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Director Marketplace Development and Consumer Insights
Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization
The Director, Marketplace Development & Consumer Insights serves as a strategic leader responsible for shaping the future growth agenda of adidas North America through deep consumer understanding, marketplace intelligence, and enterprise-wide strategic planning.
This role sits at the intersection of consumer behavior, commercial strategy, analytics, and innovation, leading the identification of emerging opportunities, risks, and growth vectors across channels, categories, consumers, and geographies.
The Director is accountable for establishing a world-class Consumer Insights capability spanning qualitative, quantitative, behavioral, location-based, synthetic, and AI-enabled research methodologies. Through the translation of insight into action, this role drives enterprise decision-making and influences priorities across Brand, Commercial, Product, Strategy, Finance, and Executive Leadership teams.
In parallel, this role leads Marketplace Development efforts to shape the future marketplace ecosystem, ensuring adidas remains competitive, consumer-led, and differentiated across physical and digital channels.
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Key Responsibilities
Consumer Insights Leadership
Enterprise Consumer Intelligence Strategy
• Establish a comprehensive consumer intelligence ecosystem connecting consumer needs, motivations, barriers, behaviors, and purchase drivers to business decision-making.
• Translate complex consumer, market, and competitive dynamics into actionable strategic recommendations for senior leadership.
• Identify future growth opportunities through consumer trend forecasting, whitespace analysis, and emerging market identification.
• Serve as the organization's thought leader on consumer behavior, retail trends, and marketplace evolution.
Research & Insight Generation
Own and govern the end-to-end consumer insights practice across multiple methodologies including:
• Qualitative Research
o Focus Groups & In-Depth Interviews
o Shop-Alongs & Consumer Immersions
o Online Communities & Digital Diaries
• Quantitative Research
o Brand Tracking
o Usage & Attitude Studies
o Segmentation & Concept Testing
o Pricing Research & Conjoint Analysis
o Market Sizing & Opportunity Assessments
• Behavioral Research
o Digital Analytics & E-Commerce Behavior
o Customer Journey Analytics & Conversion Funnel Analysis
o Path-to-Purchase Research
• In-Market Research
o Retail Experience Studies
o Store Intercept Programs & Shopper Missions
o Mystery Shopping & Marketplace Evaluations
o Competitive Benchmarking
• Spatial & Location Intelligence
o Trade Area Analysis & Consumer Mobility Analysis
o Site Selection Intelligence
o Geographic Demand Forecasting & White Space Opportunity Identification
AI & Synthetic Research Innovation
• Establish synthetic research methodologies as a complementary capability to traditional consumer research.
• Develop frameworks for hypothesis generation, testing, validation, and decision support using AI-powered consumer intelligence.
• Drive innovation in predictive consumer analytics, synthetic audiences, and simulation-based decision making.
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Marketplace Development Leadership
Strategic Marketplace Planning
• Identify growth opportunities across channels, consumers, categories, geographies, and key cities.
• Develop strategic recommendations regarding market expansion, investment prioritization, distribution strategy, and marketplace optimization.
• Lead analyses assessing marketplace attractiveness, competitive positioning, consumer demand potential, and commercial opportunity.
Marketplace Intelligence & Project Execution
• Integrate consumer, competitive, market, financial, and business intelligence into a unified strategic view of marketplace performance.
• Continuously assess evolving marketplace conditions and proactively identify emerging risks and opportunities.
• Lead high-priority, cross-functional strategic initiatives from opportunity identification through execution and operationalization.
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Leadership, Collaboration & Organizational Influence
Enterprise Leadership
• Act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders across Commercial, Brand, Finance, Product, Business Development, Operations, and Strategy functions.
• Influence decision making through fact-based recommendations, compelling storytelling, and executive-ready insight synthesis.
• Represent Consumer Insights and Marketplace Development within senior leadership forums and strategic planning processes.
Cross-Functional Partnership
Develop strong partnerships across:
• Brand
• Product Creation
• Commercial (Retail, Wholesale, E-Commerce)
• Finance
• Strategy
• Data & Analytics
• Technology
• Consumer Engagement
• Global Marketplace Strategy
• Global Consumer Insights
• External Research Partners
Team Leadership
• Build and develop a high-performing team of insight, analytics, and strategy professionals.
• Foster a culture of curiosity, innovation, learning, and continuous improvement.
• Drive capability building across the organization through education, frameworks, and best-practice sharing.
• Coach and mentor team members while developing future leadership talent.
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Knowledge, Skills & Abilities
• Deep expertise across qualitative, quantitative, behavioral, and applied consumer research methodologies.
• Strong understanding of retail, wholesale, digital commerce, shopper behavior, and marketplace dynamics.
• Demonstrated experience developing and implementing enterprise-level consumer insights strategies.
• Expertise in hypothesis-led problem solving, consumer trend forecasting, and strategic planning.
• Strong understanding of emerging AI technologies, machine learning applications, synthetic research methodologies, and advanced analytics.
• Exceptional executive communication, storytelling, and influence skills.
• Proven ability to simplify complex insights into actionable business recommendations.
• Strong financial, analytical, and strategic problem-solving capabilities.
• Ability to influence senior executives without direct authority.
• Experience leading large-scale cross-functional initiatives and organizational change.
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Requisite Education & Experience
• 10+ years of experience across Consumer Insights, Strategy, Analytics, Marketplace Development, Commercial Strategy, or related functions.
• Proven leadership experience managing high-performing teams and enterprise-wide initiatives.
• Experience within leading consumer goods, retail, apparel, sportswear, technology, or consulting organizations.
• Demonstrated success influencing executive-level decisions through research, analytics, and strategic recommendations.
• Experience implementing AI-enabled research, advanced analytics, or innovation capabilities preferred.
• Master's Degree or MBA preferred.
Please note:
- adidas celebrates diversity, supports inclusiveness and encourages individual expression in our workplace. We actively encourage individuals with disabilities to apply and will provide reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process. We do not tolerate the harassment or discrimination toward any of our applicants or employees. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer.
- adidas offers robust and progressive medical, including HSA (Health Savings Account) with employer funding or FSA (Flexible Spending Account) options, dental, vision, prescription drug coverage, adoption, with surrogate and fertility support, short and long-term disability, and basic life and AD&D insurance, which can be supplemented with employee-paid coverage. Employees are able to enroll in adidas’ 401k plan and Stock Purchase Plan with employer match. Full-time employees are eligible for education assistance and generous Leave policies including 12 weeks of paid parental leave.
- Employees are eligible to earn an annual bonus based on company performance. Employees accrue prorated flexible time off in the amount .4388 hours per day that increases with years of service, eleven paid holidays throughout the calendar year and Service Time Off during milestone years.
- At adidas we offer a Hybrid work policy which requires attendance in the office Monday through Thursday, with the flexibility to work remotely on Friday each week. For work requiring a high degree of collaboration or an in-person presentation, in-office attendance is required even on Friday. The working location of this position is Portland, OR.
- Though our teammates hail from all corners of the world, our working language is English.
At adidas, we strongly believe that embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into our culture and talent processes gives our employees a sense of belonging and our brand a real competitive advantage.
– Culture Starts With People, It Starts With You –
By recruiting talent and developing our people to reflect the rich diversity of our consumers and communities, we foster a culture of inclusion that engages our employees and authentically connects our brand with our consumers.