Julia Xie

Experience

• 

  Penn China, a UK Courtaulds Textile company

  Aug 1994 - May 1998

  Production Manager

  • Overseas Management Trainee, 1994.8 – 1995.11 UK & Germany• Member of core management team to establish the first joint venture of British Courtaulds Textile , the largest Textile Group in UK, in China from green field. • Headed 12-member production department to accomplish daily production target, formulated SOP and took in charge of daily trouble shooting and team coaching.• Worked closely with the suppliers Dupont & Karl Mayer to develop new product specification and to serve international underwear brands such as Triumph,Wacoal and Embry Form. Show less

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  East marketing research

  Nov 1999 - Feb 2002

  Research Manager

  Leading 9 research professionals to deliver consumer and market insights to market leaders in various industries through qualitative & quantitative technique, as well as desk research. Directly reporting to general manager.• Mastered SPSS analytics, experienced moderator holding hundreds of focus groups • Awarded Corporate Excellent Staff.

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  Nielsen

  Mar 2002 - Jun 2004

  Client service manager, Retail audit

  Serving leading companies in various FMCG industries such as confectionery, infant milk power, beer, skin care, etc. by providing sharp insights on category trends, market share evolution, channel development, store distribution and new product performance, etc. • Pioneered total client solution service model which integrated market trends, category insights with customer studies, resulting in clients’ high satisfaction rate on insights-driven service.• Managed client accounts including Budweiser, J&J, Shanghai Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutics, Abbott, Wyeth, Ferrero Rocher, President, Suntory, etc.• Awarded Build To Last for outstanding performance . Show less

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  Carrefour

  Jun 2004 - May 2005

  National marketing manager

  Guiding market intelligence team to monitor nationwide brand health, customer engagement and shopper trends, providing customer insights to support daily business, directly reporting to marketing director.• Pioneered the comprehensive competitor studies on business strategy of RT-Mart & Lotus, sketching clear snapshot and inspiring insights to executive team and district GMs on competitors’ operating models and daily practice.• Oversaw all customer studies projects, facilitating business improvement plan development for stores and enhancing communication effectiveness with customers. Show less

• 

  Best Buy China

  May 2005 - Jun 2011

  Leading creative studio and marketing communication team of 10 persons to develop and execute advertising and media strategy throughout China (1,400M RMB annual sales with 6 M shoppers), reporting to Marketing & Merchandising VP• Drove cross-functional efforts to develop and implement Best Buy holistic marketing strategy and integrated communication plan (ATL & BTL) achieving 23% annual growth in quality traffic and accomplishing 115% of traffic target.• Reengineered corporate level integrated promotion planning process by driving efforts of global and cross-functional teams, greatly improving weekly ad. fulfillment quality and maximizing its impact on business planning and cross-functional work efficiency.• Initiated and organized New Year Count-down Party partnering with Radio HIT FM achieving the highest traffic and sales record in the history of Best Buy Zhongshan store.• Won Manager Town Hall Award to get recognition on outstanding performance and strong dedication to the business. Show less Directly reported to senior marketing director, partnered with global supporting team to formulate corporate level price policy and SKU pricing strategy, drove cross-functional actions to implement the strategy in stores.• Pioneered price policy & pricing strategy and led their communication from top management to frontline staff resulting in clear alignment in Best Buy price positioning and pricing tactics across multi-level management groups .• Conceived and led market communication on 21-day Price Guarantee, enhanced in-store price communication through value signage and visualized promotion information, resulting in great improvement in customer price perception .• Won marketing Leadership Award . Show less Leading China customer strategy and driving customer centricity across all core functions across merchant, retail operation, pricing and marketing. Directly reporting to Retail VP, leading insights team and on-site consulting team from Dunn Humby to provide action-oriented thought leadership to business leaders. • Led and managed customer insights team of China to formulate China-entry business strategy, Best Buy-Five Star dual brand strategy and customer KPI system by working closely with top executives and global supporting team, resulting in big success of opening the first store in China – sales ranked within top 50 among thousands of Best Buy stores globally.• Conceived and populated customer strategy, brand value proposition, customer experience design process among all levels of management groups, laying core foundation for customer-centric business decision process in Best Buy China .• Led comprehensive studies on new stores and new business, delivering essential guidance on retail selling strategy, assortment planning and customer acquisition plan .• Built price team to weekly monitor and react on market competition. Show less

