Senior Consumer Insights & Innovation Lead

A bit about us 

Trek is an awesome place to work, with amazing benefits for all employees. We build only products we love, provide incredible hospitality to our customers, and change the world by getting more people on bikes. When you’re on our team, you’re taken care of, encouraged to learn and grow, and given lots of opportunities to do so. Give us your best, and we’ll give it right back. Sound pretty sweet? Then come join us!
 

Job Description

As a Senior Consumer Insights & Innovation Lead, you will help Trek become better at identifying what riders and potential customers will need next and deciding which opportunities are worth pursuing. You will build and champion a strategic research approach that connects emerging rider behaviors, unmet needs, market signals, and customer value to future product opportunities.

You will work at the intersection of Research, Design, and Product Management to identify and investigate opportunities, partner closely with designers as concepts take shape, rigorously test what matters to customers, and bring clear evidence and implications to Product teams as they make investment decisions. This is a senior individual-contributor role with broad influence and a high degree of ownership.

This is an onsite role at our HQ in Waterloo, WI.

Key Responsibilities

Opportunity Discovery

• Identify emerging rider behaviors, unmet needs, changing expectations, and emerging customer groups before they become obvious to the market.

• Combine primary research with market research, trend analysis, competitive intelligence, social/community analysis, and available behavioral or business data to develop a point of view.

• Frame opportunity areas in ways that help Design and Product understand who the customer is, what is changing, why it matters, and what could be worth building.

• Build and maintain an opportunity pipeline that helps Trek see beyond the current product roadmap and respond to meaningful changes in rider behavior.

Research Strategy & Planning

• Own the research strategy, methodology, decision metrics, and rigor for opportunity discovery and validation, while working closely with Design and Product throughout the process.

• Determine the right mix of qualitative, quantitative, observational, behavioral, and secondary research for each question.

• Create clear research plans, briefs, hypotheses, and decision criteria that keep investigations focused on learning that can change a business or product decision.

• Use external research partners and specialists when sophisticated quantitative work, specialized fieldwork, international research, segmentation, pricing, or other expertise is required.

Rider & Customer Research

• Conduct and/or lead interviews, observation, field research, concept conversations, and other direct research with riders, non-Trek riders, and potential new category customers.

• Go beyond what customers say they want to understand what they actually do, what problems they work around, what they value, and what motivates them to spend.

• Partner with Design and Product on selective field research and synthesize findings into actionable opportunity definitions.

• Lead cross-functional observational research, including facilitating collaborative workshops and synthesis activities.

Concept & Opportunity Validation

• Partner with Design as concepts are developed, leading teams in the translate customer needs into testable hypotheses.

• Design and lead research that determines what customers value, what they would choose, what they reject, and what elements create meaningful differentiation.

• Assess commercial potential through measures such as customer importance, purchase intent, choice behavior, willingness to pay, likely behavior growth, and potential to attract new customers.

• Provide a clear level of confidence and identify what is known, what is uncertain, and what needs to be learned before additional investment.

Synthesis & Influence

• Connect research findings to product strategy, business opportunity, and portfolio choices rather than delivering research findings in isolation.

• Present evidence, implications, and recommendations to Product leaders, Design leaders, and executives in a clear and compelling way.

• Challenge assumptions when evidence does not support a proposed direction and help teams stop, redirect, or strengthen ideas before significant investment is made.

Capability Building

• Establish a repeatable process for identifying emerging behaviors and translating them into product opportunities.

• Build lightweight infrastructure such as a rider/customer panel, research repository, research partner network, standard methods, and reusable research and opportunity assessment tools.

• Help establish a common language and decision framework for distinguishing interesting hypotheses, promising opportunities, validated opportunities, and opportunities ready for investment decisions.

• Help shape the future research organization as the capability expands from physical products into digital experiences and additional regions.

What Success Looks Like

In the first 18 months, the successful candidate will have established a credible, repeatable way for Trek to discover what riders will need next and generate stronger evidence for where to place product (both physical and digital) bets.

• 0–6 months: Establish the Research + Design operating model, opportunity discovery framework, rider/customer access, external research partner network, and first opportunity investigations.

• 6–12 months: Establish a repeatable emerging-behavior process, investigate multiple high-potential opportunities, partner with Design on concept development, and begin concept/value validation.

• 12–18 months: Identify 2-4 meaningful product opportunities, including opportunities competitors have not yet acted on, opportunities with potential to attract new customers or command premium value, and examples where research redirected or prevented investment in weaker ideas.

• Build trust with Product and Design by consistently bringing evidence that improves the quality and confidence of product investment decisions.

Requirements

• Experience: 7+ years of experience in consumer research, strategic insights, innovation, product strategy, product management, or a closely related field.

• Research expertise: Strong qualitative and behavioral research skills, including interviewing, observation, synthesis, and opportunity framing.

• Quantitative capability: Strong quantitative literacy with experience developing or evaluating concept testing, purchase intent, willingness-to-pay, segmentation, demand sizing, or similar research

• Strategic thinking: Demonstrated ability to connect customer evidence, market signals, and business considerations to product or innovation opportunities.

• Communication: Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills, with the ability to distill complex information into clear points of view for senior stakeholders.

• Collaboration: Proven ability to work closely with designers and product managers while maintaining research independence, rigor, and objectivity.

• Mindset: Naturally curious, comfortable with ambiguity, proactive in identifying questions worth investigating, and willing to challenge conventional thinking with evidence. Open to and excited about A.I.’s potential to enhance, simplify, and redesign your workflow and tools.

• Industry: Experience in consumer products, sports, outdoor, mobility, lifestyle, or another category where understanding changing consumer behavior is central to product success is preferred but not required.

• Travel: Ability to travel internationally and within the U.S. as needed for research, fieldwork, team collaboration, and customer engagement.

Trek Benefits:

•    Flexible and fun company culture
•    Competitive health care
•    PPO & HDHP medical plan options, Dental insurance, Vision insurance
•    Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
•    Free life insurance & optional term life insurance
•    Competitive vacation package
•    401(k) with match and Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOP)
•    12 weeks of maternity leave with 100% pay
•    Flexible holiday schedule – 10 company holidays
•    Tuition Reimbursement up to $15,000! (Undergraduate & Masters programs)
•    Employee discounts on all product
•    Deep partner retail discounts

We are an Equal Employment Opportunity (“EEO”) Employer. Trek strictly prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, gender, gender identity, pregnancy, marital status, partnership status, sexual orientation, age, national origin, veteran or military status, disability, medical condition, genetic information, or any other characteristic prohibited by federal, state and/or local laws.  This policy applies to all aspects of employment, including hiring, promotion, demotion, compensation, training, working conditions, transfer, job assignments, benefits, layoff, and termination.

We are an E-Verify employer.

For more information, please click on the following links:
E-Verify Participation Poster: English / Spanish
E-Verify Right to Work Poster: English | Spanish