DF-Director, Partnerships

Start Date: May 2019

Curion is a leader in sensory evaluation and consumer product research having pioneered many of the sensory methodologies considered industry standards today. Curion serves Fortune 500 and other blue-chip customers in the food & beverage, personal care, fine fragrance, and home & fabric care industries utilizing its testing facilities in California, Chicago, Dallas, and New Jersey. Curion pioneered many of the sensory methodologies considered industry standards today, including Quantitative Descriptive Analysis (QDA®) and Partnership Solutions (PS).

Position Overview:

The continued growth of Curion and goals for 2019 requires building closer relations with existing and new supply partners. As a result, the Director, Partnerships manages relationships and daily operations of the supply team and relationships with supply partners. The focus of the position is to ensure positive partner experiences and to optimize the strategic value of each relationship for all parties. This person will support, optimize, and expand our strategic supply partner relationships to grow the Curion panel, a key growth area for the company. This position requires a strong client-service orientation and a high level of intellectual curiosity. The ideal candidate has an established background working with digital media publishers, experience with advertising and consumer insight platforms, and an analytical mindset. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record of success in managing multiple projects using any one or more of the MR industry’s leading programmatic sampling platforms. Candidates must be comfortable working autonomously and able to thrive in an agile, fast-paced environment. The role also has the responsibility of supervising other members of a small supply success team and ensuring the supply KPIs are met each year.

Knowledge, Skills and Education Requirements:

• Proactive and sharp critical thinking skills: Ability to visualize a project in terms of “next steps” and ask relevant questions. Must be able to clearly identify the cause of a problem, determine alternatives/solutions, communicate situation to clients and internal teams, then implement action plan.
• Superb relationship-building and teamwork skills: Has an outgoing, collaborative personality and makes it a priority to keep all parties updated on project status on a timely basis.
• Fearless follow-up: Able to gracefully and proactively push vendors and partners regarding any unresolved issues or unanswered questions.
• Ability to multi-task, prioritize projects, communicate at all levels and work within multiple deadlines in a calm and efficient manner. Anticipate issues and manage risks
• Desire to be involved in additional ‘start up’ initiatives, such as, marketing initiatives, managing design partners, managing a proprietary panel, etc.
• An understanding of qualitative market research principles is strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

• Provide day-to-day account management for new and existing supply partners. Responsible for developing, preparing, managing and nurturing supply partner relationships and recruiting channels who engage with our panel via programmatic sampling technologies (APIs and web transfer integrations)
• Gain a deep understanding of each supply partner’s platform implementation, including all relevant technical details, to monitor performance, recommend solutions, and optimize partnership for both parties
• Establish a trusted/strategic advisor relationship with supply partners from on-boarding through a strategic, entrenched and successful partnership
• Monitors the recruitment progress of our consumer research respondents; responsible for finding workable solutions to difficult recruiting situations, and for communicating these situations/solutions to internal and external teams and partners
• Lead and mentor supply team members (2) who also have responsibility for implementations, monitoring and optimization
• Solicits and evaluates proposals from potential third-party vendors and once in contract, ensures vendors are thoroughly briefed on project specifications and deliver results to spec, on deadline and on budget; managing this process and trouble-shooting along the way are key responsibilities

Qualifications and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in business analytics, statistics, or related field (Master’s degree preferred)
• 5+ years Market Research/Digital Marketing account management skills (sensory testing experience preferred)
• Familiar with SaaS software implementations (Rest API)
• Solid knowledge of, and experience with, sample/supply management or consumer insight/marketing platforms including experience implementing programmatic platforms and partners required
• Strong client-service orientation. Experience in large account or client management in online advertising, digital marketing, or both is strongly preferred.
• Data-driven mindset and accompanying analytical skill-set.
• High professional integrity with a strong orientation toward teamwork, communication and leadership

Curion is committed to equal opportunity in the terms and conditions of employment for all employees and job applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, gender identity or gender expression, national origin, disability or veteran status.