Queen's University

Senior Director, Marketing Guest Insights

Thrivent

Vice President, Client Insights & Strategy

A Fortune 50 company with ~2,000 retail locations, over 300K employees, and $100B in omnichannel sales. 
	
Partner with senior executives in marketing and merchandising to ensure the guest point of view is central to decision making across Target’s key businesses. Report to the VP of Enterprise Insights.

EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP | CAPABILITY BUILDING | INSIGHTS & STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT 
•	Built an enterprise-wide insights team with a clear strategy, a learning culture, innovative approaches, consistent routines, and strong leadership.
•	Implemented a business strategy development capability (developed in previous role) to support the needs of all merchandising SVPs. Identified challenges and unlocked exponential opportunities across businesses and seasons. E.g., Holiday, Food, Activewear, The Future of Data Privacy, Mexican Americans.
•	Facilitated sessions with senior leaders focused on consumer insights and empathy-building to activate changes to current and future strategies. 
•	Collaborate with executive leaders in merchandising and marketing to establish annual learning plans. 
•	Built an owned-brand insights capability to support a new approach to owned brand development.
•	Introduced behavioral science to the organization and championed its successful application in the development of more effective store experiences. 

TEAM LEADERSHIP | CULTURE DEVELOPMENT | PROJECT MANAGEMENT
•	Managed team members in the U.S. and India overseeing insights for all business units and seasonal holidays.
•	Developed deep, differentiated, and unbiased insights that reframe how leaders see significant business challenges and unlock exponential opportunities.
•	Developed implications of insights on consumer behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, needs, and values to guide decision-making at the business-unit and enterprise level.
•	Built teams with a strong learning culture, that lead with curiosity and were recognized as the “gold standard” for diversity and inclusion.

Target

Sr. Director, Enterprise Insights

Supported top merchandising and marketing executives in Apparel and Home on consumer-led business strategy development, while also leading a project team of insights consultants.
•	Built a business strategy development capability as part of Insights’ team offering. Worked with senior leaders to articulate new strategies in Home, Apparel & Accessories, Enterprise Risk, Dermstore.com, Back to School, etc.
•	Co-founded an Innovation team that used design thinking and the Lean Start-Up approach to experiment with new business models and guest experiences for Target’s Apparel business.
•	Pioneered one- and two-day guest immersions for Target’s C-suite, as a critical tool for building empathy for our guests and driving more guest-centric strategy development and decision making. 
•	Led consumer research on the style aesthetics Target offered in Apparel, which led to the repositioning of several apparel owned brands, and the development of new apparel owned brands.

Director, Enterprise Insights - Apparel & Accessories and Home

Insights lead for merchandising and marketing teams in Home, Food & Beverage, and Seasonal Holidays.
•	Helped position and track Target’s new fresh grocery experience.
•	Led communication strategy development, in partnership with our ad agency, for Holiday marketing campaigns.
•	Led insights projects that reinvented the store experience in various Home and Food & Beverage categories.

Sr. Manager, Enterprise Insights

Led all marketing efforts for Target’s food and beverage owned brands. 
•	Responsible for clarifying and maintaining Archer Farms’ and Market Pantry’s brand positioning and visual identity as hundreds of SKUs were rolled out every month across all food and beverage categories. 
•	Led the development of Archer Farm’s first national print, TV, and digital advertising campaign.
•	Strategic lead on Target’s new fresh grocery store experience in its non-Super Target stores.
•	Part of the core team that developed and launched the Simply Balanced owned brand in food & beverage, which won an Enterprise Recognition award from senior leadership.

Sr. Manager, Brand & Category Marketing

Managed the Nestlé Purina dog food account in Latin America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and Africa in partnership with the Publicis Worldwide global agency network. Brands included Pro Plan, Dog Chow, Beneful, and Purina One. 
•	Partnered with the NPP Global Strategic Business Unit in St. Louis to solve strategic and creative communication issues facing key global brands outside the U.S.
•	Member of the pitch team that won the Nestlé Purina Petcare dog business worldwide for Fallon & Publicis.
•	Led Fallon’s first partnership with the Publicis agency network and its first foray into managing a Latin American account.
•	Oversaw the successful brand communications launches of Purina Beneful in Europe and Latin America.

Steve Prentice