Head of Data & Insights - Bristol About us Loungers is a substantial and growing operator in the UK hospitality sector, operating over 300 sites in England and Wales across three distinct but complementary brands, Lounges, Cosy Club, and Brightside. Founded in 2002 by three friends who wanted to create a neighbourhood caf-bar that they would want to go to, the Group is now the only growing all-day operator of scale in the UK and has consistently outperformed the wider UK hospitality sector over the past three years. Despite being the fastest growing caf/restaurant group in the Country, Loungers has retained its entrepreneurial spirit and quirky 'Loungey' local community atmosphere. The role in a nutshell We're looking for someone who's genuinely curious about people. This role is here to help Loungers understand our guests better - not in a "dashboard for the sake of a dashboard" way, but in a way that changes what we do: how we design menus, how we do marketing, how we spot issues early, and how we make the experience better for our guests across Lounges, Cosy Club and Brightside. We've got a lot of data. What we need is someone who can join it up, make it usable, and turn it into simple, confident insights that drive decisions and support local action. Someone who can tell the story behind the numbers -what's really going on, what it means, and what we should do next. This is a hands-on leadership role. Early on, the job is about simplifying and building trust: making it easier for teams to access insight quickly to deliver great hospitality experiences, reducing the manual reporting burden, and creating a clear "single view" of our guest. This position gives the successful applicant the chance to be part of this exciting, dynamic company based from its HQ in Central Bristol Getting into the detail What you'll do: 1. Deliver a clear, practical understanding of how guests behave, what they value and how that differs by brand, location, daypart and occasion by making sure we have a joined-up view of our guest You'll be accountable for the customer insight agenda end-to-end -and make sure we're using what we already have properly. That includes: HGEM mystery dining: keeping it sharp, evolving it, and making sure it drives real improvements (not just a report). 125 Insights: treating it as the voice of the guest -spotting themes and tensions early, and helping teams act. HDI / Vypr and other tools: onboarding, embedding, and making them part of everyday decisions. Zonal / Orderbee: using transactional behaviour to understand what people actually do, not just what they say. Airship: bringing CRM and lifecycle behaviour into the same picture 2. Improve the effectiveness of insight across the business by delivering better automation Audit what's being produced today (and what's being asked for). Map where the data comes from and how it moves around. Decide what we should automate, standardise, improve -or stop doing altogether. Build a reporting approach that people actually trust and use. Use AI where it helps (pattern-finding, anomaly spotting, theme detection) - without turning the output into noise. 3. Bring a greater level of behaviour-led segmentation that really helps us to make better decisions across marketing: menu, pricing and improving guest experiences This ranges from the frequency of visits, through to daypart behaviour. This includes segments that we can use within the marketing team to activity in CRM and local communications. Frequency and recency Occasion and daypart behaviour Loyalty behaviours and signals Segments that can be activated in CRM and used locally We're not after academic models. We want something practical that helps us talk to guests with relevance - not broadcast. 4. Help to contribute to how the proposition evolves brining in the voice of the guest This role has a real influence on proposition and menu direction. You'll: Run menu research and testing (focus groups, structured feedback, behavioural analysis). Heat-map menus to understand what earns its place - commercially and for guests. Understand menu navigation and substitution (what people trade into when something changes, what new items do, what gets ignored). Work closely with Food, MDs and Marketing so decisions are grounded in real behaviour and margin impact. 5. Ensure we have a really good understanding of What happens in the world beyond Loungers, and that this is brought into really practical considerations and questions You'll: Track and interpret consumer and hospitality trends (including shifts like alcohol moderation and changing eating habits). Bring together supplier insight across food and drink partners (and use it to benchmark sensibly). Use tools like CACI/Polaris (where available) to understand local market mix and opportunity. 6. Be accountable for ensuring all recommendations are highly practical and easy to understand for both HQ and Operations teams. This means : What are guests telling us (in behaviour and in feedback)? What does it mean? What should we do differently? That means clear and commercial recommendations, strong narrative for senior stakeholders, and support for test-and-learn. 7. Develop and engage a small team (currently one executive) and manage key suppliers This means Being really clear about what's expected Role-modelling great behaviours Brining energy and pace to situations Coaching and mentoring team members to improve performance and effectiveness Pace, clarity and ownership Using partners to accelerate capability - not create dependency What you'll bring We're hiring for judgement and curiosity as much as technical capability. You'll likely have experience in: Customer data, insight, analytics or performance intelligence in a consumer business (hospitality is a plus). Working with transactional, behavioural and CRM data. Turning insight into decisions that affect product, operations or marketing. Automating reporting and reducing manual effort. Menu / proposition analytics (or a strong point of view on how you'd approach it). You don't need to be a data engineer, but you do need to be credible and curious - comfortable asking the right questions, getting into the detail, and improving how data is structured and used. Ways of working that matter here: Commercial, pragmatic, outcome-focused Comfortable with imperfect data (and improving it over time) Able to influence without big teams or big process Happy being hands-on Clear communicator who can bring others with them Curious Collaborative- this person needs to really want to gain the input and opinion of others- from CMO through our teams on the ground, servicing our guests every day What success looks like (6-12 months): Manual reporting is materially reduced Customer metrics are trusted, automated and widely used Insight is faster, clearer and more actionable both by HQ Senior Leaders as well as our Operations Team Segmentation is shaping CRM, marketing and planning Menu and proposition decisions are visibly more guest-led Insight is seen as a growth lever - not a reporting function What's in it for you? 25 days holiday (plus bank holidays) Up to 10% bonus Private healthcare for yourself & your family 50% off food at all Lounges, Cosy Clubs and Brightsides Pension contribution A culture that appreciates ideas and celebrates individuality Founder-led business - we might have over 300 sites, but we still maintain an entrepreneurial spirit through everything we do 24/7 mental health support Amazing events including LoungeFest - our annual company festival - Christmas parties and more We want to work with nice people so if you want to work hard, have fun and be part of the Loungers ride, we'd love to have you.