08.18.2011

Head of Insights, Americas

Washington, U.S.

Location: Seattle, WA

HTC is one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile phone industry and a recognized pioneer in smartphones. Today, HTC continues to build on an already impressive list of innovations and industry firsts.

As the world leader in Windows Phone and Android based handsets and the #3 smartphone maker in the US, HTC is building its market share by creating a widely recognized brand name and bringing a broad portfolio of products to market that are designed to meet the diverse needs of people.

The DROID Incredible by HTC, the HTC EVO 4G, MyTouch 4G, HTC Thunderbolt and HTC Inspire, just to name a few, have been received with widespread acclaim and only hint at what the future holds for HTC.

Summary:
To lead Americas Insight and research activities in line with Global objectives and guidelines to drive consumer led decision making and propositions, to create commercial opportunities and manage risk for HTC through thoroughly researched and qualified data and insights.  This work can be applied to all areas of the business but will predominate in Sales & Marketing, Product and Innovation.   

Responsibilities:

• Manage the Consumer Insight function for Americas – delivering a full insights platform program to timeline, budget and quality standard with an engaged, motivated team and stakeholder community.
• To lead the Insight thinking and programme development for the Global Product and Innovation work streams – shaping strategy, capability and innovation for this area.
• To communicate, influence and contribute to fact-based decision making within key processes with the Americas management structure – including marketing, product, customer development and customer service business areas.
• To lead and deliver the product and innovation insights and  data function globally – ensuring global alignment on market analysis, forecasting and reporting for all business areas – including the procurement of data, network of relationships inside and outside the business to build our insight, regular reporting and analysis and a business service to the Executive and Investor team
• To create, manage and deliver the Americas insights program in line with global guidelines to support the business in consumer centric, insight –led
• To run our regular tracking activity, adding value to the region by turning it into actionable insight-led programs – including brand tracker, retail tracking, mystery shopper, product clinics and insight forum
• To curate, communicate, share and evangelize insight content – making it actionable, accessible, clearly understood and re-usable to all our audiences
• To manage HTC staff and collaborators, partners, vendors, network contacts and online facilities to deliver excellence in engaging insights, to budget and on time
• Devise and manage schedule of activity to cover consumer, brand, product, ecosystem, market and competitor insights
• To manage all activity within budget, quality and timing targets
• To line manage an analyst function to support the Americas and Product/Innovation areas
• To build a well networked, leading edge vendor base of engaged, motivated, well informed vendors that are committed to HTC goals and are securely contracted to protect HTCs data and intellectual property

The successful candidate will have:

• Exemplary quality of thinking, analytical ability and problem solving skills
• Very strong integrity, strength of character when challenged, composure to perform well in a debate
• Expert at managing cross functional teams to deliver on time, in full to shared goals
• Very strong verbal and written communicator – engaging yet sticks to the facts
• Highly focused on delivery and results – commercially mature, very business oriented
• Manages staff and partners to perform at their best
• Works well and is happy in a very fast moving, sometimes ambiguous environment – has enjoyed similar environments before
• Is internationally experienced – culturally adept and enjoys working across borders and time zones
• Can clearly demonstrate a mastery of product and innovation level insights – with a passion for innovation in this area
• Bachelor/Undergraduate Degree  - essential- preference for economics, statistics, numerate based education
• Master/Graduate Degree - desirable
• Training /Certificate – extensive knowledge of product and marketing environments and disciplines/ consultancy
• Online research, tracking technology, ethnography, data modeling, analytics, research techniques, PC support packages in this area
• This person needs to command credibility from their professional background which will include senior positions in highly performing tech/brand based businesses that have enjoyed fast growth.  They need to have board room level stature – to feel confident talking to very senior Executives on a daily basis.  They should demonstrate above average intellectual horsepower without compromising on their ability to communicate clearly and concisely.  This should be backed up with educational merit and achievement.  This role is heavily connected to the technological community within and external to the business – this person will need to be adept technologically, have a passion for products and innovation and be very attune to technological developments and trends.