AVP, Customer Research at Canadiantireco… · Toronto

AVP, Customer Research Location: Toronto, ON What You’ll Do The AVP, Customer Research leads the enterprise customer research function, ensuring high‑quality, decision‑ready insights that shape strategy, enable growth priorities, and embed the customer voice across Canadian Tire Corporation. Reporting to the VP, Customer Strategy & Enablement, this role oversees research strategy, vendor and panel ecosystems, and insight delivery in support of CCG, Lighthouse initiatives, category strategy, and enterprise performance management. The AVP partners deeply with Marketing, Merch, Digital, Loyalty, Owned Brands and Corp Dev to ensure research investments are prioritized, actionable, and clearly linked to business outcomes. Key Responsibilities Own enterprise customer research strategy and portfolio aligned to True North Strategy, CCG, Lighthouse enablement, and key enterprise priorities, including intake, prioritization, design, execution, and synthesis of insights. Ensure research directly informs decision-making by partnering with business leaders to shape problem statements, clarify trade-offs, and deliver actionable recommendations tied to business outcomes. Oversee the research ecosystem across vendors, partners, and the company’s owned research panel, ensuring strong panel health, quality, representativeness, value, and innovation. Advance modern research methodologies including always-on tracking, micro-occasion insights, and agile learning approaches. Manage research budgets to drive efficiency and reinvest in higher-value learning. Strengthen insight storytelling, activation, and change enablement so outputs are clear, compelling, and build confidence in customer-led decisions across the enterprise. Create a high-performance, customer-obsessed culture that values curiosity, rigor, and collaboration. What You Bring Bring 10+ years of progressive experience in customer research, insights, strategy, or analytics within a complex organization. Demonstrate strong leadership and stakeholder influence, including leading senior practitioners and external partners and influencing at AVP, VP, and executive levels. Apply deep expertise across qualitative and quantitative methods, including syndicated, custom, advanced analytics, trackers and agile research approaches. Bring hands-on panel management experience, including overseeing an owned research panel and maintaining strong panel health to ensure quality, representativeness, and reliability of insights. Operate with strong strategic and commercial orientation, connecting insights to enterprise strategy, business priorities, and financial outcomes. Communicate with clarity and impact, simplifying complexity and delivering clear, compelling insights to senior, time-constrained audiences. Manage research budgets and vendor portfolios effectively to maximize efficiency, value, and impact. Bring experience applying AI in research, including using AI-enabled tools to accelerate insight generation, improve synthesis, enhance research operations, and identify opportunities to modernize how customer learning is delivered. Hold a bachelor’s degree; a graduate degree (MBA or equivalent) is an asset. #LI-RM1 This posting represents an existing vacancy within our organization. We may use artificial intelligence tools as part of our recruitment process to assist in the initial screening of resumes. All hiring decisions, including candidate evaluation, selection, and disposition, are made by human recruiters. About Us Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited (“CTC”) is one of Canada’s most admired and trusted companies. With more than 90 Owned Brands, 1,700 retail locations, financial services, exemplary e-commerce capabilities, and exciting market-leading merchandising strategies. We dream big and work as one to innovate with purpose for our customers at every level of our business, investing in new technologies and products, and doubling down on top talent to drive the company forward. We offer competitive salaries and wages to CTC employees, as well as store discounts, supported learning through our Triangle Learning Academy, Canadian Tire Profit Sharing, and retirement and savings programs for eligible employees. As part of our enhanced flex benefits program, we offer mental health benefits in the amount of $5,000 per year for benefits-eligible employees and their families, including total well-being, and mental health tools and resources for all employees. Join us in helping to make life in Canada better through living and working our Core Values: we are innovators and entrepreneurs at our core, outcomes drive us, inclusion is a must, we are stronger together and we take personal responsibility. It is an especially exciting time to join CTC and its family of companies where career opportunities are wide-ranging! Join us, where there's a place for you here. Our Commitment to Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging We are committed to fostering an environment where belonging thrives, and diversity, inclusion and equity are infused into everything we do. We believe in building an organizational culture where people are consistently treated with dignity while respecting individual religion, nationality, gender, race, age, perceived ability, spoken language, sexual orientation, and identification. We are united in our purpose of being here to help make life in Canada better. Accommodations We stand firm in our Core Value that inclusion is a must. We welcome and encourage candidates from equity-seeking groups such as people who identify as racialized, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQIA+, women, people with disabilities, and beyond. Should you require any accommodation in applying for this role, or throughout the interview process, please make them known when contacted and we will work with you to help meet your needs.