VP-Marketing Operations and Chief of Staff

Summary:

Partner closely with the Marketing leadership team, Chiefs-of-Staff in adjacent functions (e.g., Strategy, Field, etc.) and Finance to ensure alignment of business objectives and operational budgets. You will act as an enabler for strategic initiatives, ensuring workstream interlocks, visibility of outcomes, and execution of key priorities, while driving operational efficiencies.

Other areas of responsibility include running the Program Management Office (PMO) for marketing, capacity management of marketing department, budget management to ensure optimized spend, and execution of programs that deliver against Marketing’s MYS plan, roadmap and strategic vision.

Additionally, focus on marketing ROI objectives, and provide dependable advice and consultation to the VP and Head of Marketing, leveraging marketing performance data. Play the role of the Head of Marketing’s internal marketing communications lead and support change management initiatives within the department.

Primary Duties & Responsibilities:

Marketing Strategy & Measurement

• Manage the organization’s annual planning process and strategic roadmap. Lead planning process, track all initiatives and verify execution and dashboard updates as needed, conferring with leadership in determining key performance indicators, scope, and structure of the process
• Serve as a trusted advisor to elevate and amplify the Head of Marketing’s capacity, capability, and effectiveness. Act as a sounding board, serve as liaison or proxy when needed, and manage executive communications.
• Oversee the process to ensure appropriate capture and documentation of marketing’s strategic initiatives – establishing an information protocol across the team
• Ensures impact-level marketing measurement and executive reporting on marketing’s contribution to the business  

Program Management and Planning

• Create, plan, and facilitate staff meetings to accomplish clear and effective decision making, tracking, and reporting on follow-up actions, providing appropriate messaging in both written & spoken form to ensure cross-functional visibility and collaboration across the organization
• Orchestrate the annual marketing planning process (milestones, participants, actions, templates, calendar), ensuring marketing’s goals are aligned with the company’s MYS.
• Create clarity around emerging initiatives so the team can prioritize and resource them
• Manage and coordinate high value, cross-functional initiatives, as well as Head of Marketing initiated special projects across the enterprise

Operations and Communications

• Identify and execute initiatives that contribute to long-term operational excellence, ensuring key projects have clear milestones, success measures and operational plans
• Manage the process to connect employees across the department, from the leadership team, to senior leaders to the full team – ensuring regular cadence of engagement and leveraging appropriate strategic assets across the team
• Plan and build content for internal communications, all-hands meetings, and operational reviews
• Deliver effective change management and communications for technology implementation, data policy and process re-engineering within marketing 
• Coordinate opportunities for efficiency by conducting research, benchmarking & analytics, propose new systems/processes to streamline as needed

Financial Management

• Maintain and oversee team budgeting process, establishing a clear link between strategic goals and budget allocation/ROI
• Coordinate budget issues among and across the team to ensure actuals meet targets and liaising with the team’s finance business partner to ensure accuracy

Skills Building & Development of Marketing Competencies

• Participates in the development of team roles & responsibilities matrix, competency assessments and skills development, as directed by the Head of Marketing
• Gathers and disseminates internal and external marketing best practices; promotes a Center of Excellence philosophy in growing marketing skills (generalists and specialists)
• Leads development of marketing curriculum and career growth planning in partnership with HR

Qualifications:

• Minimum 15 years of experience in Field Sales & Marketing roles, demonstrating progressively expansive responsibilities in operations, program and/or process management, financial management, P&L ownership and/or business leadership
• Understanding of sales cycles and product lifecycles and their respective pressures on the marketing organization to drive demand and revenue 
• B2B, B2C, and B2B2C marketing with experience in field enablement, cross-channel marketing, integration of offline and online advertising, and attribution modeling, marketing mix modeling
• Persuasive leader with experience driving initiatives with demonstrable outcomes, engaging with executives, and supporting others to articulate a vision
• Deep analytical and problem-solving skills. Comfortable using a data-driven approach to assess markets, industries, financial and business models
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Prior experience in large, global enterprise organizations; launched and scaled startups, or experience integrating startups in established mature organizations.

Compensation Range:

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This role is eligible for additional short-term and long-term incentive compensation.

We believe in fairness and transparency. It’s why we share the salary range for most of our roles. However, final salaries are based on a number of factors, including the skills and experience of the candidate; the current market; location of the candidate; and other factors uncovered in the hiring process. The standard pay structure is listed but if you’re living in California, New York City or other eligible location, geographic specific pay structures, compensation and benefits could be applicable, click here to learn more.

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Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer that welcomes talented individuals of all backgrounds. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives.