, execution and evaluation
Ensure delivery meets or exceeds client expectations on quality, insight, impact, timeliness and commercial performance
Oversee global/regional/local resource planning and coordination
4. People Leadership, Coaching & Culture Building
Lead, coach and inspire cross‑disciplinary teams, fostering consulting excellence and high performance
Develop talent across multiple geographies
Model Kantar behaviours and champion an inclusive, collaborative culture
5. Internal Leadership & Practice Building
Contribute to the strategic direction of the Commercial Strategy Consulting practice, including offer development and capability building
Support revenue planning, pipeline management and forecasting
Represent the practice across broader Kantar initiatives
Capabilities & Experience
Technical & Strategic Skills
Deep expertise in growth and commercial strategy, segmentation, portfolio strategy, brand strategy, insights or strategic consulting
Strong analytical capability
Proven ability to lead complex, multi‑layered strategic engagements
(Preferable) Strong familiarity with Commercial Strategy frameworks and Kantar’s methodologies
Consulting, Leadership & Commercial Skills
Notable experience in strategic or commercial consulting
Track record of building and growing senior client relationships
Strong project and programme leadership skills
Demonstrated success in securing new business and contributing to revenue growth
Excellent communication and influential storytelling
Mindsets & Behaviours
Curious, proactive and future‑focused
Operates with accountability, transparency and collaboration
Committed to continuous improvement and elevating consulting standards
Impact & Progression
Associate Directors drive meaningful commercial impact, client transformation and internal practice growth. Progression to Director requires outstanding commercial leadership, deep client influence, scaled practice impact and sustained revenue performance.
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