Consumer Insights Director

About Us

The Freeman Company is a global leader in events, on a mission to redefine live for a new era. With a data-driven approach and the industry’s largest network of experts, The Freeman Company’s insights shape exhibitions, exhibits, and events that drive audiences to action. The integrated full-service solutions leverage a 99-year legacy in event management as well as new technologies to deliver moments that matter.

Summary

The Consumer Insights Director owns the voice of the customer for TFC – at the enterprise level and as a shared service in close partnership with every brand in the TFC collective. This role leads proprietary research initiatives, market intelligence, and TFC’s continuous pulse on senior-executive audiences that anchors the parent brand narrative and TFC’s position as a strategic partner.

This Director does more than gather data – they interpret it and distill it into strategic recommendations that move TFC’s industry leadership, strategy and narrative forward. This is a role for someone equally comfortable partnering with outside research firms on rigorous methodology and sitting with executive stakeholders to translate what the data means and what to do about it.

This position will support our Marketing team. It is eligible to work a hybrid schedule, generally requiring work in-office and/or show-site 2-3 days per week. This position is based out of our North Dallas office in Dallas, TX.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

Strategic Translation & Recommendations

• Interpret research and data into clear, strategic recommendations – not just findings – that shape marketing, brand, and go-to-market strategy across TFC.

• Partner directly with brand and marketing leaders across the TFC portfolio to apply insights to real strategic decisions, from positioning to campaign investment.

• Present research and its strategic implications to executive stakeholders with clarity and confidence, making the case for what TFC should do next.

Proprietary Research

• Own and lead the proprietary TFC Belief Gap annual research report, TFC’s flagship proprietary research platform and continuous pulse on senior-executive audiences, ensuring it remains a credible, differentiated anchor for TFC’s thought leadership narrative.

• Design and evolve the enterprise research agenda, determining what TFC needs to know about its audiences, its market, and its competitive position – and where to invest research dollars for the greatest strategic return.

• Partner with external research firms and vendors to develop and execute methodologies, questionnaires, and fielding plans for proprietary research, ensuring rigor and credibility in every study.

• Ensure research outputs are packaged for both strategic internal use and external thought-leadership storytelling, in partnership with brand and content teams.

Market Intelligence & Brand Health

• Lead ongoing market intelligence efforts – tracking competitive movement, category shifts, and buyer sentiment across TFC’s brands and lines of business.

• Own brand health benchmarking across TFC and its brands, partnering with brand marketing leads to establish consistent measurement so leadership can track brand strength and perception over time.

• Lead message resonance and testing work to validate positioning, campaigns, and narrative choices before they go to market.

• Design and execute focus groups and other qualitative research to answer specific strategic or brand questions as they arise.

Shared Services & Cross-Brand Partnership

• Operate consumer insights as a shared service for the TFC brand portfolio, balancing enterprise-level research priorities with individual brands’ consumer research needs.

• Build strong working relationships with brand marketing leaders across TFC brands to ensure research supports their specific strategic questions.

• Partner with TFC Marketing & Shared Services and brand teams to ensure insights inform enterprise brand-building efforts and individual brand strategy alike.

• Additional responsibilities may be assigned as the role and function evolve.

Education & Experience

• 10+ years of experience in consumer/market insights, research strategy, or a related analytical marketing discipline, ideally within a complex, multi-brand or enterprise organization.

• Demonstrated experience leading proprietary research programs from methodology design through fielding, analysis, and strategic application.

• Experience managing external research vendor and agency relationships, including questionnaire design and fielding oversight.

• Proven ability to translate complex data into clear strategic recommendations for senior executive audiences.

• Experience with brand health tracking, message testing, and qualitative research methods (e.g., focus groups).

• Bachelor’s degree in Market Research, Marketing, Statistics, Psychology, or a related field from an accredited 4 year college or university is requried; advanced degree a plus.

• Sharp analytical mind paired with genuine strategic instinct – comfortable moving from raw data to a clear point of view on what it means for the business.

• Strong research design and methodological rigor; able to partner credibly with external research firms as an informed, exacting client.

• Excellent executive communication skills – able to distill complex findings into a clear, confident narrative for senior stakeholders.

• Strong cross-functional relationship-building skills, able to serve multiple brand stakeholders with competing priorities as a trusted shared service.

• Comfortable owning ambiguity, prioritizing what matters most, and driving toward strategic recommendations rather than open-ended findings.

• Genuine curiosity about buyer and market behavior, with the judgment to know which questions are worth answering.

Travel Requirements

Travel up to 25%

What We Offer

The Freeman Company provides benefits that aim to empower our people and their families to thrive mentally, physically, and financially. These are a handful of the types of programs and benefits our full-time people may be eligible for. There may be some variances in specific benefits across regions.

• Medical, Dental, Vision Insurance

• Tuition Reimbursement

• Paid Parental Leave

• Life, Accident and Disability

• Retirement with Company Match

• Paid Time Off

Diversity Commitment

At The Freeman Company, our commitment to diversity and inclusion is helping us to create not only a great place to work, but also an environment where our employees, our customers and our communities around the world can reach their goals and connect with each other. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status and other characteristics protected by federal, state or local laws.

#TFCBrand

#LI-Hybrid