Senior Research Director

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Senior Research Director based in the United States. This is a senior research leadership role combining people management, strategic consulting, and hands-on ownership of complex research engagements. You’ll lead a pod of researchers while directly shaping high-impact projects for enterprise and Fortune 500 clients. The role sits at the intersection of consumer research, client strategy, AI-enabled research delivery, and commercial growth. You’ll serve as a trusted research expert for customers, helping translate complex business questions into effective research solutions and stakeholder-ready insights. You’ll also partner closely with Sales and Product to support new business opportunities and continuously improve AI-powered research workflows. Success will be measured through research quality, customer satisfaction, retention, expansion, and the ability to help convert new opportunities into long-term partnerships. This is an opportunity to shape both the performance of a high-caliber research team and the future of how primary research is delivered at scale. Lead and optimize a research pod, establishing clear priorities, accountability, operating rhythms, and quality standards while contributing to the evolution of broader research processes. Manage and develop Research Directors and Research Managers through hiring, onboarding, coaching, performance management, conflict resolution, upskilling, and team engagement. Own research project success across the pod, serving as the senior escalation point when client needs, project complexity, or research challenges require additional expertise. Drive in-depth project discovery and scoping to understand research objectives, business context, customer expectations, and success criteria. Build and maintain detailed research context for clients, capturing relevant norms, standards, preferences, and requirements to ensure deliverables are aligned with stakeholder expectations. Act as a strategic research advisor and solutions architect for high-value prospects and customers, helping define approaches for complex or non-standard research requirements. Partner with Sales on discovery calls, capabilities presentations, proposals, and other new-business activities that support client acquisition and long-term growth. Own and strengthen enterprise client relationships, working closely with insights professionals to deliver successful research outcomes and identify opportunities for retention and expansion. Ensure projects meet agreed quality and speed standards while balancing multiple client engagements and competing internal priorities. Establish a strong feedback loop between customer delivery and Product, identifying gaps between AI-generated research outputs and expert researcher expectations. Identify and document "last-mile" requirements needed to transform research outputs into stakeholder-ready deliverables and help drive improvements across the product. Champion adoption of new research workflows, tools, and product capabilities across the research organization. Contribute to the broader commercial and operational objectives of the research function, including customer retention, expansion, and conversion of new opportunities into recurring business. Requirements: 10+ years of market research experience, including at least 3 years managing teams, with significant experience on the supplier side within a market research agency environment. Demonstrated expertise across quantitative and qualitative research, including leading discovery and scoping calls, developing questionnaires from scratch, creating analysis plans, and producing stakeholder-ready insights, toplines, and reports. Proven experience owning relationships with enterprise and Fortune 500 US-based clients, particularly senior insights professionals, with a track record of delivering outcom