Elva Jiao
Toronto,ON
Summary
- 17+ years of experience in market research, insights, and strategy.
- Former Market & Consumer Research function leader at Mars , Mengniu Group (China’s second-largest dairy company), and iQIYI (China’s No.1 streaming video platform).
- 10+ years of Food & Beverage industry experience with category-leading companies.
- 10+ years of team leadership and people development experience across both research agencies and in-house industry roles.
Overview
18
18
years of professional experience
Work History
Independent Researcher
Upper Canada College
03.2025 - Current
- Designed and conducted primary and secondary research on philanthropic giving and engagement among current families, past families, and alumni for UCC’s Advancement Department and Engagement & Events Department.
- Derived and deployed insights across different schooling stages and wealth segments to inform strategies on philanthropic giving, engagement, and overall experience.
- Identified and validated short-, mid-, and long-term opportunities,
- Collaborated with multiple school teams to develop initiatives and programs aimed at increasing participation rates and gift value, strengthening engagement with diverse ethnic communities, including process re-engineering and data infrastructure, capability building.
- Established UCC’s annual parent and student engagement and experience tracking to monitor performance and identify opportunities as regular school governance parameters.
- Represented the school by delivering presentation at CAIS (Canadian Accredited Independent Schools) conference to share key findings, and was subsequently invited as a guest speaker by leading CAIS-accredited schools.
Senior Director of Yogurt BU
Mengniu Dairy Group Cooperation
Beijing, China
07.2023 - 07.2024
- Cross-functional monitoring performance , identified opportunities, and provided planning and decision-making support through category insights developed from multiple sources, including NIQ, Kantar Panel, e-commerce data platforms, brand equity tracking, category U&A studies, competitor intelligence, macro consumer trends, and channel trends.
- Led pre-, during-, and post-marketing campaign research for brands to maximize efficiency and effectiveness
- Conducted product portfolio, pricing, and channel range optimization research to support brand growth and channel performance and synergy
- Developed the BU Route-to-Market strategy and deployment plan.
- Led 5-year and annual BU strategy development and forecasting
- led BU's weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual business review and scorecards.
Research Head of Innovation Incubator and VC
Mengniu Dairy Group Cooperation
Beijing, China
07.2021 - 07.2023
- Established the Mengniu Industrial Venture Capital Research function.
- Developed standardized action frameworks for investment screening and due diligence research.
- Sourced 3,000+ target companies across biotechnology, probiotics, novel ingredients research, packaging innovation, supply chain solutions, and mar-tech sectors.
- Evaluated 500+ target companies via due diligence research.
Senior Director(Head), Group Strategy
Mengniu Dairy Group Cooperation
Beijing, China
06.2020 - 07.2023
- Led the escalation and team building of the Mengniu Corporate Research function.
- Defined corporate and cross-BU research protocols and standards for regular business reviews, brand tracking, media testing, product experience testing, and innovation testing; and supported BUs in establishing and strengthening CMI functions and consumer-centric SOPs.
- Served as a key contributor to corporate , innovation, channel and brand strategies, leveraging insights from global industry and consumer trends, category trends, media trends, competitor intelligence and benchmarking, as well as channel and shopper insights.
- Led group-level brand and marketing research on brand equity, portfolio synergy, media and channel mix to inform the development of a unified group umbrella strategy.
Research and BI head
Subscriber BU, iQIYI, Inc.
Beijing, China
10.2018 - 06.2020
- Led and established iQIYI’s Subscription BU data warehouse, BI systems, management KPI framework, cross-functional dashboards, and business review processes, as well as competitor and market monitoring capabilities and operations.
- Supported Content Acquisition, User Operations, and Product teams’ testing and decision-making through the design and execution of research and data modeling. Enabled the successful launch of 20+ mega shows annually, contributing to iQIYI becoming the No.1 streaming video platform in China by subscriber base.
- Led algorithm development to support content planning, user operations, product development, and channel sales, driving business growth and the achievement of annual targets.
Sr. Manager, Consumer & Market Insight
Petcare, Mars
Beijing, China
03.2015 - 10.2018
- Category research: category adoption and conversion, market trends, innovation assessment, and localization analysis.
- Business and competitive reviews.
- Consumer research: user segmentation, needs space mapping, usage & attitudes (U&A), and product experience evaluation.
- Media and brand research, including brand tracking and marketing mix modeling
- Retail and channel research: assortment and range optimization, route-to-market strategy, shopper insights, and shelf performance analysis.
Research Manager
Nielsen
Beijing , China
09.2007 - 03.2015
- Conducted retail tracking research, delivering regular reporting, ad hoc inquiries, and in-depth deep-dive analyses.
- Led quantitative and qualitative consumer research projects end to end as well as client development.
- Served global and local premium clients, including Nestlé, Reckitt Benckiser, British American Tobacco, Mars, Samsung, Intel, LG, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Doosan, Haier, Lenovo, Yili, and Master Kong.
Education
Master of Science - E-Business Management
University of Warwick
UK01-2007
Bachelor of Science - Management Information Systems
University of Science And Technology Beijing
China07-2005
Timeline
Independent Researcher
Upper Canada College
03.2025 - Current
Senior Director of Yogurt BU
Mengniu Dairy Group Cooperation
07.2023 - 07.2024
Research Head of Innovation Incubator and VC
Mengniu Dairy Group Cooperation
07.2021 - 07.2023
Senior Director(Head), Group Strategy
Mengniu Dairy Group Cooperation
06.2020 - 07.2023
Research and BI head
Subscriber BU, iQIYI, Inc.
10.2018 - 06.2020
Sr. Manager, Consumer & Market Insight
Petcare, Mars
03.2015 - 10.2018
Research Manager
Nielsen
09.2007 - 03.2015
Master of Science - E-Business Management
University of Warwick
Bachelor of Science - Management Information Systems
University of Science And Technology Beijing