Job Description

Director of Consumer Insights, Strategy and Planning (12 Month Contract)

Job ID : 5701
Category : Sonnet Insurance
Brand : Sonnet
Regular/Temporary : Temporary
Fulltime/Parttime : Full Time
Location : Toronto, Canada


Sonnet is part of Definity, which includes some of Canada’s most long-standing and innovative insurance brands, including Economical Insurance, Sonnet Insurance, Family Insurance Solutions, and Petline Insurance. With strong roots that date back to 1871, Definity has grown to become a digital leader in the insurance industry. We’re proud to help our clients and communities adapt and thrive in a world of constant change. Our promise to you: It’s better here. Why? Because we CARE, and we provide an employee experience that’s collaborative, ambitious, rewarding, and empowering. Our ambition is to be one of Canada’s leading and most innovative P&C insurers. Come be a part of our journey, and love what you do. Starting in September, Definity employees move to a hybrid work model so we can collaborate, build mentoring relationships, and solve complex or cross-functional business opportunities together. Our teams work in whichever environment best supports what they're working on and who they're working with. We're actively reinventing our offices as welcoming workspaces that optimize collaboration and empower leaders to use our space to strengthen team dynamics. Our tools and processes seamlessly connect employees from multiple locations, and our culture encourages respectful engagement and flexibility. Leaders work with their teams to determine the right balance of on-site and remote work that best meets the needs of their team, cross-functional engagement, responsibilities and timelines, plus those of our customers, our broker partners, and the company culture. What can you expect in this role? As a fully digital insurance company that’s growing quickly, we are seeking a Director to join the Business Insights & Planning team at Sonnet Insurance to help our organization scale by driving actionable insights for multiple business stakeholders. The Director, Consumer Insights, Strategy and Planning is a key role, supporting the Sonnet leadership team by building a comprehensive understanding of the direct insurance market and identifying target areas and segments of opportunity to help Sonnet achieve its goal of scaling profitable premium. The role leads all customer research strategy and design, measurement, analysis and reporting across the business and works closely with other teams to tell a holistic story of the target Sonnet customer. The role also requires tying these insights together into the annual Sonnet planning process as well as ongoing mid-year forecasting cycles to help inform short- and long-term strategic direction. Building, mentoring, coaching, an efficient team, and partnering across internal (Sonnet and Definity) stakeholders and external partners is an important part of the role, as is supporting the business through strategic guidance, thought leadership, and analytical excellence. This role is on an influential team, is highly visible, and provides exposure to numerous business functions. It is a great opportunity for a driven candidate who is an advocate for insight led decisioning. The successful candidate will have a strong passion for using data to generate insights to help solve business problems and will possess a relentless curiosity with a desire for challenging and improving the status quo. Your Impact:

