Commercial Excellence Creative Leader Job at Kantar Group Limited in Chicago

Commercial Excellence Creative Leader

Job Location

Hybrid (Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Norwalk, New York City)

Why this job is important

A creative solution partner is customer-centric, has executive presence, and is skilled at active listening, probing to uncover critical problems to solve, and consulting with prospective clients on Kantar’s creative solutions to address their needs. They possess deep competency around consultative selling, business development, and negotiating with buyers to drive both maximum client satisfaction and revenue.

Primary Objective

• Grow and identify new client relationships through the alignment of Kantar’s end-to-end creative solutions to client needs exceeding client revenue, margin, and satisfaction targets.

Essential Responsibilities

• Leads the strategic growth and development of multiple large/complex client accounts; in the Creative team’s portfolio of business of $40M.
• Serves as client/industry authority and leverages thought leadership to expand Kantar presence.
• Identifies new creative business opportunities by conducting analysis of marketplace data, using personally established network, existing knowledge of the market research landscape, and hunting for new buying centers.
• Develops account strategies and creates relationships with key contacts and prospective clients using the Kantar client network as well as personally established network.
• Owns client relationship and sets the overall vision for the account, plans long-range project portfolio and sells projects to strategic clients.
• Develops and implements sales strategies to secure client Creative budgets by using relationships with existing contacts and establishing connections with new prospects.
• Builds and owns sales/opportunity pipeline to deliver topline revenue objectives.
• Responsible for all aspects of the sales process, from prospecting to qualification to closing.
• Generates new sales revenue across Kantar’s Creative Development ecosystem.
• Logs sales activity and maintains sales pipeline including revenue forecasts, weekly comments on active deals, and estimated contract dates through internal CRM (Salesforce).
• Leads RFP and proposal development process, including collaborating with internal teams, coordinating client timelines, developing pitch and proposal collateral that resonates with clients and tells a differentiated story; plays a lead client-facing role from initial outreach through final proposal presentation and negotiations.
• Leads client expectations, sets financial targets, signs off proposal, closes contracts, owns new opportunities.
• Conducts client meetings to build and maintain high levels of customer satisfaction across all solutions and engagement with Kantar.
• Understands the competitive landscape and reports back to the organization on points of differentiation.
• Understands financial implications (gross margin, job profit, operating profit, forecasting) for negotiating deals that adhere to Kantar’s financial guidelines.

Essential Knowledge & Experience

• Demonstrated ability in related industries including Consulting, Information, Market Research, Marketing, Agencies, Consumer Packaged Goods, Technology, Financial Services, Retail, Hospitality and/or Auto industries.
• 10+ years of quota-carrying sales experience in market research, customer insights, consulting, analytics, and creative effectiveness solutions; selling to Chief Marketing Officer, Marketing decision makers, and Insights decision makers.
• A hunting mentality with experience using existing network of client relationships/contacts and generating leads.
• Proven success generating revenue with new business/new logo accounts.
• Consistent track record of meeting/exceeding business/revenue targets and driving impact.
• Proven success in farming by developing and growing deep and lasting client relationships, particularly at the senior most levels.
• Demonstrated ability to translate sophisticated concepts into concise, insightful messaging.
• Excellent commercial competence, presentation and interpersonal skills (verbal and written).
• Highly motivated, self-starter, driver of change and transformation.
• Superior communication, influencing and negotiation skills.

Core Skills & Capabilities

• Critical Thinking: Anchors vision and direction, sets stretch goals, designs strategic plans/processes to achieve goals.
• Commercial Competence: Sees and captures opportunities, strong seller, understands impact of decisions on larger enterprise.
• Client Leadership: Builds robust senior executive relationships, deeply understands and focuses on broader client needs.
• Communication: Develops suitable messaging/communication plan/approach, selects optimal media to deliver messages.

Kantar Benefits

We provide a comprehensive, highly competitive benefits package, including:

• Medical plans with comprehensive, affordable coverage for a range of health services.
• Health Savings Account/FSA.
• Dental, Vision and benefits to cover unique healthcare needs.
• Wellness Program.
• 401k with match.
• Tuition Reimbursement, Commuter benefits.
• Unlimited PTO.

Why join Kantar?

We shape the brands of tomorrow by better understanding people everywhere. By understanding people, we can understand what drives their decisions, actions, and aspirations on a global scale. And by amplifying our in-depth expertise of human understanding alongside ground-breaking technology, we can help brands find concrete insights that will help them succeed in our fast-paced, ever-shifting world.

Privacy and Legal Statement

PRIVACY DISCLOSURE: Please note that by applying to this opportunity you consent to the personal data you provide to us to be processed and retained by The Kantar Group Limited (“Kantar”). Your details will be kept on our Internal ATS (Applicant Tracking System) for as long as is necessary for the purposes of recruitment.

Location: Chicago, N. Green Street, United States of America