Director, Insights & Experience

at  Parkland Corporation

COMPETITIVE BENEFITS. MEANINGFUL EXTRAS. UNMATCHED VALUE.

• A place where you can take your career in the direction you want to grow and go
• Flexible work options and summer hours for eligible employees
• Save on gas at stations across Canada, including Chevron, Fas Gas, Ultramar, and Pioneer

THE OPPORTUNITY:

The Director, Customer Insights & Experience is responsible for leading significant organic growth in both retail and commercial divisions across the Parkland enterprise by seeking & understanding the voice of the customer and parlaying it to build brand platforms, processes, and programs. Responsibilities include building new insight channels through several quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, grow Parkland’s social listening capabilities, and oversee the brand health, stewardship and strategy of proprietary and strategic brands for Parkland’s growth across North & Central America. In this position the leader must collaborate effectively across regions and business units to achieve individual, team and company revenue and budgetary goals, and position the company for long-term sustainable growth.
This leader will be expected to invest in the development of strategy & operational skills for individuals within their own team as well individuals more broadly across the enterprise. The individual in this role will report directly to the Vice President, Customer Insights & Marketing and will partner directly with SMT members across the Canadian, US & Caribbean business stewarding results directly to the executive team.
In this role the leader will amplify the voice of the customer and develop scalable platforms to both inform strategic business decisions to deliver against our CVP across multiple brands and businesses, and develop methodologies to creative metrics and scorecards to measure customer sentiment and success. This is an enterprise-wide role, where all initiatives, platforms and programs should be scalable to build a ‘Parkland way’ and to drive efficiencies throughout the Strategic Marketing team. The leadership in customer insights includes but is not limited to the strategic development of research methodology that includes quantitative research measuring brand health, marketing effectiveness, and target customer segment sentiment; and transactionally triggered surveys measuring the OSAT of customers experience; and building and integrating Parkland’s competency and capabilities around social listening, community management, and social amplification. This role has the accountability to a multi million-dollar budget, the leadership of cross functional teams, and driving cohesion and efficiencies across the Canadian, US and Caribbean Marketing Execution teams.
The Director must have the ability to translate emerging trends into customer needs and introduce innovative ways to reach the customer and the ability to build, nurture and influence productive, collaborative, and communicative relationships within, across and outside of the organization. This position is responsible for planning, organizing, staffing and management of all customer insights and actionable outcomes for the betterment of customer experience; in turn enabling Parkland to achieve its financial targets, to meet its customer’s needs and to enable the continued growth of Parkland’s market share across all retail and commercial banners Enterprise wide (Canada, US, Caribbean).
The primary responsibility of this role is to lead the marketing customer insights department and oversee all customer research, surveys, social listening, and program development across all regions in which Parkland operates. In this position, the Director oversees planning process inclusive of the definition of target consumers and the development of marketing mix and strategies on consumer brand-interaction to encourage increased purchase.
You will develop and mentor your team and create a culture of excellence and continuous improvement in the development, implementation, and execution of strategic enterprise-wide segmentation and insights plans. Responsibilities include driving C-Suite engagement at key strategic decision points with our strategic partners, oversight of analytical frameworks, identification of business and operational opportunities and risks and expansion of Parkland long term strategic vision.

EDUCATION:

• University (Bachelors) Degree in Marketing or Business
• MBA (Master of Business Administration) or a research-based Master’s degree is an asset

REQUIREMENTS:

• 20+ years of experience in customer insights and research
• 15+ plus in management role and 5+ years leading and motivating layered management teams
• Previous Experience managing complex, multiple brand environments in Retail -Convenience, Grocery, Food Service or Big Box retailing, Category Management, Consumer Marketing, Brand Marketing and Project Management
• Experience in leading customer research, insights and CX strategies and tactics
• Experience in operations, corporate strategy, corporate development with strong financial/business acumen
• Must be innovative, analytical, think conceptually, and make substantial individual, strategic, and tactical judgments, and recommendations
• Strong understanding of customer relationship in a multichannel marketing environment
• Proven ability to consolidate complex findings from multiple sources and deliver impactful presentations to stakeholders of all levels
• Experience & comfort in presenting, engaging & influencing the strategic vision to C-level executives & partnering with Directors/SMT members
• Excellent influencing, communication and listening skills, open-mindedness, and strong interpersonal skills so that the necessary alliances (internal & external) can be forged and be developed quickly
• Superior business development and negotiating skills
• Experience in managing and mentoring a team with multiple reporting levels
• Must be agile, resourceful, and results oriented, delivering against KPIs
• Superb critical thinking skills, able to see the big picture, prioritize critical focus areas, and generate strategic options
• Strong leadership skills from leading cross-functional teams in a matrix organization, with highly collaborative instincts and a track record of resolving conflicts within the team
• High degree of organizational awareness and understanding of change management and leading innovation
  Humble. Hungry. Smart. Does this sound like you?
  Do other describe you as someone who creates an environment where mistakes and failures can be shared openly and discussed without fear of reprisal? Someone who encourages and rewards creative thinking and idea generation? Someone who removes roadblocks for team members? Someone who focusses on transformation that is sustainable – not change for the sake of change? You sound brilliant to work with!

Quantitative and Qualitative Research

• Establish objectives, specific targets and strategies that will facilitate positive organic growth, supporting company targets
• Collaborate with SLT, Strategy team, Regional operations & merchandising teams to identify research needs, and drive research methodology to create a scalable segmentation model that allows for a common and comprehensive understanding of our customers and their connection to our brands
• Lead global partners to facilitate and execute against all quantitative and qualitative research needs ensuring Parkland remain current on market and customer trends
• Drive insight methodology in order to enable quick learnings for the business to draw upon for various store concept pilots, digital explorations, and new product offers

Experiential and Transactional Triggered Surveys

• Drive expansion of Parkland’s enterprise-wide program across multiple retail and commercial brands
• Extract actionable insights to help shape operational strategy aimed at increasing reported customer OSAT scores through collaboration with regional operation business units
• Collaborate with SLT, Strategy team, Regional operations & merchandising teams to identify survey needs, and roll out the PbF program to create a scalable real time feedback loop
• Lead global partners to facilitate and execute against all retail and commercial transaction triggered surveys
• Develop reporting cadence and capability to give SLT visibility to customer satisfaction, regional execution teams operational playbooks, and cross functional teams a greater understanding of the Voice of Customer

Social Listening

• Drive the development and implementation of Parkland’s enterprise-wide social listening capabilities
• Develop reporting cadence and capability to give SLT and cross functional areas visibility to broad based customer sentiment on owned and public channels indicating perception on Parkland brands, competitors, and industry trends
• Integrate new marketing amplification tools to boost content through Parkland’s social pages and develop and report on analytics highlighting ROIDriving business change and integration to allow Customer Service call centers aggregate customer ratings and reviews, and respond through social community care management

CX Program & Strategy Development

• Support the development of Customer Experience strategy and vision
• Develop and implement a roadmap/framework in support of this strategy and the overall business strategic plan
• Develop key opportunities for all parts of the business to be connected to the end consumer (B2C and B2B)
• Continuously surface insights and opportunities to improve the overall Customer Experience
• Communicate and champion the approved strategic direction with team members from across the organization
• Manage and drive specific cross-functional Customer Experience initiatives as necessary
• Identify resources for continuous learning in the field of Customer Experience to ensure that the approaches being taken by the organization are best in class

Leadership

• Lead & invest in the development of strategy skills for individuals within their own team as well individuals more broadly across the enterprise
• Partner directly with Director & SMT members across the Canadian, US & Caribbean
• Develop senior professional relationships, influence and steward/present results directly to c-suite executives, forming and cultivating positive enterprise relationships
• Lead cross-functional teams in a matrix organization, with highly collaborative instincts and a track record of resolving conflicts within the team
• Manage and mentor a large team with multiple reporting levels
• Exhibit and live the BOLD Parkland mindset as a Senior Leader across North America
• Direct & grow your business as thought, people, and transformational leader