  • Senior marketing manager

    Dec 2009 - Jun 2011

  • Senior strategic pricing manager

    Oct 2008 - Nov 2009

  • Senior customer insights manager

    May 2005 - Sept 2008
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  Kantar

  Jun 2011 - Sept 2017

  Developing and enhancing long-term strategic partnership with market leaders across various industries through actionable shopper & retail insights.• Led shopper research and consultancy practice for local and international clients, guided shopper experts to integrate multi-source of information such as passive behavior data, location-based market data and shopper claimed data to reveal actionable business growth opportunity on channel dynamics, perfect store and in-store conversion uplift. • Specialized in store layout optimization, conversion opportunity identification, shopping experience optimization, new concept store incubation and channel strategy. • Built team strong expertise across diversified retail channels - grocery channels from hypermarket, CVS, mini super to traditional trade, retail specialty stores from fast fashion, home improvement to consumer electronics, as well as shopping mall and theme park. Show less Leading a new service line in shopper practice and reporting to managing director, incubating new shopper technique PathTracker with global team.• Successfully achieved double digital revenue growth in consecutive years and well extended client base from FMCG to durable-goods and diversified retail business• Established solid track on the long term client partnership . Has incubated 4 new clients from the green field and grew them into the biggest clients in shopper sector with 3-5million annual revenue each.• Pioneered the latest shopper insights technology in the world and innovatively localized the practice in China to automatically track real-time shopping behavior in a 10,000 sqm Walmart store. Active market practitioner in path tracker (Bluetooth beacon, RFID), eye tracker, image recognition, online click stream and virtual reality. • Sophisticated in connecting dots and generating actionable insights from various researches, excellent in presentation .• Coached and guided account team to be most productive team in the company. All of them achieved fast track in their own career. • Awarded Precision Growth Practice China Star for building the cutting edge of retail expertise . Show less

  • Senior Director

    May 2016 - Sept 2017

  • Director

    Jun 2011 - May 2016
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  Kantar Consulting

  Sept 2017 - Nov 2021

  Driving top clients growth across all service lines in Kantar Consulting as primary account leader and populating tech-enabled shopper consultancy among wide retailer and manufacturer sectors .• Took account leadership role to drive commercial growth and project excellence across service lines with the leading companies in food & beverage, grocery retailing, home furnishing, fashion, real estate, consumer electronics, jewelry and kids industry, etc. • Enhanced and evolved the end-to-end solution for shopper-centric retail and channel strategy to drive best-in-class advisory work from conversion gaps identification to activation ideation and validation, from touch points optimization along consumer decision journey to perfect store and trade engagement story with the aim to fuel category and brand growth. Show less Taking responsibility of P&L in shopper business unit and leading a team of 30 shopper experts in Shanghai and Guangzhou office containing client service, data processing，field team, finance and admins.• Achieved 15% revenue growth above the business target under the situation of 17% headcount shrinkage.• Enhanced trust advisor image of shopper experts by driving insights to action through stakeholder engagement, trade interview and activation workshop .• Evolved shopper techniques and led team to innovatively track omnichannel shopping behaviors via a robust set of tech–enabled research techniques such as virtual reality, online click-stream tracking, path tracker, shopnography, in-store pathtracker, mirror projection and eye tracker, etc.• Drove thought leadership impact on shopper strategy by being keynote speaker at important forums and author of white papers on retail trend, initiated global shopper syndication program in China . Show less

  • Partner, Shopper Strategy

    May 2019 - Nov 2021

  • Head of Shopper Practice, China

    Sept 2017 - May 2019
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  Simon Kucher

  Nov 2021 - now

  China head of Consumer & Retail