Associate Director, Market Research and Analytics - Eye Care

The Associate Director of Marketing Research & Analytics for Eye Care will be an indispensable business partner, focused on increasing market place success – by designing, implementing, managing, analyzing, and effectively communicating marketing research and analytics initiatives for Eye Care on behalf of APEX. The individual will derive high-impact learnings from qualitative and quantitative primary and secondary research, behavioral analytics, market insights, and partner with Brand partners, APEX internal teams and external agencies to inform strategic and tactical decision-making. The ability to influence decisions based upon careful and strategic thinking and understanding of the business is critical to success.  KEY RESPONSIBILITIES: • Act as an intelligence partner focused on providing strategic insights, forming a trusted relationship, and staying abreast of commercial issues and trends within the Eye Care space. • Proactively identify primary research and analytics opportunities to ensure that decision-making is based on the most current, objective and comprehensive insights across consumers, HCPs and trade channels. • Be conversant with custom research methods, adept at supplier and stakeholder management, and able to independently lead custom research projects that deliver compelling and actionable learnings. • Perform thought-provoking and sophisticated syntheses of learning across primary research, analytics, and market intelligence sources to develop actionable insights and recommendations that shape strategies and tactics. • Maintain organizational knowledge of the market, competitive trends, and industry developments and effectively communicate this knowledge to internal stakeholders. • Design and execute against measurement plans, inclusive of selected operational and performance indicators, to ensure the organization’s understanding of execution, engagement, and impact of Eye Care brand programs and tactics. • Coordinate and manage monthly program performance assessments (i.e. business reviews) on topics that will make the highest impact on the business. • Help manage data strategy efforts to ensure accurate and reliable data assets are incorporated within agile analytics capability to enable seamless, codeless, visualization-enabled analytics. • Explore and apply AI and generative AI tools to speed up and improve research and analytics, across synthesis, and reporting / uncovering insights from data, while using sound judgment on accuracy, data privacy, and compliance. • Leverage innovative, sophisticated analytic models that address critical issues, but also meet key business criteria. Be able to effectively communicate the results of these complex analytic models and influence action to improve brand performance. • Build solid relationships as a team player, while maintaining objectivity and lack of bias to represent the voice of the customer.  • Balance business needs with strategic projects to advance the capabilities of Specialty APEX • Promote a culture of proactive communication, appreciation of diverse points of view, and recognition to facilitate psychological safety across the team. • Demonstrate thoughtful confidence in presentation of learnings across all levels of the organization. • Appropriately manage and collaborate with both onshore and offshore research and analytics suppliers. • Monitor and manage research and analytics programs within budget and identify opportunities for cost savings where appropriate. • Ensure all research and analytics activities are conducted in accordance with financial and ethical compliance guidelines. • BA or BS degree required. Advanced degree (MA, MS, MBA, PhD) preferred. • 10+ years relevant marketing research and/or analytics experience requir