Principal, Growth Consulting

Let’s be unstoppable together!

At Circana, we are fueled by our passion for continuous learning and growth, we seek and share feedback freely, and we celebrate victories both big and small in an environment that is flexible and accommodating to our work and personal lives. We have a global commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion as we believe in the undeniable strength that diversity brings to our business, employees, clients, and communities (with us you can always bring your full self to work). Join our inclusive, committed team to be a challenger, own outcomes, and stay curious together. Learn more at www.circana.com.

What will you be doing?

Growth Consulting is a strategy consulting practice, powered by Circana, focused on driving profitable growth established 10+ years ago. The team works with senior management at some of the world’s largest and most successful consumer packaged goods, retail, general merchandise, and over-the-counter health care companies, as well as for Private Equity firms.

Our team helps clients develop, implement, and build capabilities for enterprise-wide, repeatable, and scalable strategies and tactics. We leverage our precision data-driven proprietary platforms (i.e., POS, Panel, eCommerce, National Eating Trends, Integrated Fresh), and advanced analytics toolkit that serve as a foundation for identifying and driving P&L linked step improvements. We take a holistic approach via proven methodologies and integrate qualitative and quantitative information to create and execute breakthrough growth insights and strategies. Our long-term relationship with local market expertise, leveraging the collective Circana firm network, means we know our client's business better than anyone else, making us best suited to implementing and sustaining longer-term transformations. Our work spans a diverse group of client companies, from iconic brands to high-growth startups.  

Our market offerings focus on six broad areas of focus with the consumer at the heart of everything:

• Strategic Choices | go-to-market strategy • growth pocket identification • operating model design: attract new consumers, expand into adjacent / non-adjacent categories; choose what to do, what not to do, define trade-offs
• Consumer Intimacy | brand essence • personas / lifetime value • E2E journey mapping • media spend effectiveness: achieve consumer relevancy, drive emotional connection for long-term loyalty, optimize working and non-working media spend
• Channels: Route-to-market | omnichannel • retail strategy • e-commerce strategy • salesforce effectiveness: optimize distribution structures; evaluate channels to meet customer needs cost-effectively; getting, keeping, and increasing shelf space; differentiate salesforce and manage customer relations
• Products: Portfolio Strategy | innovation / renovation • brand architecture • rationalization: determine incremental brands / categories to place your bets; manage brands through their lifecycle stages; balance needs from demand and supply
• Merchandising: Revenue Growth Management | price pack architecture • trade effectiveness • transaction pricing: streamline price management; tailor products for growth / differentiation; drive consumer behavior through price alignment
• M&A, Divestitures, Joint Ventures | thesis development / swim lanes • target screening • commercial due diligence • value creation • exit planning: partner with PE firms or Corporate Development on key activities driving success; capabilities include the full range of M&A activity support

You will serve as a coach and mentor to both client service teams and senior executives at our client organizations. Utilizing your expertise, you will provide leadership and guidance while refining our delivery playbooks. Your success will be evaluated based on your ability to effectively execute sold engagements and collaborating with partners in identifying new opportunities that create long-term value for our clients, practice, and team.

You will be a key source of intellectual insight on client engagements, helping to frame business challenges in a way that the team can effectively address to enhance client value. Specifically, you will focus on discovering and developing new client opportunities for advising companies on transformational changes. You'll lead delivery of confirmed engagements, manage day-to-day problem-solving, oversee teams and client relationships, and apply your extensive industry knowledge and strategy frameworks and tools to each situation. Additionally, you'll work on building and nurturing strategic client relationships, ensuring high-quality deliverables, and inspiring and developing new consulting staff. You will also be measured against profitability of delivered engagements and revenue goals generated in collaboration with partners, and the degree to which he/she develops and grows the practice in terms of establishing relevance and the market perception of their subject matter expertise.

