At the American Cancer Society, we're leading the fight for a world without cancer. Our employees and 1.5 million volunteers are raising the bar every single day. We actively seek candidates from diverse backgrounds including communities of color, the LGBTQ community, veterans, and people with disabilities. The greater the diversity of our people, the better we can serve our communities.

The people who work at the American Cancer Society focus their diverse talents on our lifesaving mission. It is a calling. And the people who answer it are fulfilled.

The Marketing Strategy Director advances the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) mission by driving marketing strategy, go-to-market planning and marketing measurement plans for the Discovery, Patient Support, and Advocacy Pillars, directly supporting the ACS’s goal to ensure that everyone can prevent, detect, treat, and survive cancer.

In this role, you will be responsible for developing, executing and measuring annual marketing plans, tactical go-to-market plans and integrated marketing. As the champion of integrated marketing, you will deeply understand ACS’s business objectives and audience needs, creating comprehensive strategies that leverage resources from across the Marketing and Communications department to meet goals and keep projects on track.

The Discovery and Patient Support pillars encompass ACS's intramural research (conducted by ACS scientists), population science research (proprietary, long-term studies), extramural research (grants awarded to external scientists), and the publication of Cancer Facts & Figures. These pillars also include critical patient services, such as Hope Lodges (free stays during treatments), free transportation, a 24/7 cancer support hotline, and personnel working on education, prevention, and screening programs.

The Advocacy pillar, led by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), shapes public policy at local, state, and federal levels. ACS CAN plays a vital role in passing landmark legislation by elevating the voices of cancer patients on issues crucial to reducing the cancer burden. Together, all three pillars work across the "cancer continuum"—from prevention to survivorship and bereavement.

This role will lead marketing and audience-led strategies that support ACS’s vision of ending cancer for everyone.

As an experienced, strategic marketing leader, you will manage integrated planning, lead cross-functional teams, and implement various campaigns supporting the Discovery, Patient Support, and Advocacy pillars with a high degree of autonomy. You will collaborate closely with marketing directors across the team and report to the VP of Marketing Strategy.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES

• Marketing leadership – Serves as one of multiple central leaders for the Discovery/Patient Support/Advocacy pillars, responsible for holistic annual planning, the development, integration and execution of a broad range of marketing planning and implementation activities to support the strategic direction and positioning of the pillars and leadership using a high degree of autonomy.  Fosters strong partnerships within and across teams to drive alignment, optimize strategies and maximize impact. This position is a strong functional matrix, working collaboratively with the senior leadership teams of each pillar. 

• Leads development of marketing campaigns and materials – Responsible for leading annual marketing planning in strong collaboration with leads across Discovery/Patient Support/Advocacy pillars. Responsible for developing annual marketing and/or audience plans leveraging market research and data that guides integrated planning, messaging, content and collateral development across multiple media platforms and formats including video, digital, print, radio, broadcast, etc. Responsible for leading retrospectives and delivering final reports of measurements against marketing plan(s).

• Audience Champion Leadership – Ensures ACS looks holistically at the journeys and ACS experiences across six critical audiences:  people living with cancer, caregivers, survivors, healthcare professionals, researchers, policymakers and potential donors. Provides support to ensure regular audience journey mapping, insights gathering and opportunity mapping.  Results/insights to be socialized across the organization.

• Responsible for ensuring marketing strategies for the Discovery, Patient Support and Advocacy pillars are delivered on time and on budget, measured, evaluated and reconciled.  

• Collaborates with Marcom channel leads and subject matter experts to identify internal and external marketing opportunities and executes appropriate strategies to support them.

• Content Management – Responsible for day-to-day planning and support to develop content that accelerates visibility and impact goals. An existing familiarity with medical/science (med/sci) content creation is a plus as this position will support engagement with multiple external stakeholders including researchers, clinicians and policy makers which will be facilitated by an understanding of med/sci. 

• Creation of equitable and inclusive marketing campaigns and materials – Proven ability to guide the creation of marketing materials and campaigns that include and appeal to diverse audiences, ranging from mass audience inclusive campaigns to targeted campaigns that build from deep consumer insights. Must demonstrate through their actions, words and outcomes a high level of understanding of DEI.

• Remains current on marketing, healthcare and nonprofit trends, technologies and best practices. Serves as a mentor, both formally and informally, within team.

KNOWLEDGE/SKILLS

FORMAL KNOWLEDGE

• 7+ years leading marketing teams with a record of progressively responsible positions

• Proven success at developing/executing/measuring marketing strategies, activities, campaigns, etc. that drive impact

• Proven successful track record of developing/executing marketing strategies designed to impact multicultural/diverse audiences and audiences from historically and systemically underrepresented and marginalized communities

• Prior experience working within a matrixed environment preferred

• Strong communication, presentation and leadership skills

• Proactive, strategic thinker highly capable of identifying and executing with autonomy

SPECIALIZED TRAINING OR KNOWLEDGE

• Medical/science content – must be able to develop effective communications for a med/sci audience (can be learned on the job but a nice to have if there is prior experience)

COMPETENCIES/SKILLS

• Strong marketing skillset – proven ability to lead teams to develop and deliver strong marketing campaigns

• Strategic mindset – Able to translate business needs/objectives into impactful strategies and actionable plans

• Personal commitment to DEI and Health Equity – possesses knowledge of and curiosity about own DEI journey and advanced understanding of issues related to DEI

• Creativity – Able to find innovative solutions within acceptable parameters; inspires team to create new thinking and ideas

• Inspires trust – must operate as a trusted strategic counsel to pillar senior leadership

• Ensures accountability – holds self and others accountable to meet commitments

• Manages complexity -- Ability to distill complex, high quantity and sometimes contradictory information to effectively solve problems

• Collaborative and team-oriented

• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills – ability to clarify and translate strategy and activation plans to others

• Personal values consistent with ACS core values:  Integrity, compassion, courage, determination, diversity

SPECIAL MENTAL OR PHYSICAL DEMANDS

• Work is normally performed in a typical interior/office work environment.

• No or very limited physical effort required.

• No or very limited exposure to physical risk.

• Ability to travel on as-needed basis

The starting rate is $88,000 to $110,000 annual. The final candidate's relevant experience/skills will be considered before an offer is extended. Actual starting pay will vary based on non-discriminatory factors including, but not limited to, geographic location, experience, skills, specialty, and education.

The American Cancer Society has adopted a vaccination policy that requires all staff, regardless of position or work location, to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 (except where prohibited by state law).

ACS provides staff a generous paid time off policy; medical, dental, retirement benefits, wellness programs, and professional development programs to enhance staff skills. Further details on our benefits can be found on our careers site at: jobs.cancer.org/benefits. We are a proud equal opportunity employer.