Research Director

About the role

The purpose of the Research Director role is to ensure Knit customers successfully achieve their desired research outcomes through their partnerships with Knit. By owning customer relationships, getting deeply engrained in customer research needs, and driving high-quality project deliverables, the Research Director's impact is ultimately measured by positive customer retention and expansion. Responsibilities | What you will own... The research function is a primary contributor to Knit's shared business objectives of customer retention and upsells, ultimately measured by Net Revenue Retention (NRR) in addition to supporting successful Pilot to Subscription Conversions for acquiring new business. The levers the Research Director role owns to influence these key business objectives are: Research Success → Ensuring Knit Customers successfully achieve their desired research outcomes through their projects with Knit, measured by successfully achieving Research Objectives and delivering on Knit's Quality & Speed service-level agreements (SLA's) Primary responsibilities of this role: Serving as the dedicated research lead for all customers' projects (on assigned accounts) and serving as the ultimate accountable party for research project success Driving and documenting in-depth project scoping to uncover a deep understanding of research objectives and project context to set up project success Driving as the strategic problem solver and research subject matter expert partner for customers, effectively being able to propose solutions to business & research needs Driving as a solutions architect for customers, educating them on Knit's research capabilities, consulting with them to adjust for fringe requirements, and proposing solutions to maximize project success Driving, maintaining, and enriching all customer context to improve Knit's ability to meet the customers' custom research needs Participating in continuous innovation on Knit's AI product to minimize the delta between Knit's AI output and a human researcher output Being the final, customer-ready check and approver on all Knit final topline delivery and presenting the key insights and recommendations directly to the customers Driving on feedback collection on "the last mile" - uncovering and documenting what happens after Knit delivers a project to when it's "stakeholder ready," supporting Knit's product vision in getting to stakeholder ready reports Successful & effective people management of direct reports, ensuring they are successfully fulfilling their role's responsibilities and growing in impact (People Management at Knit includes driving performance, driving clarity and accountability, hiring, onboarding, upskilling competencies, performance management, conflict resolution, and morale building.) Required Skills & Experiences Required: Must have 8+ years of market research experience, with the majority of the time spent on the supplier side in a market research agency environment. Must have experience leading discovery and scoping calls, writing and editing quant and qual questionnaires from scratch, drafting analysis plans, and creating and presenting stakeholder-ready insights topline & reports. Ability to drive initiatives and outcomes in ambiguous environments, both for navigating complex customer needs and Knit internal business changes. Proven track record successfully operating in an early stage startup ( Proven track record of owning client relationships with customers at Enterprise, Fortune 500 US-based companies, specifically working with insights professionals to scope and achieve desired research outcomes, resulting in customer retention and growth. Ability to drive initiatives and outcomes successfully in environments with competing priorities, multiple research projects on at a given time, and simultaneous internal business demands. Effective People Manager both cross-functionally and at the team level - specifically in driving clarity and accountability, hiring, onboarding, performance management, conflict resolution, and morale building.