Director Consumer Insights

Bimbo Bakeries USA•Irving, TX

About The Position

Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc. (BBUSA) is transforming to accelerate brand growth. As part of the Marketing Center of Excellence (MCOE) group reporting to the Senior Director of Consumer Insights (CI), the Director will contribute to building a consumer obsession culture at BBUSA. The focus areas will be to modernize insights given AI-driven advancements of methods and solutions, and to support the transformative breakthrough innovation pipeline of 3+ years out. This leadership role connects CI strategy, business processes, data capabilities, and enterprise partners to deliver faster, deeper, and more actionable insights to futureproof BBU tools and launch successful innovation. The director’s team has roles covering transformation initiatives intersecting with insights, 3+ innovation launch windows, and future trends. This is not an IT or systems delivery role. Instead, the focus is on business transformation, operating model evolution, AI enabled research approaches and workflows, and long range strategic readiness, including support for product innovation and business model pipelines 3+ years into the future.

Requirements

Passion for Insights, empathy for consumers and what they need and want (spoken or not) with the ability to help build plans to deliver. Proven track record of developing and deploying new ways to bring better insightful thinking, approaches, and ideas to innovation; Passion for leading and inspiring an insights team, embracing the latest thinking from behavioral science, sociology, advertising, and human insights.
Strategic thinker with strong AI awareness, able to integrate AI while keeping human judgment central.
Transformation leader experienced in evolving operating models and driving change at scale. Pushing “past the status quo” is a must.
Business technology translator who articulates clear, actionable business needs to technical partners.
Strong communicator and simplifier able to break down complexity for diverse audiences in a complex cross-category occasions/brand and portfolio environment. Experience with various portfolio projects (Price-Pack-Architecture, occasions, needs, etc.).
Curious, adaptive, future focused, with a continuous improvement mindset.
Situational Adaptability – Adapts approach and attitude in real time, according to the changing demands of different solutions.
Drives Engagement - Creates a climate where people are motivated to do their est to help the organization achieve its objectives.
Ensures Accountability – Holds self and others accountable to meet commitments.
Manages Complexity – Makes sense of complex, high quantity, and sometimes contradictory information to effectively solve problems.
Bachelor’s degree required. Master’s degree is strongly preferred in business, psychology, social studies, anthropology, or similar, Data & Analytics, Information Systems, Strategy, or related fields.
Minimum of 10 years in an insights function or role, with increasing focus on data-driven solutions (for example, 5+ years in enterprise architecture, business transformation).
Experience that shows career growth, upskilling organizations (insights and reach into other functions), integrating data sources, successful trial or adoption of at least three new AI insights approaches/suppliers required; seven years of managing direct reports.
Understanding of AI use cases for research with a building philosophy about AI for the field along with openness to adapt as the AI solutions develop.
Experience leading a team, structured process redesign and organizational change.
Ability to work effectively across technical and nontechnical teams.

Nice To Haves

Measurable improvements across CI processes, including support for future Innovation launches.
Integration and strong governance for safe AI usage across CI.
Increased adoption and confidence in AI enabled capabilities.

Responsibilities

Shape the long-term CI transformation agenda across process modernization, data usage, reporting evolution, and AI adoption.
Define CI ways of working and training others to enable BBU toward valid, repeatable, and responsible effective AI usage.
Critically assess and identify opportunities to use AI assisted insights, automation, and advanced analytics to improve insight speed and quality.
Build an integrated roadmap that combines human expertise with AI enhanced workflows.
Ensure CI capabilities support future Innovation planning and launches, including long range foresight and scenario needs.
Identify opportunities where AI enhances synthesis speed, trend detection, and storytelling. Foster experimentation with AI tools (e.g., narrative generation, synthesis, ideation) while maintaining rigor and quality.
Support pilots and proofs of concept exploring emerging AI capabilities relevant to CI and future Innovation planning.
Drive adoption of new CI processes, tools, and AI enabled methods through leadership and tactics (such as create training and enablement materials that build AI literacy across the team).
Lead transformative cross-category insights, learning, and analysis. Serve as CI’s primary partner to business technology (IT), legal for supplier approval, Data, and enterprise AI teams, representing CI needs in platform and data decisions.
Coordinate change with Marketing, Strategy, Category, and Innovation partners to embed AI supported insights into business and long horizon Innovation cycles.
Maintain frameworks for intake, prioritization, governance, and insight quality.
Establish principles for responsible AI usage, including validation, accuracy checks, privacy, and human oversight.
Ensure alignment with organizational policies, brand tone, and consumer data governance.