Why this role is different

Most research leaders spend their budget buying access to the executives they want to study. We already have it.

Metis hosts Technovation, the leading independent podcast for CIOs and CTOs at Fortune 500 and large enterprises, with 100K+ YouTube subscribers and ranking in the top 1.5% of podcasts globally. We also host an annual executive summit and a set of standing executive networks. Behind all of it sits a decade of recorded, unscripted conversations with sitting technology executives that no one has ever systematically analyzed.

Your job is to turn that access, together with original primary research, into published work that earns the attention of senior technology leaders. Put plainly: turn evidence into influence.

Responsibilities of the Research Lead

The Research Lead owns the firms published research program, anchored by an annual flagship study of Fortune 500 technology executives. To start, you will be the research function, supported by our growth, marketing, and media teams, external research vendors, and AI tooling. This is a build role before it is a management role. Specifically, you will be responsible for:

• Owning the flagship study: Design, field, and publish the firms annual flagship research on the Fortune 500 technology executive agenda. You own it end to end: the question worth asking, the instrument, the sample, the analysis, and the report itself. One fielding should carry a year of work, generating the flagship report plus the executive briefs, articles, summit session content, and client-facing material that run off it. This is the centerpiece of the role.
• Co-owning the research agenda: Our partners will set the initial direction. You will shape the annual slate with them, deciding what is worth studying, in what order, and why, against client priorities, the technology executive agenda, and the firms strategic focus areas. We expect you to take increasing ownership of that agenda as the program establishes itself.
• Running the primary research: Design and field executive surveys and interview programs. Own the methodology end to end, including instrument design, sampling, weighting, quantitative analysis, and qualitative coding. Stand behind the numbers when someone pushes on them.
• Mining our archive: Build a repeatable system for extracting cross-cutting themes from our executive interview corpus, summit sessions, and turn them into published insight, business development material, and firm intellectual property. This is the part of the job no competitor can replicate.
• Publishing: Translate findings into flagship reports, white papers, executive briefs, and articles that read at the altitude of the audience, and into the substance behind our keynotes and summit sessions. Set the editorial standard and hold it.
• Presenting the work: Present the research yourself: to clients, on stage at our summits and at industry events, on our podcast, and to the press. Interview senior executives directly as part of the research. We want someone who can carry this work into the room rather than hand it to someone else to deliver.
• Owning reach, not just output: Work with marketing and media on launch, campaign, and earned media, and be accountable for whether the work reaches the executives it was written for.
• Supporting commercial and client impact: Equip our teams with research-backed points of view, benchmarks, and targeted analysis that strengthen proposals, sharpen delivery, and open conversations.
• Managing vendors and tooling: Oversee survey panels, data providers, and freelance editors and designers. Build and curate a set of AI-enabled research tools so a small function can produce like a larger one, with clear standards for where AI assists and where it does not.
• Building the standards: Create the research playbooks that keep the work rigorous, confidential, and compliant with our privacy and brand requirements.
• Measuring impact: Track and report on commercial and reputational return, including pipeline influenced by research, proposals citing proprietary data, earned media placements, and executive engagement.

This is a new function, and the person who builds it will shape what it becomes. Over time, the Research Lead might:

· Take fuller ownership of the annual research agenda as the program earns its footing

· Scope and hire the team that follows

· Extend a single flagship study into a recurring, named research franchise

Qualifications and Expectations

• Experience: Six or more years in research, strategy consulting, or technology analysis, including at least two spent owning a published research program end to end
• Background: Experience from a management or strategy consulting firm, an analyst firm (Gartner, IDC, Forrester or similar), a consulting firms research or eminence team, a B2B research or thought leadership agency, or a research-led media organization
• Research Methods: Command of both primary research (survey design, executive interviews) and secondary research (market and competitive intelligence), plus working fluency in a statistical environment such as R, Python, or SPSS
• Domain Fluency: Fluency in enterprise technology and the CIO, CTO, and CDO agenda, with a real feel for where business and technology strategy meet
• Education: Bachelors degree required. An advanced degree in business, technology, economics, or a related field is not required but is considered a plus
• Location: US-based remote. Day-to-day we work fully remotely, with periodic in-person time as a team and at firm events

What We Look For

• Methodological Rigor: The judgment to know when a finding is real and when the sample will not carry it, and the discipline to say so
• Packaging and Storytelling: The ability to turn a body of research into something senior executives actually want to read and watch: a clear argument, a number they remember, a chart that carries the finding on its own, and a presentation built for a room rather than a spreadsheet. We are as interested in how you make research land as in how you conduct it
• Writing: Writing that holds a senior executives attention. We will ask to see published work
• Executive Presence: Self-motivated and comfortable in front of an audience. You will present your own research to clients, on stage, and to the press, and you will be the person senior executives talk to when they want to go deeper on it
• Communication Skills: Ability to communicate complex ideas concisely, tailored appropriately for different audiences and media
• Builders Instinct: Entrepreneurial grit and a willingness to be hands-on, with the judgment to build something durable rather than a series of one-off deliverables
• Curiosity: High intellectual curiosity and intrinsic interest in emerging technologies and their applications in business contexts
• Work Status: Eligibility to work in the U.S. without sponsorship is preferred

What Metis Strategy Has to Offer

You will define a research program that informs some of the worlds most influential technology executives, and you will do it under your own name. Our research reaches its audience through channels we own: a podcast with a large and senior following, an annual summit, standing executive networks, and direct relationships with the leaders you will be studying. You will work closely with the firms founder and partners.

We not only support but expect all members of the team to identify new growth opportunities and pursue novel approaches to realize them, in a way that benefits Metis Strategy and our client and partner ecosystem.

This position is also eligible for bonus compensation. Additional benefits include but are not limited to:

· comprehensive medical insurance, dental insurance, and vision insurance;

· parental leave, and family benefits;

· retirement contributions;

· stipend for continued learning;

· paid time off, and more.

Compensation and benefits are competitive and will be commensurate with each candidates qualifications and relevant work experience.

If you want to build something rather than inherit it, and you want your research to reach the people who act on it, we would like to hear from you.

About Metis Strategy

Metis Strategy, a management and strategy consulting firm, focused on the intersection of business and technology, continues to grow and is looking for highly motivated individuals to join our San Francisco Bay Area team. We are trusted advisors to Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies, helping them meet their most critical business objectives through tailored engagements and deep professional relationships. We work across industries on topics related to business & digital strategy and navigating organizational change.

We are an entrepreneurial, fast-growing firm headquartered in the Washington, D.C. area with offices in the San Francisco Bay Area and Dallas, Texas. The firm’s presence from coast to coast allows us to serve clients throughout the United States and internationally. In our 20+ year history, we have established a track record of making lasting impacts on organizational performance and helping executives improve business outcomes.

We are hiring a Research Lead to build and run the firms research and insights program. This is a new seat.