Qualitative Associate Director

Job Description

Job Description

At Curion, We Connect Brands to People. Our expertise and passionate pursuit of insights enable our clients to make informed decisions that drive meaningful impact. Our vision? Advancing the way brands connect to people to build a better future. Our core values: Integrity, Resiliency, Accountability, Curiosity, and Collaboration.

Schedule: 40 hours per week (Monday – Friday)

Ability to commute/relocate: Leeds, LS15 8GB – reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required).

The Associate Director is accountable for financial performance (initially to a lesser extent than Directors, with responsibility growing as they progress) their team’s wellbeing and development, and their clients’ happiness. They oversee project teams across multiple complex projects, ensuring efficient, on-budget delivery; build strong relationships with existing and new clients; write winning proposals that meet client needs; and ensure high-quality, commercially focused outputs. They also help drive team culture, project profitability and wider team and business strategy, including commercial discussions across Curion.

Project management

• Accountable for all aspects of projects, overseeing and working closely with wider project teams and executives to ensure projects follow the correct processes and are delivered on time and to budget.
• Manage project teams effectively and ensure projects are resourced to run efficiently, with adequate junior and senior support.
• Accountable for accuracy and quality across projects, from questionnaires, discussion guides and other research inputs to all research deliverables, including data, reports, presentations and video edits.

Fieldwork

• Ensure fieldwork processes are followed and managed smoothly, and that all research materials, including screeners and questionnaires, have undergone detailed testing and checks.
• As required, oversee key aspects of fieldwork and host in person, for example at Thorpe Park or Killingbeck in Leeds.
• Lead online and/or face-to-face qualitative moderation, such as IDIs, online boards, focus groups and workshops, including writing summaries and conducting content analysis.

Client management

• Lead key accounts as the main contact for new business, proposal writing, client relationship management and oversight of multiple complex projects, supported by project managers and executives as required.
• Increasingly focus on business development and value-added relationship management rather than day-to-day project management. Create strong growth plans to nurture and develop relationships and accounts; proactively identify unmet needs, including innovation opportunities; seek appropriate cross-sell and up-sell opportunities; and speak confidently about the range of insight needs Curion can support.
• Fully demonstrate the client charter, consistently provide excellent client service and role-model this behaviour for other team members.
• Act as a key source of knowledge about each client’s business, ensuring that knowledge is shared within the project team and across projects.

Client/project deliverables

• Accountable for ensuring high-quality outputs, including questionnaires, data and reports, with clear, actionable and commercially focused insights that meet project objectives and stakeholder needs.
• Lead the majority of client debriefs independently.
• Proactively seek new ways to continually improve client service and deliverables.

Commercials, proposals & financials

• Be accountable for a financial target set at the start of each year.
• Act as a key business winner and account lead within the team: proactively drive opportunities to support unmet client needs, cross-sell and up-sell, and write winning proposals with accurate costings that meet gross profit and net profit targets.
• Ensure projects are run to allocated budgets and all financial reporting is accurate, including monitoring and reviewing project expenditure and internal purchase-order and spend processes. Flag potential problems early to the relevant people, such as the Team Leader or Finance, together with potential solutions.
• Proactively suggest ways to innovate, reduce costs and work as efficiently as possible while maintaining high-quality client service and deliverables.
• Become increasingly involved in broader financial and commercial discussions across Curion, helping to drive overall business and team strategy.
• Ensure pipeline and forecasting information is accurate and regularly updated.

Working as one team

• Demonstrate team leadership by leading capacity planning, driving team and internal culture, and acting as a key role model within the team and across the business for high performance, the client charter and Curion’s values, including an innovation mindset where appropriate.
• Line-manage junior team members, including holding regular one-to-ones, providing constructive feedback, and setting, reviewing and supporting career plans and objectives.
• Demonstrate excellent delegation skills within projects and, where appropriate, outside them, ensuring colleagues are clear about their roles and responsibilities and complete tasks and project work as needed.
• Be a good team player by proactively offering time to help others within and across teams when available.
• Build strong working relationships with other teams and role-model this for less experienced colleagues, helping them develop through coaching and regular feedback.
• Handle ambiguity, develop and deliver new solutions, and consistently demonstrate a solution-focused approach.

This job description is not intended to be all inclusive, flexibility is assumed based on business needs

Requirements

• A strong background in the food and beverage industry.
• At least five years of client-facing and client-management experience.
• Proven experience overseeing multiple complex research projects, leading project teams and delivering work on time and within budget.
• Strong commercial skills, including proposal writing, accurate costing, account development, forecasting and project financial management.
• Experience leading online and/or face-to-face qualitative research, such as IDIs, online boards, focus groups or workshops.
• A degree in a relevant field (e.g. market research, social sciences, marketing, business) can be helpful, but is not essential, we’re open to candidates with diverse backgrounds and relevant skills
• Ability to commute/relocate to Leeds, LS15 8GB – reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)
• Must have the right to work in the UK and will need to bring proof to the interview e.g. a passport or work permit.

About you

You are an experienced insight professional with a strong food and beverage industry background and at least five years of client-facing and client-management experience. You combine trusted client counsel with commercial judgement, confident project leadership and a commitment to developing others. You can oversee multiple complex projects, translate research into clear and actionable recommendations, identify growth opportunities and build lasting client relationships.

You are comfortable operating in grey areas, developing practical solutions and balancing quality, client needs and commercial performance. You lead by example, collaborate across teams and consistently demonstrate Curion’s values of Partnership, Positivity, Entrepreneurship and Authenticity.

What we offer

We offer a competitive salary, a bonus holiday for your birthday, regular socials, a bonus day for charity work, DE&I and wellbeing initiatives and lots of structured training throughout the year. We have a flexible working environment and if there’s something that’s important to you – be it a day you need to pick the kids up, or a specific charity you want to support – let’s talk!

Authenticity is one of our core values, and at Curion we’re committed to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic team with equal opportunities. We want to attract, develop and promote the very best people from all walks of life, so we actively encourage applications from a range of socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, as well as from others who are underrepresented in our sector, including disabled or neurodiverse applicants.

Should you be successful in the recruitment process, and if you require any reasonable adjustments to be made to accommodate your interview, let us know in confidence.

For Curion’s Qualitative Associate Director , we offer a competitive starting salary of £50,500 based on each individual’s qualifications and experience. Curion offers a benefits package for this position which includes:

• Flexible working location and hybrid working 
• Support with work from home needs you may have 
• 26 days holiday (plus bank holidays) + one per year up to 27 days 
• Company pension scheme 
• Company profit share scheme 
• Extra day off on your birthday 
• Volunteering day every year 
• Fully renovated flexible / hybrid office in 2024 
• Bi-annual promotion and salary review windows 
• 2 major company parties a year + monthly socials organised by our own social and charity team

A bit about Curion (formerly Blue Yonder)

We specialise in delivering impactful insights to the world’s top CPG companies, helping them develop winning, repeatedly purchased products. Our deep data-driven product insights, sensory expertise, and state-of-the-art consumer centres enable them to uncover responses to critical client objectives. With over five decades of experience in the product testing industry, we are dedicated to guiding clients in every stage of their product development, connecting brands to consumers at every step.

An innovator in the industry, we recently developed a groundbreaking benchmarking product testing method, the Curion Score™, which has become a trusted and sought after tool within the industry. As one of the largest product and consumer insights companies in the U.S. and U.K., we have built a reputation for excellence and trust among the world’s leading consumer brands. Our commitment to innovation and expertise, coupled with a passion for delivering actionable insights, makes us a valuable partner for companies looking to develop and launch successful products.