Discover Agile Innovation - Associate Director of Insights

Job Description:

The Discover team is a new construct at Mars Snacking, designed to unite human intelligence, consumer-centric design, research, and Science & Tech capabilities to transform long-horizon innovation. This team’s mandate is twofold: first, to identify and interpret early signals of emerging human behaviors and tensions that will shape innovation priorities; and second, to drive front-end innovation focused on the most critical consumer tensions, developing high-potential propositions across categories and brands.

The Discover Agile Innovation Insights - Associate Director reports into Global Agile Innovation Insights Director at Mars Snacking. Key internal partners include R&D, Marketing, and Design to co-create solutions based on identified jobs and pain points.

This role operates within a culture that champions a “test, learn, adapt” mindset—embedding agile, iterative discovery into the front end of innovation. It requires a human behavior-obsessed leader with a keen intuition for subtle but significant signals, an innovator who can translate deep needs and tensions into platform-able concepts, and a collaborator who can influence innovation leaders and entrepreneurs through compelling, insight-driven ideas. The role emphasizes speed, continuous learning, and organizational capability-building in qualitative discovery and agile insights. 

What are we looking for?

• Proven expertise in qualitative research methodologies such as ethnographies, interviews, and co-creation to uncover deep consumer insights and tensions.
• Strong experience in translating emerging consumer trends and behaviors into actionable innovation opportunities and white spaces.
• Demonstrated ability to lead agile experimentation cycles, including hypothesis development, rapid prototyping, and iterative learning.
• Excellent collaboration and influencing skills, with a track record of partnering effectively across R&D, Marketing, and Design teams to drive innovation.
• Experience with jobs-to-be-done frameworks, pain point mapping and prioritization, and familiarity with agile innovation processes
• Nice to have: background in consumer goods or snacking industry.

What will be your key responsibilities?

Human-Centric Discovery 

• Lead early exploration to identify unmet needs, pain points, and whitespace opportunities. 
• Conduct in-depth qualitative research (ethnographies, immersions, interviews, co-creation, observations). 
• Translate findings into jobs-to-be-done frameworks that capture functional, emotional, and social needs. 
• Synthesize insights into innovation territories and opportunity platforms that inspire new ideas. 
• Build consumer empathy across teams by sharing stories and artifacts that bring needs and tensions to life. 
• Leverage trends, foresight, and weak signals to inspire innovation platforms and idea generation. 
• Prioritize critical opportunities by surfacing underlying tensions and providing clear decision frameworks. 

Agile Experimentation 

• Design and execute lean tests (concepts, prototypes, pilots, digital experiments) to validate hypotheses. 
• Create rapid learning loops to refine opportunities and shape ideas iteratively. 
• Define success KPIs focused on consumer resonance, desirability, and feasibility. 
• Collaboration & Influence 
• Partner with R&D, Marketing, and Design to co-create solutions based on identified jobs and pain points. 
• Facilitate workshops, sprints, and ideation sessions connecting insights to bold ideas. 
• Influence senior stakeholders by translating discovery insights into compelling narratives. 

Ways of Working 

• Embed agile, iterative learning into the front end of innovation. 
• Promote a “test, learn, adapt” culture prioritizing speed and continuous improvement. 
• Contribute to building organizational capability in qualitative discovery, jobs-to-be-done, and agile insights

What can you expect from Mars?

• Work with diverse and talented Associates, all guided by the Five Principles.
• Join a purpose-driven company, where we’re striving to build the world we want tomorrow, today.
• Best-in-class learning and development support from day one, including access to our in-house Mars University.
• An industry competitive salary and benefits package,