Director Market Intelligence & Strategic Insights

The Enterprise Growth team, led by the Chief Growth Officer, exists to bring clarity, focus, and economic discipline to Staples’ growth agenda by enabling better, more informed choices about where and how to grow. The team acts as a custodian of enterprise focus, a translator of strategy into tactical execution, and an embedded thought partner to the Senior Leadership Team (SLT). In this role, the team is tasked with ensuring the company grows profitably and sustainably, serving as an integrator across businesses and functions to connect strategy to execution, clarify trade-offs, and focus resources on the highest-return opportunities.

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The Director of Market Intelligence & Strategic Insights is responsible for building and operating a market and competitor “signal engine” that informs Staples’ enterprise growth agenda. This role will lead with data by gathering, validating, and synthesizing external market and competitive inputs into clear insights on opportunities, risks, and emerging dynamics relevant to Staples’ strategic initiatives and Growth Pyramid priorities.

This leader must be an unbiased, high-credibility communicator who can frame complex external signals into clear decision inputs. These insights will directly inform strategic decisions by ensuring growth forums and strategic reviews are grounded in a shared external fact base, with clear implications and explicit trade-offs. They will work directly with Senior Leadership Team (SLT) members to help define the most critical questions facing Staples’ growth agenda, delivering insights that translate into clear implications for SLT decisions.

The role will build a small team (1–2 analysts), and will operate with AI-first principles, designing scalable architecture, automated reporting, and repeatable insight workflows that reduce manual effort and increase consistency.

Duties & Responsibilities

External Data Strategy & “Single Source of Truth”

· Define the external data strategy for Enterprise Growth: what sources matter (market, competitor, platform signals), how often they refresh, and what “gold standard” outputs the enterprise should trust 
· Establish governance around definitions and comparability (e.g., ensuring leadership debates are anchored on shared definitions instead of conflicting lenses)

Market & Competitive Intelligence 

· Monitor market trends, customer behavior, and competitor moves relevant to Staples’ growth agenda 
· Translate signals into enterprise growth implications, surfacing what changed, why it matters, and what risks/opportunities it creates

Competitive Economics & Pricing Implications 

· Translate external market and competitor signals into quantified economic implications (e.g., pricing posture, elasticity assumptions, channel mechanics), including scenarios and clear “so what” impacts on margin, volume, and share

Strategic Initiative Assessments 

· Partner with SLT members and initiative owners to define hypotheses, success metrics, and post-mortems so insights continually improve execution and decision-making over time 
· Produce unbiased risk & opportunity briefs for priority initiatives, connecting insights to value (revenue, margin, retention, cost‑to‑serve, and risk), and informing initiative design, sequencing, and success criteria

Growth Pyramid & Enterprise Strategy Support 

· Support Growth Pyramid reviews with fact-based external context and pressure-test key assumptions using outside-in market/competitive insights 
· Establish monthly/quarterly update cadence

Cross-Functional Signal Integration 

· Align with functional analytics teams on shared inputs, definitions, and refresh cadence so internal and external views reconcile into one story 
· Embed external demand and competitive insights into test-and-learn and pricing governance with Revenue Management, Merchandising, Digital, and Marketing, ensuring evaluation criteria reflect “go-to-market” realities

External Vendor & Data Partnership Management 

· Manage external data providers / research partners where needed (e.g., market share providers and competitive datasets), including ensuring the outputs are actionable and properly caveated

AI-First Reporting & Scalable Architecture 

· Design scalable, automated reporting and synthesis workflows using AI to reduce manual effort and accelerate insight generation 
· Build repeatable “signal-to-insight” pipelines (e.g., ingestion → cleaning → triangulation → executive summary) and establish an operating rhythm for distribution

People Leadership

· Stand up and develop a team of 1–2 associates 
· Oversee responsibilities, performance, and development of the team 
· Conduct performance appraisals, coach direct and indirect reports, and foster a culture of continuous improvement and collaboration

What You Bring to the Table

This leader is deeply analytical and externally oriented, with the ability to gather, validate, and synthesize market and competitor data into insights that senior leaders trust. They bring a customer-first lens, framing insights around customer friction and outcomes that reinforce Staples’ North Star (making work easy through Expert Guidance, Workplace Solutions, and World‑Class Reliability).

They are a strong, unbiased communicator who turns signal into clear implications and crisp executive narratives. They build trust across leaders and functional teams to drive alignment. They are inclusive and curious—actively seeking diverse perspectives, experimenting with new data sources and AI tools, and continuously raising the bar on rigor and clarity through feedback and learning.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's Degree required (Business, Finance, Economics, Statistics, Data Science or related field)
• MBA or advanced degree, especially where it strengthens strategic framing and analytics depth preferred
• Minimum 7+ market/competitive intelligence, strategy, analytics, consulting, or comparable roles with demonstrated external data synthesis and executive communication.
• 2+ years in a leadership role defining workstreams and driving insights from complex data preferred

Qualifications

• Demonstrated ability to build and defend an external market/competitive point of view using rigorous data, not anecdotes.
• Strong analytical capability; comfortable working with ambiguous, messy external datasets and triangulating sources.
• Excellent executive communication (written + verbal); can translate signal into “so what” implications.
• Strong project management and ability to build repeatable operating rhythms for insight delivery.
• Demonstrated ability to lead teams and develop talent.
• Ability to work well in a dynamic environment.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite alongside experience testing and utilizing AI tools to drive productivity and insights.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing scalable reporting / intelligence workflows, including automation and AI-assisted synthesis.
• Familiarity with market data sources and limitations (e.g., where market share is available vs not available at SKU level).
• Understanding of competitive dynamics in e-commerce and marketplaces and implications for pricing / value propositions.
• Understanding of the B2B distribution, office products, or business services industry.
• Team-orientation with an affinity for influencing and working across functions in a dynamic, often-changing environment.