Senior Consultant

We are looking for an experienced, dynamic individual, with a real enthusiasm and experience in the Travel Retail sector. Someone who is keen to join and have an immediate impact on growing our business, while adding expertise and innovation to our products and services. This is a great opportunity to be an integral part of our expanding team, to influence both Pragma’s own and our clients’ future strategy, to help enhance the quality of experience for passengers and customers, enhance asset performance, and deliver positive impact in the built environment.

Senior Consultants take responsibility for project management and delivery, and take a leading role in coaching, managing and developing more junior team members, and ensuring ‘best practice’ is developed and implemented across the team structure. Senior Consultants are expected to play a key role in marketing and business development, through establishing and maintaining relationships with existing and new clients, producing proposals and advising on new/changes to proposition to remain relevant to the market. As a result, Senior Consultants take on a reasonable amount of responsibility across a number of areas, whilst benefitting from a close working relationship with the senior team. This Senior Consultant role is suited for someone with experience in the Travel Retail sector.

What we can offer you

• Competitive salary.
• Agile working with the option of three days in the studio and two working from home.
• A fun, inclusive and collaborative studio environment with an active calendar of social activities.
• 23 days annual leave with option to buy more.
• A range of benefits, including private medical/life insurance and pension.

Key Responsibilities

Project design and delivery

• Take responsibility for delivering across multiple projects, including key responsibility for small and medium-size projects and playing a leading role on larger scale projects.
• Establish a project plan and ensure check-ins with the team are being completed to ensure the required progress. Update the client and senior members on significant content changes.
• Identify and resolve project issues, referring upwards to senior members to intervene only where needed.
• Make decisions on content changes requested by the client or senior members.
• Drive the report production and recommendations produced by the team. Review content, analysis and establish the narrative before submitting to senior members for sign off.
• Schedule post project reviews and ensure project feedback forms are completed and learned from.
• Support internal strategic project groups to improve processes and in-house analytic tools.
• Manage the client relationship by scheduling regular touch points, deal with queries, provide project updates, and escalate concerns.
• Lead client meetings, in handling client queries, clarifying points on the analysis and highlighting discrepancies.

Analytical Insight

• Oversee and ensure the robustness of the team’s data gathering activities per project, ensuring the appropriate data is being used in the most robust and efficient manner.
• Lead the moderation for focus groups and support junior members, where required.
• Lead the team in determining the original hypothesis or propose alternative hypothesis based on the data gathered.
• Review the analysis produced by the team and oversee the manipulation to ensure meaningful insights are delivered.
• Highlight and resolve any data discrepancies gathered or seek further clarification if required.
• Generate meaningful assumptions to the analysis where there are gaps.
• Identify key messages to present to the client.
• Structure the story board so that key messages are aligned to the client needs and interests.
• Support the team in creating stimulus material for focus groups and interviews.

People Management, Leadership and Team Development

• Nurture and develop talent and high potentials in the team by setting stretching objectives, facilitating development opportunities, and aligning projects to match development needs.
• Give timely feedback guidance and coaching.
• Identify ways to motivate and reward your team using non-monetary approaches such as thank you’s, company shout outs, team activities and celebratory events.
• Work to ensure the integration of the team with sister businesses via specific projects or via internal presentations, workshops and joint-content creation.

Financial and Business Performance

• Create and oversee the creation of proposals based on client requirements and company best practice. Ensure content matches client requirements, that best available data is being proposed and utilised and that costings are margins are accurate and deliverable.

Business Development

• Responsible for building relationships with past and existing clients on data, providing insights and trends that are of interest to them via regular remote and in-person meetings.
• Responsible for taking ownership of in-bound sales queries, creating relationships, proposals and projects.
• Attend events, seminars and bespoke business development trips to represent the company and develop business relationships.
• Responsible for overseeing the delivery of research and data gathering activities for marketing and pitches.
• Write Pragmatist articles (our external PR newsletter) and marketing content to promote specific aspects of the business and its offer.

Skills & Experience

• 5-7 years’ experience in the travel retail sector, whether consulting, property or aviation.
• Strong knowledge of the travel retail sector including brands, retail formats, commercial layouts, and operational challenges.
• Understanding of brand performance metrics (sales, sales densities, gross profit, operating profit,
• Understanding of catchment analysis, demand modelling, space modelling, revenue forecasting.
• Understanding of typical leasing structures (base rent, turnover-based rent / concessions, all-inclusive deals).
• Understanding of the context in which various operators within the travel retail and commercial property industry operate and their likely differing requirements (investors, developers, asset managers, local authorities, brands).
• Well-used to sourcing, analysing and drawing findings from large datasets.
• Desire to both lead project delivery and contribute significantly to report creation and direction.
• Good client management skills – existing client contacts is a plus. Desire to be client facing and build a professional profile.
• Ability to manage both junior and senior members of staff.
• Ability to work independently or as part of a team.
• Good presentation skills, comfortable presenting internally and externally.
• Highly numerate, with good Excel skills - exposure and/or proficiency in wider analytics and presentation software is a plus (. Tableau, Alteryx, Power BI,
• Good project and time management skills.
• Attention to detail is a must.
• Proactive and engaged.