Director of Insights Analytics

Overview

Job Title:
Director, Insights & Analytics – Marketing (Food Industry)

Location:
Evanston, Chicago ILL

Department:
Marketing

Reports To: VP of Marketing

The most important element of our company background is our purpose. We are a dairy cooperative of cooperatives. We exist to create value for our cooperatives and the 14,000 Irish family dairy farms they support. Ornua is Ireland’s largest exporter of Irish dairy, exporting to over 110 countries with annualised sales of €3.4 billion. We are multi-national, operating from 19 subsidiaries worldwide and employing over 2,300 staff.

Ornua Foods owns the Kerrygold brand and other brands, while Ornua Ingredients supplies dairy ingredients to global manufacturers. Ornua Foods North America is headquartered in Evanston, IL with additional teams in the US. The North America division has delivered double-digit, profitable growth for the last twenty years.

This is a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join a purpose-led organization, lead a high-performing team to drive an iconic brand, and make a difference.

We are looking for a strategic and commercially minded Director of Insights & Analytics to lead the development of data-driven insights that power business strategy and transformative growth. This role is critical in identifying performance drivers across categories, brands, and channels, making use of a wide variety of data and analytics tools both internal and external. The chosen candidate will partner closely with senior leadership to shape strategic plans, uncover growth opportunities, and guide resource allocation in a fast-paced, consumer-centric food business.

• Strategic Insight Leadership:
  Leverage syndicated data (e.g., Nielsen, Circana, SPINS) and other databases/data sources (e.g. Kantar, MMM) along with internal performance metrics to uncover actionable insights that inform brand, category, and channel strategies.
• Performance Analysis & Measurement:
  Identify and explain key drivers of business performance, including market trends, consumer behavior, competitive dynamics, and marketing effectiveness.
• Forecasting & Scenario Planning:
  Support long-term planning and scenario modeling to guide investment decisions and strategic pivots.
• Research:
  Partner with Brand and Innovation Leads to architect research plans that deliver effective outcomes in response to targeted business questions and together with Global CMK, establish best practice protocols to guide local team in delivering robust insights that inform critical work streams.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration:
  
  Act as a strategic partner to senior leaders across Marketing, Sales, Innovation, and Finance to align insights with business priorities and growth initiatives.
• Executive Storytelling:
  Translate complex data into compelling narratives and strategic recommendations for executive audiences.
• Capability Building:
  Champion the use of advanced analytics tools that elevate the organization’s data fluency, optimize the current repertoire of data and insights to unlock additional value within current contracts, continuously scan landscape for new sources of insights that can drive the business to the forefront of data and analytical excellence.

• Bachelor’s degree and MBA qualification in Marketing, Business Analytics, Statistics, Economics, or a related field
• 8–10+ years of experience in marketing analytics, consumer insights, or business intelligence, preferably within the Food/CPG sectors
• Deep expertise in syndicated data sources (e.g., Nielsen, IRI, SPINS) and their application to brand and category strategy
• Strong business acumen and ability to connect data to commercial outcomes
• Proficiency in data visualization and analytics tools (e.g. Power BI)
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills, with a proven ability to influence senior leadership
• Experience leading and developing high-performing analytics teams

• A high-impact role at the intersection of data, strategy, and growth
• The opportunity to shape the future of a dairy brand in double digit growth in the US
• A collaborative, purpose-driven…