Kantar, the world’s leading marketing data and analytics company.  We understand more about how people think, feel, shop, share, vote, and view than anyone else. Combining our expertise in human understanding with advanced technologies. Kantar’s 25,000 people based in more than 100 countries help the world’s leading organisations succeed and grow. Nobody knows people better than Kantar. We provide insight and inspiration to help our clients, our people and society to create and flourish in an extraordinary world.

Job Title: Commercial Excellence Creative Leader

Job Location: Hybrid (Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Norwalk, New York City)

Why this job is important 

A creative solution partner is customer-centric, has executive-presence, and are skilled at active listening, probing to uncover critical problems to solve, and consulting with prospective clients on Kantar’s creative solutions to address their needs. They possess deep competency around consultative selling, business development and negotiating with buyers to drive both maximum client satisfaction and revenue.  

The ideal candidate is a brand and creative communications strategist with solid competency in stakeholder management. They are energetic and/or magnetic, with a passion for consumer behavior and helping clients improve their business strategies to drive sales and brand growth. They are detail oriented but know when to empower others. They are empathetic and inclusive leaders. They have marketing and business acumen and offer ideas and perspectives to improve themselves and those around them. 

A successful candidate will demonstrate experience and success in not only generating engagements with strategic accounts and new business/new logo accounts but also delivering end-to-end creative development solutions. This is a hybrid seller/doer role.

Primary Objective

• Grow and identify new client relationships through the alignment of Kantar’s end-to-end creative solutions to client needs exceeding client revenue, margin, and satisfaction targets.

Essential Responsibilities

• Leads the strategic growth and development of multiple large/complex client accounts; in the Creative team’s portfolio of business of $40M

• Serves as client/industry authority and leverages thought leadership to expand Kantar presence

• Identifies new creative business opportunities by conducting analysis of marketplace data, using personally established network, existing knowledge of the market research landscape, and hunting for new buying centers 

• Develops account strategies and creates relationships with key contacts and prospective clients using the Kantar client network as well as personally established network

• Owns client relationship and sets the overall vision for the account, plans long-range project portfolio and sells projects to strategic clients

• Develops and implement sales strategies to secure client Creative budgets by using relationships with existing contacts and establishing connections with new prospects

• Builds and owns sales/opportunity pipeline to deliver topline revenue objectives 

• Responsible for all aspects of the sales process, from prospecting to qualification to closing 

• Generates new sales revenue across Kantar’s Creative Development ecosystem.

• Logs sales activity and maintains sales pipeline including revenue forecasts, weekly comments on active deals, and estimated contract dates through internal CRM (Salesforce) 

• Leads RFP and proposal development process, including collaborating with internal teams, coordinating client timelines, developing pitch and proposal collateral that resonates with clients and tells a differentiated story; plays a lead client-facing role from initial outreach through final proposal presentation and negotiations 

• Leads client expectations, set financial targets, signs off proposal, closes contracts, owns new opportunities

• Conducts client meetings to build and maintain high levels of customer satisfaction across all solutions and engagement with Kantar 

• Understands the competitive landscape and reports back to the organization on points of differentiation 

• Understands financial implications (gross margin, job profit, operating profit, forecasting) for negotiating deals that adhere to Kantar’s financial guidelines 

Essential Knowledge & Experience

• Demonstrated ability in related industries including Consulting, Information, Market Research, Marketing, Agencies, Consumer Packaged Goods, Technology and Financial Services, Retail, Hospitality and/or Auto industries

• 10+ years of quota-carrying sales experience in market research, customer insights, consulting, analytics, and creative effectiveness solutions; selling to Chief Marketing Officer, Marketing decision makers, and Insights decision makers 

• A hunting mentality with experience using existing network of client relationships/contacts and generating leads 

• Proven success generating revenue with new business/new logo accounts 

• Consistent track record of meeting/exceeding business/revenue targets and driving impact

• Proven success in farming by developing and growing deep and lasting client relationships, particularly at the senior most levels

• Demonstrated ability to translate sophisticated concepts into concise, insightful messaging 

• Excellent commercial competence, presentation and interpersonal skills (verbal and written) 

• Highly motivated, self-starter, driver of change and transformation 

• Superior communication, influencing and negotiation skills

Core Skills & Capabilities

Critical Thinking

• Anchors vision and direction, sets stretch goals

• Designs strategic plans/ processes to achieve goals

• Acknowledged and clear leader with a point of view about creative development and brand campaigns

Commercial Competence

• Sees and captures opportunities, strong seller

• Understands impact of decisions on larger enterprise

• Command of financial mechanics, systems, and tools

Client Leadership

• Builds robust senior executive relationships

• Deeply understands and focuses on broader client needs

• Focus on client development

Communication

• Develops suiting messaging/ communication plan/ approach

• Selects optimal media to deliver messages

• Confidently delivers messages and exemplifies Kantar values

Kantar Benefits

We provide a comprehensive, highly competitive benefits package, including

• Medical plans with comprehensive, affordable coverage for a range of health services

• Health Savings Account/FSA

• Dental, Vision and benefits to cover unique healthcare needs

• Wellness Program

• 401k with match

• Tuition Reimbursement, Commuter benefits

• Unlimited PTO

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.

Privacy and Legal Statement

PRIVACY DISCLOSURE: Please note that by applying to this opportunity you consent to the personal data you provide to us to be processed and retained by The Kantar Group Limited (“Kantar”). Your details will be kept on our Internal ATS (Applicant Tracking System) for as long as is necessary for the purposes of recruitment, which may include your details being shared with the hiring manager

The salary range for this role in Illinois is 150,000.00 - 250,000.00 USD Annual. Your final base salary will be determined based on several factors which may include but are not limited to location, work experience, skills, knowledge, education and/or certifications. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability.