VP, Head of CE Marketing

Job Description:

The Role

We have a new opportunity for a Head of Marketing to join our dentsu Marketing & Communications leadership team in Central Europe (CE). This role will dual report into the EMEA CMO, dentsu and the CE Chief Growth Officer, dentsu. This individual will be responsible for developing and executing the external communications, brand, commercial and experience marketing strategy to support the growth and innovation strategy for the CE integrated comms and marketing team. As well as developing and overseeing the execution of our go-to-market messaging and lead generation, you will support large deals, collaborate with internal resources and teams as required, and be client facing through executive sponsorship or pitch support as appropriate.

This role isn’t a traditional agency communications or marketing role as we’re looking for someone who wants to push the boundaries of the never before. Someone who can innovate and drive us to be distinctively dentsu in the industry so that we can execute what we deliver to clients, for our own brand, whilst having the skills and experience to be client facing and support our growth agenda. It will be a great fit and opportunity for an individual with over 10 years successful experience in customer and/or digital experience delivery for large brands, with a strong understanding of the communications, creative, media, data, technology, the consultancy and agency landscape. A passion for identifying and delivering commercial value and business outcomes for clients, combined with the ability to integrate brand and commercial marketing, will be a key personal and professional attribute. Proven experience integrating multiple capabilities together, strong storytelling skills to simply articulate complex solutions, experience in prioritising effective channel management to optimise budgets, business and people performance management, and understanding the resources required to execute programmes of work to deliver business results will be essential to this role.

As the Head of Marketing , you will be responsible for:

• The CE communications and marketing team with associated brand and growth targets, including brand perception and reputation, revenue, client executive access and average deal size into existing and net new clients.

• Deliver an experience strategy to activate marketing that targets our key audiences and creates a memorable experience that aligns our brand values, commercial goals, and client needs (ABX). This includes net new, existing clients and the nurturing of these journeys.

• Oversee the external communications calendar to ensure it aligns to our growth priorities – working closely with the global and regional teams, and in collaboration with Corporate Communications - ensuring that all communications adhere to the appropriate brand guidelines and business tone of voice.

• Connect communications, launch campaigns and always-on experience activation through data, technology, creativity including seamless processes and governance.

• Be an advocate and the responsible CE gatekeeper to govern the brand for dentsu and its GTM agencies, ensuring that the brands are meeting the guidelines and expectations of our clients and our regional/global teams.

• Working with global and regional teams to plan and leverage thought leadership, and curating new thought leadership that reflects dentsu’s brand, experience and business priorities to position us as an industry leader.

• Support and activate marketing for our technology partnerships with associated revenue targets and opportunity management including partner marketing into the industry, into partners and into dentsu.

• Partnering with the dentsu EMEA CMO, CE executive team, CE Chief Growth Officer, new business teams and Practice Area growth officers to identify, agree and design the most effective strategies to support ‘existing client’ expansion.

• Collaborating and prioritising with the CE Executive leadership team, new business and growth teams on securing new client opportunities and providing marketing pitch support, including the appropriate regular business reporting.

• Collaborating, prioritising with the CE Executive leadership team and client leads on growing existing client opportunities and providing marketing experience support.

• Be part of the EMEA Marcomms leadership team and collaborating to ensure consistency and evolving best practices across the CE cluster and region.

The Head of Marketing will be responsible for ensuring that the CE marketing and external communications team are aligned to our business and marcomms strategy, support the development of their skills to deliver experiences and support the shift to an outcome-driven approach to marketing with a constant eye on sustainability and DEI.

This is a unique opportunity to drive the ‘modern marketing’ agenda, and to lead and deliver real marketing and organisational change for dentsu. This person should be prepared to develop and drive new channels, formats and thought leadership for the business through their tenured experience in delivering for large enterprise and emerging brands. They should be comfortable in the c-suite environment, and have ability to network and collaborate with the highest levels in dentsu and our client organisations.

