What are the responsibilities and job description for the Director, Research & Insights position at The DRG (A Cortico-X Company)?
Description
Remote (U.S.) | Onsite (Wauwatosa, WI) | Full-Time
About Us
Cortico-X is an experience-led strategy and transformation consulting firm that helps organizations turn human understanding into business action. We work with leaders to connect insight, strategy, and execution in ways that create better experiences and stronger outcomes for their customers, employees, and stakeholders.
That work is strengthened by The DRG, the Research & Insights Division of Cortico-X. For more than 50 years, The DRG has helped organizations understand the people who matter most to their success and has informed high-stakes decisions in healthcare, financial services, and beyond. In 2025, Cortico-X acquired The DRG, bringing together the strategic strength of a transformation consultancy and the rigor of a trusted marketing research institution.
This is a pivotal moment for Cortico-X. We are growing and building the future of insight-driven experience transformation. If that excites you, read on.
The Opportunity
We're looking for a Director, Research & Insights who can serve as a trusted advisor to our most important clients while elevating the quality and strategic impact of everything our insights deliver.
This is not a project manager role or a pure research role. It's a client leadership role with a high-stakes book of business, a team to coach, and real influence over how our Research & Insights division grows. You'll bring research credibility to the table, but your primary value is in translating complex human data into business decisions that stick.
Marketing research fluency is required. Executive presence is essential. Commercial instinct is a must.
What Success Looks Like In Year One
By the end of your first year, you will have:
Client Leadership & Growth
What You'll Bring
Experience
“What stands out about our research and insights work is the combination of rigor and relevance. Not only is it thoughtful, but it also gets used to shape real decisions.”
— Senior Leader, Research & Insights Division
DRG is a division of Cortico-X. Cortico-X is an equal opportunity employer committed to building a team as diverse as the clients and communities we serve.
Remote (U.S.) | Onsite (Wauwatosa, WI) | Full-Time
About Us
Cortico-X is an experience-led strategy and transformation consulting firm that helps organizations turn human understanding into business action. We work with leaders to connect insight, strategy, and execution in ways that create better experiences and stronger outcomes for their customers, employees, and stakeholders.
That work is strengthened by The DRG, the Research & Insights Division of Cortico-X. For more than 50 years, The DRG has helped organizations understand the people who matter most to their success and has informed high-stakes decisions in healthcare, financial services, and beyond. In 2025, Cortico-X acquired The DRG, bringing together the strategic strength of a transformation consultancy and the rigor of a trusted marketing research institution.
This is a pivotal moment for Cortico-X. We are growing and building the future of insight-driven experience transformation. If that excites you, read on.
The Opportunity
We're looking for a Director, Research & Insights who can serve as a trusted advisor to our most important clients while elevating the quality and strategic impact of everything our insights deliver.
This is not a project manager role or a pure research role. It's a client leadership role with a high-stakes book of business, a team to coach, and real influence over how our Research & Insights division grows. You'll bring research credibility to the table, but your primary value is in translating complex human data into business decisions that stick.
Marketing research fluency is required. Executive presence is essential. Commercial instinct is a must.
What Success Looks Like In Year One
By the end of your first year, you will have:
- Taken full ownership of a portfolio of client relationships, earning trusted-advisor status with senior stakeholders
- Delivered marketing research engagements that are consistently praised for strategic clarity, not just methodological rigor
- Identified and closed meaningful expansion opportunities within existing accounts
- Become a recognizable voice for Cortico-X externally — through thought leadership, presentations, or industry visibility
- Helped shape how the Research & Insights Division evolves its methods and offerings in the age of AI
Client Leadership & Growth
- Own account success end-to-end across client satisfaction, quality, and revenue performance
- Build and maintain trusted-advisor relationships across a portfolio of clients, primarily in healthcare, health insurance, and financial services
- Develop strategic account plans that expand relationships, surface new opportunities, and demonstrate measurable value
- Lead business reviews, proposal development, and budget conversations with confidence
- Translate complex business challenges into marketing research designs that actually answer the question clients are asking — not just the one they stated
- Set the standard for what a great deliverable looks like: commercially strong, action-oriented, and built for real audiences
- Coach and guide project teams throughout the research lifecycle: design, fieldwork, analysis, and strategic storytelling
- Present findings and recommendations to executive audiences with clarity and conviction
- Manage project economics, ensuring profitability and efficient resource use without sacrificing quality
- Contribute to Cortico-X's external voice through point-of-view content, speaking opportunities, and industry engagements
- Collaborate across the organization to evolve methods, build new offerings, and define how we work
- Champion the integration of AI tools to enhance research quality, speed, and insight depth
What You'll Bring
Experience
- 10 years in marketing research, insights consulting, or related advisory roles
- A demonstrable track record of growing client relationships, hitting revenue targets, and leading high-performing teams
- Deep experience in healthcare, health insurance, or banking/financial services (strongly preferred)
- Fluency across quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. You can credibly evaluate any approach and guide teams to the right one
- Strong problem-framing instincts: you know how to get to the real question behind the stated question
- Comfort with advanced analytics and growing familiarity with AI-assisted research tools
- Executive presence, with the ability to build credibility in a boardroom and strong relationships at every level
- Ability to lead and inspire research teams without direct authority, through coaching and influence
- Exceptional written and verbal communication; a natural storyteller with data
- Entrepreneurial mindset: self-directed, comfortable with ambiguity, oriented toward impact
“What stands out about our research and insights work is the combination of rigor and relevance. Not only is it thoughtful, but it also gets used to shape real decisions.”
— Senior Leader, Research & Insights Division
- Serve as a true strategic partner to your clients, not just a vendor, not a survey shop
- Shape insight-driven work that influences decisions at the highest levels of major organizations
- Be part of building something: our next chapter is being written right now
- Access the broader Cortico-X platform including strategy, transformation, experience design, to bring fuller solutions to your clients
- Join a team that values curiosity, accountability, and genuine care for the people we serve
- Competitive base salary ($125,000–$150,000) plus performance-based variable compensation; this is an exempt position
- Comprehensive benefits package including PTO, holiday pay, medical, dental, vision, group term life insurance, short-term disability, long-term disability, and 401(k) with company match
DRG is a division of Cortico-X. Cortico-X is an equal opportunity employer committed to building a team as diverse as the clients and communities we serve.
Salary : $125,000 - $150,000