Sr Director, Consumer Insights

Macmillan is seeking a strategic and visionary Senior Director, Consumer Insights to translate consumer signals into competitive advantage. Reporting to the SVP, Consumer Insights, Marketing, and Analytics (CIMA), this new role will define how we leverage research, data, and trends to create actionable opportunities that guide strategy, increase ROI, and drive growth in a rapidly evolving marketplace.

As a senior leader within CIMA, this role also works closely with sales and publisher marketing teams to align shared priorities with actionable insights that connect retail dynamics and platform shifts to consumer behavior. This role will provide guidance that informs planning, positioning, and revenue-generating initiatives, helping teams anticipate change and execute with speed and flexibility.

The ideal candidate is a curious, hands-on, strategic leader with deep data fluency and sharp marketing instincts, energized by building something new. They excel at using data and storytelling to turn complexity into clarity, making decisions easier and execution more effective.

What you'll do:

• Develop and lead Macmillan's consumer insights strategy, setting clear direction for how research, data, and trends are leveraged to drive growth, increase ROI, and strengthen competitive advantage.
• Synthesize performance data, market dynamics, and competitive context into clear insights that clarify audience behavior, channel effectiveness, and opportunity areas, and translate those findings into specific, actionable recommendations.
• Shape how insights are applied to planning and decision-making, sharpening campaign strategy, segmentation, targeting, positioning, and content development, guiding smarter prioritization of budgets and resources.
• Work in close partnership across CIMA, collaborating with leaders in Performance Marketing & Audience Development, Direct-to-Consumer Marketing & Ecommerce Strategy, and Social Media & Community Growth to surface opportunities and maximize the impact of revenue generation initiatives, including increasing backlist sales and scaling new D2C sales channels.
• Oversee the creation and evolution of dashboards and reporting tools related to consumer insights and marketing, working closely with the Data Strategy and Platform Development teams to define analytics requirements, ensure reliable access to data, evaluate third-party solutions, and deliver clear, accessible reporting that surfaces priorities and guides action.
• Guide trend tracking and forward-looking analysis, helping teams understand how shifts in media, retail, platforms, and consumer behavior may impact discovery, genre performance, and marketing effectiveness.
• Monitor competitor strategies and market activity, translating signals into clear implications and recommendations that inform positioning, prioritization, and go-to-market decisions.
• Identify and apply AI and predictive techniques to enhance forecasting, surface early signals, connect qualitative and quantitative patterns, and scale the generation and distribution of insights across the organization.
• Establish clear intake and prioritization processes for insights requests, ensuring work is scoped and sequenced to drive the greatest business impact, inform shared priorities, and generate learnings that can be applied broadly across teams.
• Lead and establish a clear approach to insight communication and knowledge-sharing, presenting findings, trends, and recommendations in compelling, accessible formats that clearly highlight potential revenue impact and are tailored to different stakeholders.
• Mentor the Manager, Consumer Insights & Data Analytics, setting strategic direction and priorities for data science-led analytics, experimentation, and reporting that power actionable insights and tools across the company.

What you'll bring:

• 10+ years of experience in consumer insights or a related strategic insights role within media, publishing, or a consumer-facing industry.
• 5+ years of people management experience, including leading teams with both technical data science skills and insight-driven, strategic capabilities.
• Demonstrated experience launching or evolving an insights program, with the ability to define priorities and drive growth.
• Strong data science fluency, with experience translating complex analytical work into clear, actionable guidance.
• Hands-on experience using analytics and business intelligence tools such as Power BI and Google Analytics, as well as SQL-based analysis environments and analytics databases such as Snowflake, to support analysis, reporting, and insight development.
• Familiarity with both quantitative and qualitative research methods, and the ability to synthesize findings across multiple sources.
• Comfort working with revenue, performance, and ROI metrics to assess and communicate business impact.
• Experience applying AI-enabled and predictive techniques to forecasting, early signal detection, pattern recognition, and scaling insight generation.
• Experience driving adoption of new tools, frameworks, or ways of working in a cross-functional environment.
• Strong understanding of the trade publishing industry, including how publishing strategy and sales channels shape book discovery, marketing effectiveness, and long-term performance across frontlist and backlist.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to make complex data accessible and clearly articulate insights, implications, and potential revenue impact to a wide range of stakeholders.
• A collaborative leadership style, with experience partnering across teams and functions, building trust, and influencing decisions.

Salary range for this position $140,000-$150,000

Macmillan Publishers is the U.S. trade company that is part of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, a large family-owned group of media companies headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. Holtzbrinck Publishing Group's publishing companies include prominent imprints around the world that publish a broad range of award-winning books for children and adults in all categories and formats.

U.S. publishers include Celadon Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Flatiron Books, Henry Holt & Company, Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, The St. Martin's Publishing Group, and Tor Publishing Group. In the UK, Australia, India, and South Africa, companies in the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group publish under the Pan Macmillan name. The German publishing company, Holtzbrinck Deutsche Buchverlage, includes among its imprints S. Fischer, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Rowohlt, and Droemer Knaur.

Macmillan is proud to be an equal opportunity employer consistently striving to foster a culture where everyone belongs. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and identities. Qualified applicants are evaluated without regard to race, color, religion, age, ethnicity, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability status, physical ability, neurodiversity, genetic information, protected veteran status, family and economic status and background or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. We prohibit discrimination of any kind and will provide reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities in accordance with applicable law.