Consumer Insights Manager

THE ORGANIZATION
Our client, The Little Potato Company, began its journey in 1996 with the owners (Jacob and Angela – father and daughter) wanting to be able to produce little creamer potatoes, like what Jacob knew from his Dutch roots. They grew their first acre by hand; planting, weeding, harvesting, and washing it themselves. They then packed them into the back of Angela’s hatchback, setting off to farmers markets and restaurants. The potatoes were popular with chefs early on, with one of their first accounts being the Banff Springs Hotel. Jacob and Angela bought their first plant in 2000 and with their continued success, have expanded to increasingly larger facilities over the years with their new state of the art facility located just outside of Edmonton in Nisku. With further expansion and growth across Canada and into the United States, LPC partnered with a co-packing plant in PEI and opened a second production plant in DeForest, Wisconsin. Today, Angela leads the organization as CEO and Jacob runs a research and breeding company for little potatoes. The Little Potato Company has grown to have products on store shelves in every Province in Canada and State in the United States and operates with over 360 employees across Canada and the United States.

The Little Potato Company continues to experience growth year over year and continue to be the market leading producer of little potatoes. They continue to set their sights high with their purpose being to “Feed the World, better” where “everyone, everywhere deserves to have healthy, great food”. At The Little Potato Company, they believe in living by a set of deeply held core values representing both their history and how they strive to live every day to make the world a better place. The core values that guide their corporate family are:

Family:  Since the very beginning, everything we’ve done has been built around family.  We honour the importance that family has in our employees’ lives and encourage a healthy work life balance.  We create a space for workplace well-being for ourselves and each other.

Go Beyond:  We know that employees come to us with their own experience and expertise.  We encourage everyone to go beyond a job description and to explore, learn, and share.  It opens a new world of possibilities that can lead to greater success for all.

Elevate others:  We’re diverse and inclusive, which leads to fresh ideas, innovative solutions, and unique shared experiences.  We build relationships by practicing humility, vulnerability, respect, and speaking clearly and kindly.

Down To Earth:  Wherever we are and whomever we are with, we are approachable, genuine, and warm.  We humbly acknowledge the simplicity and significance of growing good food for others.

Do What You Say:  We own and take responsibility for our actions, our development, our misses, and our wins.  We’re reliable, accountable, and honest.

It is a great time to join The Little Potato Company as they continue to grow and be a North American producer of their unique, healthy, and delicious Little Potatoes!

For further information on The Little Potato Company, please visit their website at www.littlepotatoes.com.

THE OPPORTUNITY

The Consumer Insights Manager is accountable for delivering high‑quality, actionable consumer insights, brand performance measurement, and marketing effectiveness analysis to support The Little Potato Company’s marketing and sales objectives across North America.

This role is responsible for managing the Consumer Insights and Marketing Performance portfolios through hands‑on execution, translating data into insights that inform brand strategy, product innovation, and go‑to‑market execution. This role will work closely with the Marketing and Sales teams to ensure insights are integrated holistically across the business.

Reporting to the Sr. Manager, Marketing & Sales Insights, this is an individual contributor role that works closely alongside the Customer & Category Insights Manager, with the two roles complementing one another to provide a complete view of the consumer and customer landscape.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The responsibilities for this position include, but not limited to, the following:

Consumer Insights & Brand Performance

• Plan and deliver all consumer and market research initiatives, including defining research questions, selecting methodologies, managing vendors, analyzing outputs, and distributing insights to stakeholders.
• Align all research initiatives and projects to clearly defined objectives set in partnership with the Senior Manager, Marketing & Sales Insights and the VP of Marketing, ensuring relevance to business priorities.
• Analyze brand and marketing channel performance to identify drivers of ROI, volume, growth, and risk.
• Build and maintain a detailed profile of the Most Lucrative Target Audience (MLTA), including behaviors, purchase drivers, retail paths to purchase, and growth trends, and translate findings into clear inputs for brand, product, shopper marketing, and sales plans.
• Lead end-to-end Brand Health Tracking (BHT), monitoring key metrics (e.g., awareness, consideration, trial, repeat, loyalty), analyzing trends and risks, and delivering actionable recommendations to enhance brand performance.
• Build BHT design, including questionnaire development, KPI frameworks, equity drivers, attribute linkages, and significance testing and manage external agency partnerships.
• Define consumer segments and track segment‑level penetration, engagement, and performance over time.
• Prepare and deliver monthly brand performance and consumer insights reporting for Marketing, Sales, Senior Leadership, and Executive teams, with clear implications and recommended actions.
• Monitor consumer trends and behavior using industry research and survey platforms, translating insights into actionable business recommendations informed by social listening and behavioral economics.
• Build and maintain a consumer insights roadmap that integrates 3rd party industry research, panel data, and custom qualitative and quantitative research.
• Select, brief, and manage third party research partners and tools, and manage consumer insights related expenses to ensure high‑quality, cost‑effective outputs.
• Utilize approved AI tools to conduct transcript synthesis, qualitative coding, survey analysis, and insight generation, while supporting organizational automation initiatives in accordance with established data governance and compliance standards.