Life as a Head of Marketing

Within this role you will:

• Build and demonstrate a world-class marketing capability, helping to define and drive deeper modern marketing expertise through our executives and internal marketing team.

• Leverage your strong interpersonal and teaming skills as you collaborate with the dentsu practice areas and cluster/brand CEOs, growth, client and technology teams to agree and drive sustainable growth across CE.

• Develop and execute an experience marketing strategy across the dentsu practice areas to access client executives, generate leads for growth, and elevate the positioning of dentsu for our target brands working closely with CE leadership and regional teams.

• Be responsible for creating and enabling our dentsu CE growth engine and the appropriate data and technology platforms; including the enablement and delivery of Account Based Experiences (ABX) across new and existing clients.

• Work closely with the CE Chief Growth Officer to identify and prioritise clients, solutions and key growth activities.

• Work closely with the CE executive team and regional marcomms team to identify new thought leadership opportunities, channels and content format opportunities to drive innovation and differentiation in the market.

• Be a brand ambassador working with the regional Marcomms team to ensure that our brand is developing and consistently being used by the wider business. This includes the governance across all dentsu CE practice and brands.

• Continually drive improved performance of our business and marketing KPIs.

• Build, support and/or represent dentsu in c-suite relationships with prospects and clients that ensures continued growth of pipeline.

• Continually support the evolution of our dentsu go-to-market including the enablement of vertical propositions, alliances, etc, and developing and implementing strong working relationships with the sector/verticals and internal leadership.

• Oversee external comms to ensure that the team:

  Continuously optimise the delivery of channels balancing both brand perception and commercial performance

  Support the launch and brand migration of dentsu partner-led acquisitions for the CE

  Support client activation for strategic clients as well as BAU activity

  Agree participation and sponsorship of marketing events and activities

  Collaborate to continually clarify, define and update the brand and messaging strategy for our service lines and brands

  Ensure CE brand reputation is proactively and reactively maintained working closely with the Corporate Communications, regional marcomms team, CE CEO and wider CE ELT

• Provide excellent leadership through engagement with Sales, Client Service, practice areas, brands and Solution teams

• Support client activity including executive sponsorship, thought leadership and pitches, representing dentsu c-suite/board level conversations

• Deliver against KPIs whilst managing within both staff and non-staff P&L

• Be accountable for the strategy, planning, execution, and governance of dentsu’s data & technology, CRM, social media, website and digital OOH and paid media, organic media

• Be market facing and represent dentsu as a thought leader in the fields of BX, Creative, CXM and Media

What we are looking for in you

• We anticipate the suitable individual will have at least 10 years of combined experience and marketing related experiences (e.g., experience strategy, marketing strategy, experience design, marketing technology digital technology, transformation, creative, media, content, etc.) with solid knowledge in media, digital commerce, marketing technology, data & analytics.

• Strong understanding of communications planning and have key ideas on how to innovate/be distinctive in a saturated market

• A strong grasp and understanding of the data-driven marketing and the integration and exploitation of 1st/2nd/3rd party data

• A proven ability to understand and express value propositions (through experienced-based story telling) relevant to V-suite and C-suite clients.

• Experience of delivering a successful experience strategy to drive growth and innovation

• Must have technical experience in the integration of multiple solutions and the ability to determine scope, duration, resources required prior to execute a programme of work

• Experience in data acquisition/procurement and ability to activate data across channels complying to GDPR regulations

• History of success working within team and matrixed environments

• Viewed as a thought leader in customer or digital experience and marketing; including ethical marketing such as sustainability and DEI.

• Deep CE market, including general business and commercial knowledge and acumen

• Innovative and creative, with exceptional communication/presentation skills able to lead and influence with good collaboration capabilities

• Experience in managing diverse marcomms teams with collaborative leadership skills

• Experience in Financial Services, Insurance, Travel, Media, Entertainment, Non-Profit, High Tech or Retail advantageous