Job Responsibilities

• As an entrepreneur, you will operate as a senior strategic coach and consultant, leveraging excellent executive poise, presence, and relevance to serve as a trusted advisor to executive leadership, up to the level of CxO.
• Identify, diagnose, and help resolve the most pressing issues facing our clients, helping frame, design and execute solutions for challenging business situations, while guiding our client service and client management teams to deliver engagements with the highest quality in our six marketing offerings: Strategic Choices, Consumer Intimacy, Route-to-market channel strategy, Portfolio Strategy, Revenue Growth Management, and Inorganic Growth (M&A, Divestitures and Joint Ventures).
• Lead the development and management of client relationships, engagements, and client service delivery related to the practice by collaborating with the practice partners and managers to forge new client relationships, expand existing client relationships, and drive transformational positive impact.
• Continue to elevate CIRCANA’s visibility in the marketplace working with senior management teams at leading CPG, Retail, General Merchandising, and Private Equity companies on their most pressing strategic issues, while collaborating with the partners to generate an incremental revenue goal ($1.0M - $2.0M of new business per year) while supporting the partner book of business on delivery and business development.
• Help raise the prominence of the Growth Consulting practice with C-level client executives through industry leading eminence and thought leadership.
• Challenge our thinking, evolve the Group’s market offerings to address emerging client needs, marketplace “big plays” while helping us design and build capabilities for future.
• Recruit, develop and mentor practice members at all levels to support sustained practice growth, including retaining our top performers, effectively utilizing our practice resources, and onboarding new top talent.
• Work in a highly collaborative environment with our Client Insights account team organization and across the Global Solutions Commercial units. Within CIRCANA, he/she will work with all functions and all levels within the company, up to the level of CEO.

Requirements

• Advanced degree, preferably an MBA or Master’s degree in a relevant field
• 8+ years of Consumer-packaged Goods (CPG) or retail-oriented business experience with Associate Principal/Partner level (or equivalent title) experience at a tier-one consulting firm or within industry after graduate school, with a distinctive record of professional achievement and impact
• Highly collaborative with experience leading cross-functional teams and in-depth of knowledge/defined involvement in helping frame, design and execute solutions for challenging business situations while raising the bar in terms of client service delivery
• Proven thought leadership within his/her industry space including production, syndication/publication of marketable knowledge
• Entrepreneurial spirit: the drive to build and grow a dynamic and vibrant business/practice area while challenging established thinking and exceptional intellectual and analytical curiosity, a creative visionary who can adopt innovative yet practical, non-traditional approach to problem identification and resolution.
• Sophisticated executive poise and presence, comfortable functioning at the highest levels of client organizations; excellent presentation skills, including strong verbal and writing capabilities with outstanding ability to listen, understand needs and communicate complex ideas effectively
• Rigorous, practical, analytical and fact-based approach to problem solving/solution design and implementation with excellent applied and tested analytical/statistical acumen proven skills to confidently “fill in the blanks” when only 70% of the facts are at hand
• Proven ability to maintain sharp focus amidst multiple priorities; keen ability to prioritize and manage client, practice and firm and our people priorities with proven operational skills/discipline
• Familiarity with precision data-driven platforms (i.e., POS, Panel, eCommerce, National Eating Trends), and advanced analytics toolkits (i.e., price elasticities, assortment/incrementality tools, conjoint analysis, primary market research) is preferred.

Circana Behaviors

As well as the technical skills, experience and attributes that are required for the role, our shared behaviors sit at the core of our organization. Therefore, we always look for people who can continuously champion these behaviors throughout the business within their day-to-day role:

• Stay Curious: Being hungry to learn and grow, always asking the big questions.
• Seek Clarity: Embracing complexity to create clarity and inspire action.
• Own the Outcome: Being accountable for decisions and taking ownership of our choices.
• Center on the Client: Relentlessly adding value for our customers.
• Be a Challenger: Never complacent, always striving for continuous improvement.
• Champion Inclusivity: Fostering trust in relationships engaging with empathy, respect, and integrity.
• Commit to each other: Contributing to making Circana a great place to work for everyone.

Location

This position can be located in the following area(s): Remote.

The below range reflects the range of possible compensation for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range may be modified in the future.  An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, seniority, geographic location, performance, shift, travel requirements, sales or revenue-based metrics, any collective bargaining agreements, and business or organizational needs. The salary range for this role is $190,000.00 to $250,000.00.

This job is also eligible for bonus/incentive pay.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off, medical/dental/vision insurance, and 401(k) to eligible employees.

You can apply for this role through the Circana Careers website.

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