Product Strategy & Research

• Conduct consumer research to aid product innovation and improvement, including hypothesis development and end-to-end insight delivery using methodologies such as concept, claims, and package testing, as well as advanced analytics (e.g., MaxDiff, conjoint, TURF, and key driver analysis).
• Identify consumer needs, pain points, and trends to inform product concepts, portfolio gaps, and innovation priorities.
• Design and execute focus groups, surveys, agile research, and concept testing to evaluate product ideas and guide decision‑
• Partner with the Senior Product Manager to incorporate consumer insights into product strategy, line reviews, and launch planning.
• Analyze consumer feedback and sentiment from service channels and social media in collaboration with the Consumer Experience Specialist and integrate insights into product and experience recommendations.

Marketing Performance Management

• Build working knowledge of marketing channel strategies and objectives to ensure analysis evaluates performance against defined KPIs.
• Analyze marketing campaign performance across paid media, ecommerce, shopper marketing, website, social, and CRM to identify trends across channels.
• Work with marketing channel owners to deploy testing ideas, including A/B tests, that are defined by/with the Senior Manager, Marketing & Sales Insights.
• Support Marketing Operations in maintaining marketing performance dashboards and reporting, ensuring data accuracy, timeliness, and clarity.
• Provide Senior Brand Manager with copy testing, pre/post campaign measurement, and brand lift study design as part of the marketing effectiveness toolkit.

Cross-Functional Collaboration and Communication

• In partnership with the Customer and Category Insights Manager and Sales Analyst, integrate consumer, category, customer, channel and competitive insights.
• Liaise with the Sales Analyst to ensure insights and recommendation meet sales team needs
• Collaborate closely with Marketing teams to translate consumer and market insights into clear inputs for brand strategy, media planning, product planning, and go‑to‑market execution.
• Support the Senior Brand Manager by measuring and reporting against defined brand performance success metrics and provide insights to optimize the brand strategy
• Provide insights to the Senior Product Manager to inform consumer‑centric product strategy, innovation priorities, and portfolio decisions using insight‑led recommendations.
• Provide data‑driven input to the Marketing Operations team to improve segment targeting and lead generation across digital and social advertising.
• Provide insight input to the Loyalty & Retention Manager to shape segmentation strategies and content direction for marketing automation and CRM programs.
• Work with the Sales team and Shopper Marketing Manager to analyze where consumers shop and identify opportunities to improve distribution, merchandising, and in‑store visibility.
• Produce and deliver clear, compelling insights presentations for Marketing, Sales, and senior leadership audiences.
• Develops and presents consumer insights updates in regular Sales and Marketing meetings, including quarterly insights reviews.
• Serve as the primary day‑to‑day contact for consumer and market research agencies on assigned projects, managing scope, deliverables, and insight activation.

LPC Values & Culture

• Champion Company Values: Act as a visible and vocal advocate for the organization’s purpose, values and strategic mission. Ensure these principles are consistently reflected in decision-making, leadership behaviors, and business practices across the region.
• Culture Stewardship: Foster a culture rooted in the company’s core values. Lead by example to create an environment where employees feel empowered, engaged, and aligned with the company’s purpose.
• Collaboration: Work cross-functionally with other departments, such as Sales, IT, and other stakeholders, to ensure insights, data integrity, and analytical best practices are embedded in planning and decision‑
• Communication: Clearly communicate insights objectives, processes, and analytical approaches to stakeholders, ensuring insights are understood, trusted, and actionable.
• Ethical Governance: Uphold the highest standards of corporate governance, compliance, and ethical conduct. Promote transparency, trust, and accountability at all levels of the organization.
• Change Leadership: Champion transformational initiatives with clarity and confidence. Inspire teams through change by supporting the company’s vision, addressing challenges proactively, and celebrating progress.

FIRST YEAR – MEASURES OF SUCCESS

• Independent Insight Delivery: Within the first year, confidently leads product and brand research initiatives and delivers polished insights presentations directly to stakeholders, demonstrating sound judgment and credibility without requiring direct managerial support.
• Collaborative Storytelling: Partners closely with the Customer & Category Insights Manager to translate complex data into a clear, compelling narrative, ensuring trends and insights are presented in a way that drives confident, informed decision making at the leadership level.
• Trusted Go-To Advisor: Establishes themselves as the recognized point of contact for consumer insights, with stakeholders across the organization proactively seeking them out directly for guidance and data-driven perspective.
• Insights Ownership and Delivery Excellence: Full ownership of the monthly brand performance and consumer insights report, the brand health tracker readout, and the annual consumer insights roadmap, with self-serve fluency across panel and syndicated data platforms achieved within the first 90 days.

THE INDIVIDUAL
Given the pivotal role this individual will be expected to play in achieving the strategic objectives of the company and in supporting the success of the organization, it is essential that the successful candidate possess the following core competencies, experience, and attributes:

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, Analytics, Economics, or a related discipline with a strong emphasis on research and analysis.

