About the Role

Join a leading footwear brand as a Program Manager / Market Research Manager to lead consumer research, drive actionable insights, and influence business strategy.

The role requires deep knowledge of the retail footwear market, strong analytical capability, and experience translating customer and market intelligence into growth initiatives across merchandising, product, marketing, and retail operations.

Key Responsibilities

- Lead end-to-end market research and consumer insights programs quantitative and qualitative to inform product, merchandising and GTM strategy.

- Design and manage primary research (surveys, focus groups, ethnography, store intercepts) and secondary research (market sizing, competitor benchmarking, trend tracking).

- Analyze consumer behavior, segmentation, purchase drivers and shopper journeys; convert findings into actionable recommendations.

- Build and maintain dashboards, trackers and regular insight decks for leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.

- Partner with Product, Merchandising, Marketing, Retail Ops and Supply Chain to convert insights into product assortments, pricing, promotions and channel strategies.

- Drive competitive intelligence and opportunity mapping (new formats, channels, geographies).

- Translate insight into tangible business cases sizing, impact assessment, and prioritization of initiatives.

- Mentor and manage research vendors and internal research analysts; ensure quality, timelines and ROI of research investments.

- Present findings and recommendations to senior leadership and influence decision-making.

Required Skills & Experience

- 7-12 years of experience in market research, consumer insights, or business analysis within retail preferably footwear or apparel.

- Proven experience running both quantitative and qualitative research programs and turning analysis into business outcomes.

- Strong analytical skills - advanced Excel, comfortable with statistical tools (SPSS/R/Python) and dashboarding tools (Power BI/Tableau).

- Deep understanding of retail metrics (sell-through, margin, assortment productivity, conversion) and shopper behavior analytics.

- Strong stakeholder management with demonstrated ability to influence cross-functional teams.

- Excellent written and verbal communication ability to craft persuasive executive presentations.

- Experience managing external research agencies and internal research teams.

- Proactive, commercial mindset with strong attention to detail and project management skills.

Preferred

- Prior exposure to omnichannel retail measurement (store + e-commerce).

- Experience with shopper research methodologies and retail analytics platforms.

- MBA or advanced degree in Marketing, Statistics, Economics, or related field.

Personal Attributes

- Strategic thinker who can balance long-term insight programs with short-term tactical needs.

- Comfortable operating in a fast-paced retail environment and managing multiple stakeholders.

- Highly organized, curious, and data-driven with a strong bias for action