National Journal is looking for a curious and innovative people leader to serve as a Research Manager for our new social impact and reputational risk research service.

National Journal is a premier research and insights company committed to helping organizations effectively navigate Washington. Best known as one of Washington’s most trusted media brands for nearly 50 years, our expertise is unmatched with teams of specialists dedicated to government affairs, communications, and political research, in addition to exceptional journalism. Our mission is to equip the thousands of government and business leaders in the nation’s capital with the intelligence, insights, and connections they need to save time, increase efficiency, and deliver success.

What is National Journal’s Social Impact & Reputational Risk Research Agenda?

National Journal’s newest venture is a research service that helps Fortune 500 companies make informed decisions about when and how to engage on societal issues, such as racial equity, LGBTQ+ rights, climate, and human rights. Relying on intensive surveys and interviews with leading corporate executives, our new research agenda will help clients understand how their peers are organizing themselves to make decisions on politicized societal issues, highlight best practices for engaging on societal issues, and develop case studies of how specific companies have succeeded or failed at societal issue engagement.

Position in Brief:

The Research Manager will manage the full social impact research agenda lifecycle, developing surveys to understand how Fortune 500 corporate executives are organizing to engage on societal issues, overseeing the quantitative and qualitative research and insights generation, translating findings to clients, and managing a team of research analysts collecting and analyzing survey inputs. As this is National Journal Research’s newest offering in the societal issues space, the Research Manager will help drive product innovation and will collaborate closely with senior leadership to develop and scale the research offering.

The ideal candidate will have demonstrated qualitative and quantitative research and analysis capabilities, including experience with conducting surveys, and a demonstrated track record of success in serving corporate clients. They will have promising early leadership experience and a strong desire to develop into an effective manager and inspired leader.

Core day-to-day responsibilities could include:

• Project Design - Design research agendas and surveys to answer Fortune 500 corporations’ most pressing questions on societal issue management.

• Project Management - Develop high-level work plan for both an annual research cycle and pulse surveys to support clients in a crisis, monitoring progress against the plan and ensuring the achievement of key deadlines.

• Product Creation - Lead the development of research insights and client-facing deliverables and brief findings to corporate executives.

• Staff Management - Serve as the direct manager for 2-3 research analysts, providing coaching and constructive feedback on their performance and growth.

• Team Leadership - Work with other members of the National Journal Research leadership team to sustain a culture that values pursuit of excellence, radical responsibility, curiosity, and mutual respect and inclusivity.

Qualifications of the Ideal Candidate:

• 3-5 years of professional work experience in a research-driven or management consulting environment. While a range of backgrounds will be considered, business research experience with survey or market research methodologies and quantitative modeling is highly preferred.

• The ability to highlight key insights within a complex set of qualitative and quantitative data, synthesize large amounts of information, and then clearly explain these insights to clients.

• Strong technical skills, including expertise in survey design and deployment (Qualtrics), data management and data analysis (working knowledge of SPSS or R), strong facility with advanced-level Excel.

• Deep curiosity and demonstrated ability to quickly get up to speed and extract insights on new topics.

• A skilled project manager, able to independently manage competing priorities and adhere to timelines.

• A strong writer able to clearly frame issues for a variety of audiences; experience with PowerPoint or other visual presentation formats highly preferred.

• A promising people leader with an early track record of success and a desire to develop strong management and leadership skills. An early demonstrated ability to guide others through quantitative and qualitative research methodologies.

• A full course of the COVID-19 vaccination is required for employment at National Journal

• Earned Bachelor's degree required; Master’s degree in Business, Economics, Political Science or other social science field is preferred.

Employment Type: Full-time

Compensation: The base salary range for this role is $75,000-$90,000

Remote Status: Hybrid work environment, based in Washington DC on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays

About Us

Across National Journal Group, generally, the firm looks for two “pillar gifts” in you, and everyone else. In all of us, these are more aspirational than actual, but they are central in our intentions –

• Force of Ideas: At the center of National Journal Group work are the ideas within our writing. We believe that ideas – to the good and not – have consequences. Our highest work is bringing rigor, insight, intellectual honesty, to that ultimate purpose of separating the bad from the good, and giving voice to the latter.

• Spirit of Generosity: National Journal Group seeks in its ranks a spirit of generosity – a natural disposition in each colleague toward service and selfless conduct. National Journal Group writing should be cut from the same cloth –critical on the merits but informed by charity and forbearance in measuring motive and personal character.

National Journal is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate against our applicants because of race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other status protected by applicable law.