Experience

• A minimum of 5+ years of progressive experience in consumer insights, marketing analytics, research, or a related role supporting a consumer brand, applying expertise gained across both supplier- or agency-side organizations (e.g., NIQ, Ipsos, Kantar, Numerator) and client-side brand environments.
• Proven experience managing qualitative and quantitative consumer research initiatives end‑to‑end, including working directly with external research agencies.
• Strong experience with consumer panel data platforms (e.g., Numerator, NielsenIQ, Homescan, Circana consumer panel) to analyze shopper behavior and trends.
• Demonstrated expertise in designing, implementing, and managing brand health tracking, segmentation, and quantitative research programs, including concept and package testing, advanced analytics (e.g., key driver analysis, conjoint, MaxDiff), and survey programming using platforms such as Qualtrics, ConfirmIT, or Forsta.
• Experience using retail syndicated and POS data platforms (e.g., NielsenIQ/Circana) to assess category, brand, and competitive performance.
• Demonstrated experience defining consumer segments, evaluating segment performance, and coaching internal teams on effective segmentation application.
• Experience supporting or evaluating marketing channel performance across paid media, ecommerce, shopper marketing, digital, and CRM.
• Solid understanding of CPG brands, with experience in food, produce, or fresh/frozen categories considered an asset.
• Demonstrated accountability for insights and recommendations, with a willingness to take ownership of outcomes.
• Experience improving or standardizing insights processes, tools, or reporting to increase efficiency and consistency across teams.
• Familiarity with consumer marketing dynamics in both the U.S. and Canadian markets.
• Comfortable operating in a fast‑growing, entrepreneurial, and purpose‑driven organization.

Competencies and Knowledge

• Consumer & Category Insight Expertise: Deep knowledge of consumer behavior, purchase drivers, and brand performance measurement, paired with fluency in qualitative and quantitative research methodologies and when to apply each.
• Data Literacy Across Sources: Strong understanding of syndicated, panel, and first-party marketing data, along with the statistical foundations (sampling, weighting, significance testing, multivariate techniques) needed to interpret them with rigor.
• Marketing Effectiveness Acumen: Working knowledge of brand health tracking, campaign performance analysis, and MMM approaches, with a well-informed perspective on their value and limitations.
• Strategic Storytelling: Exceptional ability to translate complex, multi-source data into clear, executive-ready narratives that drive understanding and action across Marketing, Sales, and senior leadership.
• Analytical Rigor: Strong critical-thinking skills, synthesizing disparate data sources into a coherent point of view, and building structured research briefs that ensure insight activation, not just delivery.
• Cross-Functional Influence: Skilled at managing multiple concurrent projects and vendors while influencing stakeholders and driving alignment without relying on positional authority.

Personal Profile

• Accountable and Confident: Takes ownership of insights and recommendations, standing behind conclusions with data and representing them credibly in retailer-facing and executive settings.
• Curious and Proactive: Naturally looks beyond standard reporting to surface new opportunities, balancing analytical rigor with creative interpretation of what the data is revealing.
• Trusted Relationship Builder: Builds and sustains strong relationships with internal stakeholders and external vendors, becoming the go-to person for consumer insight.
• Adaptable and Resilient: Operates effectively amid shifting priorities and a fast-changing environment, maintaining quality and focus under pressure.
• Self-Aware and Growth-Oriented: Brings strong self-awareness and a genuine commitment to continuous learning, consistently seeking to improve insight processes.
• Collaborative and Values-Driven: Leads by example with integrity and transparency, and creates an environment where others feel comfortable bringing forward ideas and feedback.

COMPENSATION
An excellent compensation package awaits the successful candidate.

LOCATION
Nisku, Alberta, Canada or DeForest, Wisconsin, USA. Remote candidates will be considered conditional on working MST operating hours.

WORK ENVIRONMENT
In office at either Nisku or DeForest locations or remote.

TRAVEL
This position is based in either Canada or the US, with occasional travel required to company facilities, customer meetings, conferences, or industry events within Canada and the United States. Estimated travel is 5-10%. A valid driver’s license and passport are required.

HOW TO APPLY
For the opportunity to join The Little Potato Company in the role of Consumer Insights Manager, please email your resume to DreamBig@profoundtalent.com referencing Position ID # ABTI-637535 (Canada) or # AHJW-645426 (USA). Should you have an inquiry regarding this position, please contact Max Frank at 587-200-0114 ext. 102 or Terri Davis at ext. 101.

For further information on ProFound Talent Inc. please visit: www.profoundtalent.com

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

ProFound Talent is a woman owned and operated business, recognized and certified by Women Business Enterprise (WBE). We pride ourselves in supporting equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives in our recruitment processes and in our work environment, where every individual feels valued and respected. We welcome applications from all qualified individuals to which you may confidentially share your accommodation needs at time of application. We will adjust our processes to ensure you have an inclusive, fair, and respectful experience that allows you to represent yourself in your unique and most authentic way.  

* We thank all applicants for your submissions, however only candidates being considered for this role will be contacted. *