Director, Consumer Insights - Taste Elevation
Kraft Heinz
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Work model
- On-Site
- Level
- Staff
- Posted
- Sep 16, 2026
About this role
Job Description
The Director of Taste Elevation is the Insights leader of the growth brands within Kraft Heinz, which includes iconic brands like Heinz, Kraft, Philadelphia, Miracle Whip, Classico and many more. This is not a solely market research role. The Director is a strategist with strong research expertise — this person must have a holistic understanding of how brands and businesses grow, alongside a keen command of the data and tools available to build a strong consumer foundation on which to build future strategy. As the consumer expert for iconic brands in the Taste Elevation portfolio, this leader will be a crucial partner to drive brand positioning, packaging, communication and innovation agendas. This is a senior leadership-facing role in which relationships and leadership presence will be key to influence, and the individual must operate with an enterprise business performance mindset. In addition to this, you will be leading a team of 11 strong insights strategists, coaching them to success and guiding their careers. While you will report directly into the VP of Marketing in the Taste Elevation BU, you will also be a key leader of the North America insights leadership team driving a vision for the function. This role is one where you need to thrive in ambiguous situations, have a strong voice and perspective and drives influence through relationships. Key Skills: Strategic: Be a key strategic business partner & thought leader to the BU Marketing team. Leverage your understanding of the consumer, research methodologies/techniques, best practices and experience to drive the business forward Analytical: Crucial analytic experience to understand both how to create appropriate analytic plans/models for the business and how to apply them strategically to different business scenarios. Ability to see through data and recognize patterns to inform brand actions better Influential: Influence at all levels of organization (above & below) and work seamlessly with cross-functional teams. Impactful: Drive the "so-what’s" by making actionable recommendations routed in deep understanding of marketing, business and consumer Flexible: Be adaptable and creative to adjust to changing priorities and business challenges. Tackle ambiguity, while showing strong drive for results and project leadership skills Strong Communicator: Showcase strong communication skills through distilled clean/concise insights that drive empathy and storytelling behaviors though the organization • Self-motivated: Juggle multiple workstreams & competing priorities, and distill a plan that can be implemented for the team Collaborator: Team player, works well in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment Coach & People Leader: Drive to share knowledge and develop a high-performing team Curiosity & Action: High degree of intellectual curiosity and creative insight, coupled with a drive for actionable, tangible results Influence: Ability to influence at senior levels of an organization and drive impact.
Key responsibilities
Key Point of Contact for Business Unit – key lead to unlock strategic initiatives across platform Unearth genuine consumer insights / pain points across platform and help identify growth opportunities for brands that help improve our long-term equity & innovation efforts Leverage strategic work to identify dig sites for innovation, partner with marketing and R&D to identify, develop and size a multi-year pipeline of new products Develop and lead holistic, comprehensive research plans across key Ps of marketing (Communication test, Product/Claim tests, Packaging tests et al for both existing products and new products) Help shape the 3-year Growth Strategy and assist teams in pulling through to brand’s annual marketing plans, including strategy, creative development and optimization Evaluate sales impact of campaigns and help optimize media and channel mix to improve efficiency, effectiveness and ROI Drive