Director, Insights & Intelligence - Burson

Burson•San Francisco, CA

About The Position

Burson's Insights & Intelligence team sits at the heart of this work, turning data into strategic insights that drive storytelling, campaign performance, and business outcomes. Burson is seeking to hire a Director to join our best-in-class Insights & Intelligence team, supporting a diverse portfolio of high-profile global brands across sectors including technology, retail, financial services, and beyond. This role requires a balance of social listening expertise, analytical rigor, strategic thinking, AI fluency, client leadership, and team management. The ideal candidate will be client-facing and possess a strong understanding of social media listening, cultural and competitor trends, analytics reporting, and research methodologies, alongside exceptional writing and presentation skills. They will understand how to develop insight-driven strategies that support integrated campaigns and have a passion for turning data into compelling stories. As part of a highly collaborative team, you'll play a key role in uncovering cultural insights, monitoring online conversations, and helping brands make informed decisions through social and digital intelligence. You'll partner closely with internal teams and clients to deliver actionable insights tied to brand reputation, campaign performance, thought leadership, sustainability, and corporate communications initiatives. In addition, you'll contribute to new business efforts and help mentor and guide junior team members as the practice continues to grow. This is a unique opportunity to continue building a career at one of the world's leading global communications agencies while working across high-profile client accounts.

Requirements

6-7+ years of experience in analytics, insights, or intelligence roles working within or for the PR, Communications, or Advertising industry, with a deep understanding of its unique data landscapes, client demands, and strategic challenges.
Strong background in social media analytics and social listening.
Exceptional understanding of social listening, particularly with experience using Sprinklr for analytics, in addition to other Boolean Language and platforms, like Brandwatch, Meltwater, etc.
Proven ability to translate data into strategic insights.
Experience with generative AI models and integrating AI into operational workflows.
Client-facing communication skills, with a track record of translating complex technical concepts into clear, concise, and impactful business recommendations for senior stakeholders.
Proven ability to manage multiple projects concurrently, prioritize effectively, and drive results in a fast-paced environment.
Experience leading and mentoring junior team members, with a track record of fostering team development and delivering high-quality client work.
Excellent storytelling and presentation skills.
Detail-oriented while keeping sight of bigger picture/trends; intellectually curious.
Keen eye for data trends and the ability to investigate and extract insights and stories.
Excellent written and verbal communications skills.

Responsibilities

Develop strategic insights that inform communications, marketing, and reputation-driven campaigns.
Translate data into clear narratives and recommendations for senior client stakeholders.
Proactively deep dive into data to inform and steer critical decision making, as well as work with complex datasets to aggregate, ingest and organize data in a clean, ready-to-use fashion for the team to deliver data-led findings in a 2 way that makes sense for each brand.
Monitor, track, and evaluate earned and owned organic campaign performance analytics, based on client KPIs, targets and baselines.
Identify trends, cultural signals, and audience behaviors.
Oversee social listening programs using tools such as Brandwatch, Sprinklr, and similar platforms ensuring data integrity and methodological rigor.
Help identify opportunities to expand existing client engagements through social listening, analytics, and intelligence-led solutions.
Mentor and develop junior team members, providing guidance on methodologies, insight development, and client delivery.
Serve as a thought partner to account teams and clients, helping shape strategic recommendations and best practices across engagements.
Apply AI capabilities to enhance insight generation, trend detection, and forecasting while helping to evolve Burson’s AI-enabled analytics and intelligence approaches.
Provide easy to understand social analytics with strategic implications relating to the overall brand objectives and work within a team to develop and execute creative digital and social media content.