Job: Chief Marketing Officer (Trade Association for Financial Services)

Our Client

Our client is a large non-for-profit trade association for financial institutions.

From our client:

We are on a mission to drive member engagement. We are evolving the way we connect and bring value to our members. We need a creative and strategic senior-level marketing leader to oversee member-engagement marketing, directly owning our content creation, campaign, publications, digital and design teams. Our success marketing depends on leadership that can challenge the norm and offer fresh perspectives. This is a newly-created, full time position who reports to the Chief Marketing Officer and can be located in either the Hartford, CT  area or Atlanta, GA with some work-from-home flexibility.

More than 1000 financial institution members across 60+ countries

Responsibilities

As a member of the senior leadership team reporting to the COO, you will be responsible for designing, implementing, and monitoring effective marketing strategies that align with our overall enterprise growth strategy and business goals. This includes but is not limited to:

• Serving as internal consultant to the CEO, COO, Board, Senior Leadership Team and other key stakeholders on all marketing matters, making recommendations and creating proactive strategies to keep the organization on a growth trajectory;
• Partnering with business development and manufacturing areas to drive member awareness, engagement, and consumption through all disciplines of marketing for new and existing offerings, including effective go-to-market plans for new products and research;
• Building a top-tier internal marketing team across all company locations by actively recruiting, training, and developing staff, as needed;
• Developing and maintaining brand standards;
• Driving our digital marketing positioning (e.g., websites, digital campaigns);
• Overseeing PR strategy and activities to achieve optimal placements for visibility and maintain reputational standards;
• Ensuring top quality graphics and design on all creative assets;
• Developing and executing marketing campaigns across traditional and modern channels, designed to fill and grow the lead pipeline with high-quality leads;
• Providing ongoing reporting, developing actionable insights, applying test and learn approach to new initiatives;
• Measuring the performance of all activities and campaigns using data analysis, assessing them against goals (ROI, Key Performance Indicators) and adjusting strategy and activities to achieve them;
• Providing oversight and appropriate management as needed to third party vendors providing services to the marketing area;
• Providing oversight for and managing marketing budgets; and
• Representing the organization to marketing organizations in our member companies, which includes working with some of our committees and study groups.

Ideal Profile

You must be an experienced leader who is adept at creating robust and effective marketing strategies that will increase member awareness of and engagement with the organization, while driving utilization of our products and services. You are someone who can build and maintain a strong culture, leading a team of professionals, and establishing optimal processes. Working with the CEO, COO, and other senior leaders as well as the Board of directors, you must be capable of setting key strategic growth goals for the organization on a global basis and working systematically to meet them.

This means that, in addition to possessing superior creative marketing skills and the utmost integrity, you are:

• Visionary: you understand our business and our brand value, and maintain a long-term, big-picture view to identify future needs and opportunities. You are on top of industry events and trends, and consider those in your plans.
• Strategic: you develop marketing strategies that increase member engagement and contribute to the organization’s long-term success. You also are able to translate broad strategies into clear objectives and practical action plans.
• Execution-oriented: you drive effective execution on strategic and tactical plans by focusing resources on highest value activities. You are hands-on, demonstrating a bias for action, a sense of urgency, and a mindset for continuous improvement. You drive accountability.
• Proactive: you identify opportunity, apply thought leadership, and act appropriately without waiting to be told or directed. You tackle problems head-on and look to resolve them without delay, addressing lagging performance and any barriers to achieving results.
• Collaborative: you can successfully pull together various stakeholder groups to achieve results. You respect differences in perspective and background while integrating different ideas and points of view.
• Adaptable: you are a resilient problem solver who adjusts your style to meet the needs of the situation and responds resourcefully to new challenges. Even when plans change, you maintain a constructive and positive outlook and “can do” spirit. You successfully pivot between strategic vision and tactical focus.

• Communicative: you are an outstanding communicator. You communicate timely and effectively, internally and externally, verbally and in writing, and at all levels of the organization. You foster open dialogue, keep others well informed, and promote frank discussion of tough issues.
• Talent Savvy: You attract and retain the best high-caliber talent, build a strong team with complementary strengths and succession potential, value and encourage diversity of all kinds, inspire and empower others and, coach and grow people. You also demonstrate managerial courage and situational candor, ensuring appropriate accountability for outcomes.
• Entrepreneurial: You “roll up sleeves” as needed to contribute to team/individual’s success. You work quickly, intelligently, and flexibly. You find ways to accomplish goals even under challenging circumstances.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree; MBA and/or other degrees/certifications a plus
• At least 10 years of well-rounded marketing experience in positions of increasing responsibility; focus on marketing expansion preferred
• At least 15 years of demonstrated leadership of a team of diverse marketing professionals, including as a leader of leaders
• Experience in an organization focused on individual insurance, group/workplace benefits and/or retirement required
• Experience working with various marketing tools relating to lead generation, data analytics, website development, product branding, visual communication software, written communication, and public relations
• Thrives in a fast-paced environment, ability to handle multiple projects and prioritize under tight deadlines
• Strong knowledge of and prior success with B2B; experience with B2C a plus