Director, Animal Health - Customer Insights Lead

Job Description

The Customer Insights Lead is a strategic leader responsible for shaping and optimizing our Technology Solutions R&D portfolio and Market Activation efforts in alignment with customer needs and the organization’s business objectives.  This person will lead a customer-facing role, responsible for elevating our organization’s understanding of customers’ operations to generate a comprehensive and proprietary customer knowledge base that will be leveraged as a key source of competitive advantage for our Technology Solutions business.  He/she will build strong relationships with some of our largest and most influential customers, recruiting them to become our partners during the new product development process, as well as product champions once these new solutions reach launch stage.  The Customer Insights Lead will organize and lead four to five Customer Advisory Boards (CABs) across multiple livestock segments and will be tasked with synthesizing CAB insights to ensure that business decisions are grounded in a sophisticated understanding of market opportunities, customer pain points, and emerging industry trends.  Through CABs, he/she will leverage customer insights to guide our R&D pipeline strategy towards delivering innovative and differentiated solutions that maximize portfolio ROI.  Finally, the Customer Insights Lead will leverage this unique knowledge base to guide Market Activation initiatives and maximize our technology portfolio’s commercial performance.  As a key player in the organization, the Customer Insights Lead will be part of the Technology Design & Customer Interface (TDCI) Leadership Team and manage a significant budget dedicated to drive Technology Solutions towards ambitious revenue targets and commitments to our company's Animal Health (MAH).

Key Responsibilities

Customer Insights Champion: Champion a customer-centric culture and lead a global initiative to elevate our understanding of customer needs and market opportunities to inform strategic analysis and drive critical decision-making processes.

• Lead, design, and launch four or more CABs comprised by select, highly influential, key account customers, defining membership, objectives, and engagement strategies.

• Work closely with Regional Vice-Presidents and Country Managers to identify key customers and opinion leaders across key global markets with significant market potential.

• Lead the process of recruiting key customers to join CABs and to become close partners during the new product development process, ensuring our solutions are designed around customer needs.

• Facilitate annual CAB in-person meetings for each business segment as well as frequent virtual workshops and roundtable discussion to engage customers and ensure the capture of rich and diverse perspectives.

• Build strong relationships with CAB executive members throughout this process so they evolve organically into product champions that promote our solutions to expand penetration and maximize sales outcomes.

• Distill CAB discussions into strategic recommendations and share outcomes with MAH Executive Leadership Team, R&D, and commercial teams.

• Continuously evaluate and improve CAB effectiveness through feedback, performance metrics, and best practices.

• Create and maintain a dynamic customer needs repository, ensuring the organization remains aware and responsive to evolving market demands.

Portfolio Strategy Leadership: Develop comprehensive R&D portfolio management strategy for Technology Solutions, ensuring roadmaps across species and business segments align with customer needs and strategic priorities.

• Lead multi-disciplinary teams towards creating clearly articulated customer value propositions for our technology solutions and correlate these to revenue projections for our innovative products and R&D pipeline.

• Build comprehensive analytical models to quantify market potentials and revenue projections within an evidence-based framework and ensure that framework is leveraged consistently across R&D projects.

• Lead governance forums and facilitate transparent, data-driven decision-making for pipeline investments, resource allocation, and program prioritization.

• Connect TDCI strategies to the overall MAH strategic framework and work closely with the “Tech Adoption Strategic Pillar” Lead to make sure our metrics are aligned with business goals and 5YP targets as set by the MAH’s Executive Vice-President and Leadership Team.

Market Activation Excellence: Leverage customer knowledge base and expertise to lead cross-portfolio Market Activation initiatives and maximize portfolio sales performance.

• Coordinate New Product Launch a