Cornell University

McGill University

Director Insights - International Markets at LambWeston

Strategic business partner with key cross-functional stakeholders for identifying domestic and international market opportunities, evaluating brand health, measuring marketing program effectiveness, and assessing the strength of global product portfolios.  Oversee and personally conduct large-scale, global strategic research that drives competitive advantage for Lamb Weston.  Manage three-person commercial insights team supporting the foodservice and chain business units.
-	Design and maintain country-specific product A&U studies to guide selling stories, refine regional product portfolios, and anticipate new products and emerging channel opportunities.
-	Lead brand health assessment and present implications to the executive leadership team in support of marketing and innovation annual operating plans and budgets.
-	Proactively influenced organization to rethink sales approach with independent operators by executing a global attitudinal business segmentation, path to purchase study, and journey mapping exercise.

Lamb Weston

Director Commercial Knowledge and  Insights - Domestic and  International Markets

Recruited to build and lead a market research team of 3 to capture and articulate deep customer and consumer insight, and identify key category, competitive, and consumer trends to grow sales and increase market share.  The team supported general business and marketing goals across all critical parts of the organization including brand and menu strategy, menu pricing, product development, communications, operations, and customer experience.
- Developed custom, cost-effective, and extremely quick consumer validation process for national marketing calendar to identify the biggest and best promotions and LTOs.  This approach helped drive 19 consecutive months of record-breaking sales and 3 1/2 years of positive same-store sales.
- Designed an innovative approach to competitive product benchmarking to identify product improvement opportunities.  Then worked with innovation and brand teams to reformulate products that reversed negative unit sales.
- Directed multi-study consumer research initiative to uncover deeper consumer insights with millennials in order to hyper-focus product, daypart, and communication strategies resulting in the third strongest traffic growth with this group among top QSR chains in 12 months ending May 2016.

Sonic Drive-In

Sr. Director Market Research

Promoted to Director Insights based on the business impact of the market research function.  When promoted requested and received expanded budget (3X) and additional staff (3 direct reports) to increase insights support for brand pricing strategy, customer segmentation, and longer term innovation.
- Developed a proprietary restaurant operator segmentation model for the USA business whose value was recognized corporately and rolled out globally.
- Directed insights work on the Better For You potato portfolio including the Burger King Satisfy.
- Guided multi-study consumer research to reposition the potato and retail pizza businesses.

McCain Foods USA

Director, Insights

Responsible for market research goals, budget, vendor selection and managment to support all market research needs for the company's retail (pizza and potato) and foodservice (appetizers and potato) businesses.
- Appointed to the global Market Research Center of Excellence to lead the implementation of USA foodservice research approaches worldwide.
- Staged an innovation summit to identify  next generation product platforms, and designed/executed research to capture ongoing consumer and restaurant operator feedback from early idea screening through product development and launch.

Sr. Market Research Manager

Hired to bring marketing research expertise to the company.  Promoted after two years based on results.
- Established fact based sales culture with the "Selling Sound Bites" program
- Played an integral role in sourcing and analyzing data for strategic planning

Marketing Research Manager

Managed a five-person account team with subscription revenues of $1.7 million.  The team focused on integrated data solutions for foodservice manufacturers that purchased both CREST and IFMATRAC products.
- Lead project team that designed and launched three automated charting software tools for the CREST product that improved profitability by 5%.
- Served on NPD's product steering committee focused on refining manufacturer applications & pricing for CREST and IFMATRAC products.

The NPD Group

Sr. Account Executive, Client Service

Managed 15 accounts including major chain restaurants and foodservice manufacturers.  Responsible for developing and delivering targeted quarterly CREST client presentations, and collaborating with manufacturing clients to develop fact based customer sales presentations.
- Designed and lead client training seminars on leveraging CREST information to facilitate sales and marketing decisions.
- Recognized as a top public presenter at the  Annual Subscribers meeting March 1997

Account Executive, Client Service

Prepared quarterly presentations and reports, assisted in presentation delivery and conducted new user training sessions.

Project Director / Senior Project Director

Managed new product development including discovery, prototype development (including the Cheddar Bay Biscuit), equipment selection, in-store testing, and national launch that surpassed expectations.

Darden Restaurants

Marketing Supervisor

Conducted customer satisfaction, product quality and advertising research.

Andrea Hickman