Executive Director, Marketing & Campaign Effectiveness

Job Description

The Executive Director, Marketing & Campaign Effectiveness is a new leadership role accountable for the strategy, governance, performance, and continuous evolution of the end-to-end Marketing Operations system. This role owns how marketing work flows across strategy translation, campaign development, content creation, promotional review, activation, measurement, optimization, and learning across U.S. Human Health and the expanding Global Marketing Operations remit.

The role will include leadership accountability for the Campaign Development organization, including management of the Campaign Development Lead (CDL) chapters. This includes setting the operating model, practice standards, capability expectations, and performance management approach for campaign development in the U.S. market.

Key Responsibilities:

• Own the strategy, governance, and operating model for Marketing & Campaign Effectiveness across the full concept-to-customer flow, including strategy translation, campaign development, content creation, promotional review, activation, measurement, optimization, and learning.

• Manage the CDL chapters and establish the leadership model, operating standards, performance routines, and practice expectations for campaign development in the U.S. market.

• Drive consistency across CDL chapters by defining shared ways of working, role clarity, campaign development standards, prioritization routines, escalation paths, capacity expectations, and handoff requirements.

• Enable transformation in the practice of campaign development by translating the future-state AI-enabled customer engagement marketing model into practical CDL workflows, behaviors, tools, standards, and adoption routines.

• Establish the enterprise management system for Marketing Operations, including governance forums, decision rights, escalation pathways, operating routines, role clarity, handoff standards, and performance expectations across functions and CDL chapters.

• Define how CDLs, customer engagement architects, content teams, promotional review, activation teams, global systems, and measurement partners work together from campaign strategy through deployment, optimization, and learning.

• Set the roadmap for improving end-to-end marketing and campaign flow, with accountability for reducing fragmentation, improving speed, strengthening quality, increasing launch readiness, and driving consistency across brands, therapeutic areas, alliances, and global / local dependencies.

• Own the integrated performance agenda for Marketing & Campaign Effectiveness, including KPIs for end-to-end cycle time, campaign throughput, CDL capacity and utilization, campaign development quality, content readiness, review efficiency, rework, handoff quality, activation readiness, adoption, and transformation impact.

• Lead the operational realization of the future-state AI-enabled customer engagement marketing model within Marketing Operations, ensuring future-state capabilities translate into repeatable workflows, standards, governance, CDL ways of working, and measurable performance improvement.

• Resolve cross-functional system bottlenecks that sit between functions, including planning-to-campaign handoffs, campaign-to-content handoffs, content-to-review readiness, review-to-activation flow, activation-to-measurement feedback, and performance-to-optimization loops.

• Own CDL resource allocation and prioritization governance needed to balance portfolio priorities, launch demands, alliance needs, capacity constraints, and evolving customer engagement requirements.

• Provide senior leadership with visibility into root causes, systemic constraints, capacity issues, capability gaps, investment needs, operating model risks, and decisions required to accelerate the marketing system.

• Govern prioritization of system-level improvements, ensuring the organization does not optimize isolated process steps at the expense of end-to-end effectiveness.

• Establish the operating principles for how Marketing Operations teams, CDL chapters, Global Marketing Operations, capability owners, business stakeholders, platform teams, agencies, and enabling functions work together in a dynamic portfolio environment.

• Partner with Business Unit Engagement, Global Marketing Operations, CEI, DHH, Legal, Medical, Regulatory, Compliance, Privacy, IT, Finance, agency partners, and transformation teams to ensure speed and innovation are balanced with quality, risk stewardship, and regulatory expectations.

• Create the management system that enables Marketing Operations to operate current-state, interim-state, and future-state models in parallel while progressing toward a faster, more connected, AI-enabled future state.

Education Minimum Requirement:

• Bachelor's Degree

Required Experience and Skills:

• 12+ years of experience in marketing operations, commercial transformation, customer engagement, campaign development, content operations, or enterprise operating model leadership in a regulated environment.

• Executive-level systems leadership across complex, multi-function, matrixed organizations, including leadership of chapter-based or distributed teams.

• Proven ability to manage campaign development chapters or comparable execution teams across brands, therapeutic areas, launches, alliances, and cross-functional stakeholders.

• Demonstrated ability to drive consistency across a distributed practice area, including standards, routines, governance, role clarity, resource allocation, and performance expectations.

• Proven ability to transform how campaign development work is practiced in a live business environment, moving teams from fragmented ways of working to scalable, consistent, AI-enabled workflows.

• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional operating model change across senior stakeholders, with both direct and indirect leadership accountability.

• Deep understanding of campaign development, content creation, promotional review, activation, measurement, omnichannel orchestration, and marketing transformation.

• Strong capability in operating model design, including governance, decision rights, role clarity, standards, escalation models, process architecture, performance management, capacity routines, and chapter ways of working.

• Ability to translate fragmented workflows and performance signals into executive decisions, system interventions, resource allocation choices, investment priorities, and measurable improvement.

• Proven ability to operationalize transformation programs in live business environments while maintaining run-the-business performance.

• Strong judgment in regulated environments, with ability to balance speed, innovation, AI-enabled ways of working, quality, compliance, privacy, promotional review expectations, and launch urgency.

• Executive communication skills, including the ability to frame trade-offs, root causes, risks, capacity needs, and decisions for senior leaders.

Required Skills:

Advertising Campaign Development, Advertising Campaign Development, Brand Management, Business Performance Management, Business Transformation, Competency Management, Customer Engagement, Customer-Focused, Data Analysis, Decision Making, Driver Management, Executive Leadership, Executive Presence, Innovation, Market Analysis, Marketing Communications Planning, Marketing Effectiveness, Market Research, Omnichannel Marketing, Operating Models, Operations Management, Organizational Leadership, People Leadership, Portfolio Prioritization, Portfolio Strategies {+ 9 more}

Preferred Skills:

Current Employees apply HERE

Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

US and Puerto Rico Residents Only:

Our company is committed to inclusion, ensuring that candidates can engage in a hiring process that exhibits their true capabilities. Please click here if you need an accommodation during the application or hiring process.

As an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer, we provide equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.  As a federal contractor, we comply with all affirmative action requirements for protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.  For more information about personal rights under the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment laws, visit:

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We are proud to be a company that embraces the value of bringing together, talented, and committed people with diverse experiences, perspectives, skills and backgrounds. The fastest way to breakthrough innovation is when people with diverse ideas, broad experiences, backgrounds, and skills come together in an inclusive environment. We encourage our colleagues to respectfully challenge one another’s thinking and approach problems collectively.

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The salary range for this role is

$255,800.00 - $402,700.00

This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, government requirements, and business or organizational needs.

The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits.  Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days. More information about benefits is available at https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits.

You can apply for this role through https://jobs.merck.com/us/en (or via the Workday Jobs Hub if you are a current employee). The application deadline for this position is stated on this posting.

San Francisco Residents Only: We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment in compliance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance

Los Angeles Residents Only: We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance

Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully 
Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company.  No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails. 

Employee Status:

Regular

Relocation:

No relocation

VISA Sponsorship:

No

Travel Requirements:

10%

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Not Applicable

Shift:

1st - Day

Valid Driving License:

Yes

Hazardous Material(s):

n/a

Job Posting End Date:

09/20/2026

*A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.