Customer Insight Lead

Would you like to work in an environment that is guaranteed to be unique? With us, you can do meaningful work and enable a more environmentally friendly way to move and transport. Does your heart beat for customer experience development and data? We are looking for a Customer Insight Lead for a parental leave substitute. The role is a fixed-term one-year substitution and you will strengthen customer-centric development in VR's long-distance traffic. In this role, there is a strong product management perspective: you are responsible for collecting, analyzing and interpreting customer understanding throughout long-distance traffic and support short-distance traffic if necessary. You act as the product owner for the prioritization and development of long-distance customer data, guiding development priorities, aligning stakeholders around common priorities and ensuring that customer understanding translates into clear roadmap decisions and business impacts and is widely utilized across the organization. You utilize both qualitative and quantitative research methods to understand customer preferences, motives, behavior and needs and turn findings into concrete insights for the use of management, service development, design and other key stakeholders. You will be part of our CX, Data & Design team in VR's long-distance traffic unit, which operates in Finland and Sweden. You will succeed in this role if you are inspired by understanding customers, can turn data into insights and want to influence business decision-making with evidence-based recommendations. You have a product-led mindset and can prioritize development, align cross-functional stakeholders and combine customer needs with business goals. You communicate complex observations clearly and effectively and help teams and management move from insights to practical actions. You do not create research alone but have an experienced and skilled team supporting you and you spar suitable solutions together. You will succeed particularly well as a Customer Insight Lead if you have: - Strong expertise in customer understanding, research and strategic synthesis. Experience in designing and implementing qualitative and quantitative research, and the ability to turn findings into clear strategic and operational insights. - Excellent communication, stakeholder management and prioritization skills. Ability to summarize complex information into meaningful recommendations for different target groups. - Experience in reporting, measuring customer experience and insight-driven development. Readiness to report on customer experience and use customer understanding to support the development and prioritization of customer journeys. - A mindset of continuous improvement and product development. Interest in developing tools, methods, data capabilities and operating modes, and curiosity about how new technologies, such as generative AI, can improve the collection, prioritization and sharing of customer understanding. What we expect from you: - 5–7+ years of experience in customer understanding, market research, customer experience measurement, service development, product ownership or a similar area. - Strong expertise in both qualitative and quantitative research methods, including customer surveys, interviews, analysis and synthesis. - Experience in leading agile development work and translating customer understanding into prioritized actions in consumer business. - Evidence of ability to turn customer data into concrete insights supporting management, service development, design, brand communication, marketing, roadmap prioritization and broader business decision-making. - Experience in reporting customer experience and collaborating with data and analytics teams, such as Power BI developers and data teams. - Ability to combine customer journey data from different touchpoints and support customer journey modeling and the development of customer experience measurement. - Practical experience using relevant tools such as survey and analytics platforms (e.g., Webropol, Lumoa), Power BI, Excel. Experience as a power user of customer research tools is an advantage. You stand out if you have: - Strong experience in a Product Owner role, especially in leading data prioritization, development priorities and roadmap decisions. - Experience in developing customer understanding capabilities, reporting models or research operations. - Understanding of new technologies, such as generative AI in producing and sharing customer understanding. - Experience participating in business development projects as a customer understanding expert or project lead. What we offer: - An encouraging and close-knit team that values cooperation, sparring and shared success. - A meaningful opportunity to influence strategic and operational decision-making through deep customer understanding and concrete insights. - Interesting challenges in developing customer understanding practices, reporting and operating modes with a wide network of stakeholders. We have millions of customers and you will be at the heart of consumer-centric development. - A collaborative work environment that values innovation, customer-centricity and continuous learning. - An agile product and service development community and an established portfolio management model. - The opportunity to work every day according to our values: we care, we do together and we develop continuously. The position is located at VR's headquarters in Pasila, Helsinki, with good transport connections. We do hybrid work, and at least three times a week we work at our office. Interested? Please submit your application and CV with references via the link below by 11.8.2026. We review applications during the application period. Our recruitment process consists of several stages. We first review applications and invite some applicants for an interview. In the next stage, the process includes a suitability assessment and a team interview for applicants. We strive to keep applicants updated on the progress of the process during recruitment. A basic security clearance will be carried out for the person selected for the position. For more information, contact Head of CX, Data & Design Amanda Kailio via email at amanda.kailio@vr.fi or by phone at +358 40 743 6575.