Understood is looking to advance its mission and further its impact by hiring a Senior Manager, Strategic Ecosystem Research to provide external research and market perspective to ensure the organization's evolution into a behavior-change organization is grounded in credible evidence.
Requirements
- Experience conducting secondary desk-research and analysis
- Strong working knowledge of the for-profit landscape across industries relevant to Understood (education, tech, health, and mental health)
- Proven ability to frame ambiguous questions into structured research plans and distill many sources of information into powerful, high-impact insights
- AI Fluency: Comfort and demonstrable experience utilizing AI tools to streamline research, build efficiency, and automate data
- Advanced Degree: A Master’s degree in a relevant field (e.g., Public Health, Library Science, Data Science, Strategy)
- Presentation Skills: Strong visual presentation design skills to effectively communicate complex data and insights
- Experience developing ways to build repositories that sort and categorize knowledge
Responsibilities
- Lead secondary research projects
- Conduct secondary research across competitive landscapes, industry trends, and academic literature
- Synthesize findings into clear insights and recommendations for internal partners, including senior leadership
- Analyze competitors, adjacent organizations, and broader industry trends
- Identify emerging opportunities, threats, gaps, and shifts across education, tech, health, and mental health
- Provide informal guidance to junior team members on research plans, analysis, and synthesis
- Work closely with Product, Content, Partnerships, ESD and other teams to ensure research informs key decisions and strategic planning
Other
- 3–5 years of applied research, strategy, or market intelligence experience in a dynamic professional setting
- Committed to embodying and being a steward of our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging
- Must be able to work a minimum of three (3) days a week in our NYC office, with a focus on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday
- Understood.org does not sponsor applicants for work visas or legal permanent residence, including providing assistance with OPT extensions
- Commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion
