Director, Customer Insights

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Job Category
Development & Strategy

Job Details

About Salesforce

Salesforce is the #1 AI CRM, where humans with agents drive customer success together. Here, ambition meets action. Tech meets trust. And innovation isn't a buzzword - it's a way of life. The world of work as we know it is changing and we're looking for Trailblazers who are passionate about bettering business and the world through AI, driving innovation, and keeping Salesforce's core values at the heart of it all.

Ready to level-up your career at the company leading workforce transformation in the agentic era? You're in the right place! Agentforce is the future of AI, and you are the future of Salesforce.

Director, Customer Insights (Thought Leadership)

Overview

• Lead the Thought Leadership Insights pod, managing and mentoring a team of four researchers / data analysts.
• Provide strategic oversight for three flagship research programs, ensuring all initiatives are aligned with key marketing goals and top company priorities:
  
  
  • "State of" Research Portfolio: Direct the development and publication of major annual reports (e.g., State of Service, State of IT), ensuring they provide cutting-edge insights and actionable, marketable data points.
  • Buyer Insights Portfolio: Guide the research strategy encompassing Buyer Personas, Buyer Committees, and Buyer Pains (e.g., CIO, CDO studies), to deeply inform internal decision-making and strategic marketing for key products like Agentforce.
  • Customer Success Metrics (CSM): Oversee the strategy for the Customer Success Metrics program, validating Salesforce's value and ROI across various customer segments and personas.

• Serve as a player and coach-comfortable with hands-on research and also leading others to be hands-on-actively engaging in the design and execution of complex, high-impact quantitative and qualitative studies.
• Translate data into insights and insights into meaningful recommendations for senior leadership. This requires synthesizing findings across multiple studies/programs (e.g., connecting a Buyer Pain Point report with the latest Customer Success Metrics data) to form integrated, holistic strategic guidance.
• Successfully develop compelling, public-facing research initiatives and navigate their unique development lifecycle, from initial concept to external thought leadership dissemination, in close partnership with PR, Legal, and Marketing teams.

• Manage the full lifecycle of research execution, including effective management of supplier relationships and spend. Must be comfortable running both in-house and agency-led research, ensuring quality control and maximizing ROI across all projects.
• Partner with senior marketing leaders and key cross-functional partners to establish the strategic direction and research roadmap priorities.
• Work in a highly-matrixed organization and still drive results, effectively managing dependencies, influencing stakeholders without direct authority, and driving complex projects to completion.
• Navigate ambiguity to drive success, demonstrating flexibility and clear decision-making when initial research paths or organizational structures become complex or unclear.

• 8+ years of increasing responsibility in market research, customer insights, or a related strategic analytics field, with deep specialization in quantitative methodology (e.g., advanced survey design and statistical analysis).
• 3-5+ years of experience managing and mentoring a team of researchers, data analysts, and/or data scientists. Must be a proven player-coach comfortable with both hands-on research execution and strategic oversight.
• Proven expertise in successfully developing, launching, and socializing large-scale, public-facing research programs. Must demonstrate the ability to translate complex technology concepts (e.g., Agentic AI) into compelling business narratives for executive audiences, internally and externally.
• Demonstrated ability to synthesize insights from disparate data sources (primary research, secondary data, competitive intelligence) to form integrated, strategic recommendations for C-suite and executive audiences.
• Exceptional written communication skills, with the ability to craft - and coach others to craft - clear, compelling narratives in our unique brand voice and tone.
• Experience with managing the unique data quality, security, and legal/compliance considerations when fielding research and publishing public data, ensuring all materials meet Salesforce's high standards for external communication.
• Past experience in managing research budgets and overseeing relationships with external research agencies and suppliers, ensuring high-quality, efficient execution of global studies.
• A blend of supplier-side (agency) and client-side experience.