Associate Vice President

kantar; Gurgaon; On-site; INR 350,000 - 650,000; Full time

Job summary

Kantar in Gurgaon (DLF Cyber Park) seeks an Account Director/Group Account Director with 8–11 years of qualitative research experience across FMCG, retail and healthcare sectors. You will drive growth, manage budgets, nurture client relationships, and lead a research team to deliver insights that shape brands.

You will coordinate proposals, costs, and contracts while training executives in qualitative techniques and ensuring high-quality, cost-efficient deliverables across engagements.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated expertise in MR or Marketing and Branding with client-facing experience.
• Proven ability to develop and leverage knowledge for business benefit.
• Strong networking and relationship-building skills.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal abilities.

Responsibilities

• Achieving growth and managing business financials.
• Identifying new business initiatives and leveraging skills across units.
• Building and nurturing strong client relationships.
• Creating an environment that fosters new work and innovations.
• Driving thought leadership in teams.
• Developing research capability among team members.
• Guiding executives on qualitative research techniques and training.
• Client management and presentation of credentials, proposals, and results.
• Report writing and client-ready presentations with recommendations.
• Negotiation of costs and contracts with suppliers.
• Overseeing discussion guides, screeners, moderation, and forums.
• Managing the research team and suppliers, budget control, and cost summaries.

Skills

Qualitative research

Client management

Team leadership

Budget management

Job description

Job Details

Kantar is the world's leading data, insights, and consulting company; we shape the brands of tomorrow by better understanding people everywhere.

Our Insights colleagues are the masters of using data to resolve challenges. They help brands define what they should stand for, how to reinvent and renew their offer, how to better reach audiences, and how to win with consumers and customers. By collecting substantial data from across the world, they blend human expertise with technology, making sure we can deliver innovative insights to brands everywhere.

Qualitative Unit Overview

Kantar Qualitative handles diverse adhoc research requirements of blue chip FMCG, e-Commerce / Tech, Durables, Telecom, Auto clients. As a researcher, you will constantly provide sophisticated solutions to our clients, applying the highest standards of innovative, qualitative market research tools.

Job Title - Account Director/ Group Account Director

Role Overview

• Achieving growth and managing business financials
• Identifying new business initiatives and leveraging skills across units
• Building and nurturing strong client relationships
• Creating an environment that fosters new work / innovations
• Driving thought leadership in teams
• Developing research capability among team members
• Developing processes and process improvements for greater time and cost efficiencies
• Guiding the research executives working on a project to understand exactly what is required of them and training them if necessary. Contribution to the overall training of executives in qualitative research techniques.
• Client management and presentation of company credentials, proposals and research results
• Report writing and presentation creation including client recommendations, with the ability to work independently
• Negotiation of acceptable costs and contract agreements with suppliers.
• Creation of discussion guides and screeners + moderation of groups, interviews, ethnography and online forums
• Overall management of the research team and suppliers.
• Budget control and time spent monitoring job cost summaries regularly.

Role Requirements & Capabilities

• The ideal candidate will be a self-starter who is client focused and comes with proven expertise in MR or Marketing and Branding (with regular interaction and understanding of MR) with a track record of leveraging your knowledge for own business or client benefit.
• Demonstrated ability to get best out of teams, investing in their development and striking the right balance between tasks and relationships
• Process orientation and ability to manage processes for cost and time efficiencies
• Track record of networking skills which you have leveraged for yourself and your organization
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills
• Understanding and leveraging synergies across organizational units for better client delivery
• The position required an intelligent graduate with 8 - 11years experience of qualitative research, primarily consumer focused; specific experience of the FMCG, retail and healthcare sectors would be an advantage

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.

Equality of opportunity for everyone is our highest priority and we support our colleagues to work in a way that supports their health and wellbeing.

While we encourage teams to spend part of their working week in the office, we understand no one size fits all; our approach is flexible to ensure everybody feels included, accepted, and that we can win together.

We're dedicated to creating an inclusive culture and value the diversity of our people, clients, suppliers and communities, and we encourage applications from all backgrounds and sections of society.

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, which may include your details being shared with the hiring manager.

Location

Gurgaon, DLF Cyber ParkIndia

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