Consumer Insights Director

Stand Together•Arlington, VA

About The Position

Stand Together is a philanthropic community that helps America’s boldest changemakers tackle the root causes of our country’s biggest problems, from education to the economy, broken communities, and toxic division, among dozens of other pressing issues. We provide our partners with access to resources including funding, thought leadership, a network of peers, and a playbook for applying proven principles to transform lives and society. Stand Together is seeking a strategic and analytically rigorous Consumer Insights Director to lead and evolve a high-performing consumer insights function focused on audience understanding, brand strategy, messaging effectiveness, and actionable research. This role will set the vision for the team, establish best-in-class research capabilities, and ensure insights meaningfully shape organizational strategy, communications, and audience engagement efforts. The Director will lead a team responsible for consumer research, audience segmentation, persona development, brand equity measurement, and messaging and content testing. While this leader will oversee the overall research portfolio and manage a team of 4–6 researchers and strategists, they will also personally lead high-impact research initiatives and serve as a senior strategic advisor across the organization. The ideal candidate combines deep technical expertise in consumer insights with strong leadership, strategic thinking, and the ability to operationalize insights into scalable products, frameworks, and decision-making tools.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in consumer insights, market research, audience strategy, brand strategy, or related fields.
Significant experience leading and developing high-performing research or insights teams.
Deep expertise in: Consumer and audience research, Market segmentation and persona development, Brand equity and perception research, Messaging, narrative, and content testing, Insight synthesis and strategic storytelling.
Demonstrated success translating research findings into actionable strategies and organizational decisions.
Strong experience with both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies.
Experience influencing senior executives and leading cross-functional initiatives.
Enthusiasm to contribute to Stand Together's vision and principled approach to solving problems, and a commitment to stewarding our culture, which champions values including transformation and innovation, entrepreneurialism, humility, and respect.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with behavioral science, cultural insights, and values-based communication strategies.
Experience building or scaling insights capabilities, functions, or research operations.
Experience with research and analytics platforms such as Qualtrics, SPSS, Tableau, or similar tools.

Responsibilities

Lead the Consumer Insights Function: Define and drive the vision, strategy, and roadmap for the Consumer Insights team. Build and lead a high-performing team of 4–6 insights professionals, fostering strong analytical rigor, strategic thinking, and execution excellence. Establish research standards, methodologies, frameworks, and processes that ensure consistent, high-quality insights delivery across the organization. Ensure research products, outputs, and recommendations meet organizational expectations for relevance, rigor, clarity, and strategic value. Prioritize research investments and align team efforts with organizational priorities and strategic objectives.
Consumer & Audience Research: Lead end-to-end consumer research initiatives to uncover audience motivations, perceptions, behaviors, barriers, and unmet needs. Oversee qualitative and quantitative research programs using methodologies such as: Surveys, Focus groups, In-depth interviews, Ethnographies, Online communities, Behavioral research, Conjoint and segmentation analyses. Personally lead select high-priority or highly strategic research initiatives. Continuously identify emerging trends, shifts in audience sentiment, and opportunities for deeper understanding.
Segmentation & Persona Development: Lead the development and refinement of audience segmentation strategies that inform organizational targeting, engagement, and communication approaches. Translate complex research findings into actionable personas, audience frameworks, and journey maps. Ensure segmentation and persona work is practical, scalable, and actively adopted by cross-functional teams.
Brand Equity & Perception Research: Oversee brand equity tracking and perception research to measure awareness, trust, favorability, differentiation, and relevance. Provide strategic recommendations to strengthen audience connection and improve brand positioning. Help organizational leaders understand how audiences perceive Stand Together and related initiatives.
Messaging & Content Research: Lead messaging, narrative, and content testing efforts to evaluate audience resonance and communication effectiveness. Assess how audiences respond to messaging frameworks, tone, framing, storytelling, and creative concepts across channels and formats. Partner closely with communications, marketing, digital, and creative teams to optimize messaging and audience engagement strategies. Translate findings into actionable guidance for campaign development, content creation, and strategic communications.
Insight Activation & Strategic Influence: Ensure research insights are translated into clear, compelling, and actionable recommendations for leaders and stakeholders. Build systems, tools, and reporting mechanisms that democratize audience understanding across the organization. Influence strategic decisions through evidence-based insights and strong executive communication. Serve as a trusted thought partner to senior leaders on audience strategy, consumer behavior, and communication effectiveness.
Team Leadership & Collaboration: Coach and develop team members to strengthen research capabilities, strategic thinking, and leadership skills. Foster a collaborative, curious, and high-accountability team culture. Manage external research vendors and agency partners as needed. Collaborate cross-functionally to ensure insights are integrated into planning, strategy, and execution across teams.