• Consumer Insights & Strategy
  • Develop and lead comprehensive consumer insights strategy using a full range of research and analytics tools to support the business plan and inform strategic direction.
  • Develop and own customer segmentation for Sonnet, ensure alignment across the Sonnet stakeholder teams as well as shared service support including with Pricing and Product teams. Continue to evolve segmentation as consumer attitude and demand shifts, utilizing external partners as needed to build and refine.
  • Drive consumer insights through the integration of various customer data sources including research, data & product analytics, customer experience and social media - to provide a comprehensive understanding of customer needs. Tie these insights and trends back to Sonnet strategic goals to determine/ prioritize opportunities and align resources accordingly.
  • Integrate and share key customer insights, trends and key performance metrics across Sonnet stakeholder teams. Identify critical knowledge gaps in market and consumer understanding, based on continuous assessment, and ensure gaps are filled across the business with best-practice and measurement approaches.
  • Provide insight and support to Sonnet and Definity leadership team through various forums as needed by creation of key presentations/documents.
  • Oversee and manage cost-effective market research budget.
• Market & Competitive Dynamics
  • Stay informed on changing market dynamics within the insurance segment including both consumer demands/needs and product. Track and understand trends in vehicle, real estate sales as the potential to impact both new business and retention in the industry or to explain current business performance.
  • Have a thorough understanding of the digital insurance market; investigate trends.
  • Monitor competitive activity including: shifts in marketing mix (channels) and creative approach, competitive pricing changes in the Auto and Property segments where data is available, relative competitiveness via web traffic comparatives, share of voice etc.
• Brand Strategy
  • Leverage brand strategy/framework as it ties to target customer segmentation, to maximize premium scale potential in profitable segments; maintain alignment/consistency with approach across all stakeholders including Marketing, UX
  • Ensure appropriate brand tracking studies (including benchmarking) to measure awareness levels across provinces and products. Identify gaps to benchmark and potential strategies to close gaps.
  • Develop appropriate testing, tracking, and benchmarking of advertising and marketing efficacy with respect to overall Sonnet brand awareness.
• Business Planning
  • Leverage market insight and strategic direction to inform and manage the development of the annual 3-year plan; engage and partner with other teams across Sonnet and Definity to ensure alignment across all inputs of plan and forecast.
  • Assist the AVP with the annual operating budget process. Track and report on performance relative to plan and manage ongoing rolling forecast updates.
  • Cultivates and monitor key performance indicators, highlighting trends and analyzing causes of unexpected variances.
• Leadership
  • Provides leadership by inspiring others to drive engagement, innovation and business outcomes.
  • Develops and mentors a high performance, analytical team that is engaged and collaborative in their work,
  • Builds and enhances team competency - leading the team to accomplish more than its individual contributors.
  • Supports various business stakeholders on ad-hoc analysis with timely strategic insights and recommendations.
  • Assists in vendor sourcing, procurement, onboarding and management, also investigating and identifying new data sources, vendors, analytics opportunities.

What do you bring to the role? Requirements:

• Master's or Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, Mathematics, and/or quantitative discipline
• 7-10 years of progressive experience in marketing, market research, or strategy.
• Experience conducting market and custom research, having worked within or with research companies in the past - including sampling, survey design, concept/new product testing, pricing, brand/product positioning, brand health, brand communication testing, voice of the consumer methodologies.
• Experience developing, conducting and analyzing surveys such as GetFeedBack, VWO, Medallia or has moderated in past
• Expert use of Excel, expert use of PowerPoint, intermediate use of Tableau or similar.
• Proven understanding of statistical concepts.

Skills and Abilities:

• Excellent spoken and written communications, with the ability to effectively communicate complex analytical findings to non-technical audiences through development of clear visualizations and storytelling.
• Superior organization skills, attention to detail and demonstrated commitment to accuracy.
• Demonstrated strong business acumen, strong interpersonal skills and customer focused mentality.
• Excellent team player able to work in an agile operating model, including working with virtual cross-functional teams.
• Strong analytical mind and a passion for metrics and KPIs.
• Self-driven, comfortable with ambiguity, ownership and able to thrive in a fast-paced environment.

Nice-to-Have’s:

• Experience in a startup environment, financial services or insurance industry an asset.
• Working knowledge or experience in the following: survey tools (GetFeedBack, VWO, etc), digital analytics capabilities (Google Analytics, FullStory, SimilarWeb), CRM (Salesforce), research tools (SPSS).
• Experience with business planning and forecasting and understanding of P&Ls.

We also take potential into consideration. If you don’t have this exact experience, but you know you have what it takes, be sure to give us more insight through your application and cover letter. Go ahead and expect a lot — you deserve it, and we’ve got it:

• Hybrid work schedule for most roles
• Company share ownership program
• Pension and savings programs, with company-matched RRSP contributions
• Paid volunteer days and company matching on charitable donations
• Educational resources, tuition assistance, and paid time off to study for exams
• Focus on inclusion with employee groups, support for gender affirmation surgery, access to BIPOC counsellors, access to programs for working parents
• Wellness and recognition programs
• Discounts on products and services

Our inclusive work environment welcomes diversity and supports accessibility. If you require accommodation at any time during the recruitment process, please let us know by contacting: [email protected] Background checks
This role requires successful clearance of a background check (including criminal checks and leadership references). #LI-Hybrid