Qualitative Senior Research Executive

**Description**:
**Overview of the role**:
You will be working with multi-national clients and play a key role in co-developing creative solutions to their biggest business challenges. Working across a range of industries, supporting diverse business needs including branding, communications, strategic planning, customer experience, product development and consumer behaviour you will be part of the team ensuring we deliver exceptional insights across qualitative research projects.

This is a **South African based** regional client servicing role.

**Responsibilities**:
**KEY PERFORMANCE AREA’S**:
**Research Design**:

- Working with Research Directors across the MDI network, you will help design research programs that provide answers to clients business questions
- Appraising client briefs to understand clients’ needs and business objectives
- Demonstrate critical thinking and research knowledge to produce effective proposals
- Collaborate with clients to suggest and implement best practice research designs and output
- Input and develop Discussion and In-depth interviewing guides
- Running qualitative in-the-moment data collection processes in collaboration with the qualitative team

**Project Management**:

- Manage projects to ensure that they deliver against agreed goals, and within required budgets and timelines
- Schedule and lead regular planning and review meetings
- Highlighting project management concerns with your manager to ensure seamless client service
- Ability to work outside of defined parameters and be able to adapt to situations as they change
- Prepare simple project costings for the Director's sign-off, including the liaison with suppliers
- Building strong relationships with suppliers to ensure the best project outcomes for MDI

**Moderation & FW**:

- Ability to moderate consumer groups, in-depth interviews, lead ethnographies and conduct general FW across a variety of demographic groups.
- Liaise with FW suppliers in setting up research projects and ensuring the correct consumer mix is achieved for all qualitative projects.

**Reporting**:

- Working with Research Directors inputting into all elements of reporting, such as the analysis requirements, inputting data into charts, checking data in the charts, assisting with report commentary and summary.
- Providing insight recommendations that align to the client's research and business objectives.
- Commitment to producing insightful, high-quality and timely deliverables to our clients.

**Client **Engagement**:
MDI is renowned for its excellent high-level interactions with its clients, we strive to understand their business to enable us to be true partners.
- Proactively sell the benefits of MDI to potential clients.
- Day to day interaction & relationship building with existing clients.
- Proactive & responsive communication with all clients.
- Consistent timely delivery.
- Present to client audiences in an engaged and energized way.

**Teamwork & Collaboration**:
Effective and efficient team member who demonstrates a strong spirit of collaboration, openness towards people of different cultures and a proactive attitude to build relationships internally and externally with teams and markets beyond one’s own.

**Requirements**:
**Skills & Experience**:

- 2+ years of qualitative research experience on agency side.
- Hands on project management, discussion guide/IDI design, moderation and reporting experience.
- Bachelor’s degree in business management, Psychology, Sociology, Journalism, Commerce, Marketing or any relevant field of study,.
- Digital savvy and technological curious.
- Proactive creative thinker and communicator.
- Organization and time management skills - self-motivated in a fast-paced environment and able to effectively juggle multiple projects, deliverables, and deadlines simultaneously while ensuring work is accurate, neat and generally error-free.
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
- A willingness to learn, a proactive attitude and strong communication skills.
- The ability to work within tight deadlines.
- Flexibility to work collaboratively as well as autonomously.
- Exceptional time management to and task-oriented project management skills.
- Proactive problem-solver, but not afraid to ask for assistance.
- Strong social skills and ability to proactively take briefings and provide immediate suggestions.
- Creatively think of ways to optimise mobile data collection and drive response.
- Proficient use of Microsoft office - particularly PowerPoint & Word.
- Work outside of defined parameters and be able adapt to situations as they change.
- Hands on online and mobile research experience is an advantage.
- Language skills - excellent verbal and written English (Arabic, French and/or Portuguese language skills would be a plus).
- Experience conducting research across various African markets (specifically Egypt, Kenya and Nigeria) would be a plus.
- Good client engagement skills.

**Attitudes &