Senior Manager, Marketing Operations & Strategy, Ford Integrated Services Marcomm

Ford - Springfield, IL

Full-time - Manager

Springfield, IL

Transportation Equipment Manufacturing

About the position

The IS Marketing Operations and Strategy Manager at Ford Motor Company plays a pivotal role in supporting the growth of Integrated Services and the development of a transformational Marketing Communications discipline. This position encompasses a wide array of responsibilities, including the establishment of processes and measurement systems to drive the newly formed Services marketing execution team. The manager will interface with numerous stakeholders, ensuring alignment and synergy across the IS Marcomm and business teams. The role involves designing an optimal structure and processes for efficient management across individual teams, as well as accelerating the establishment of new growth marketing capabilities both internally and with external vendors. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in enabling digital transformation, process implementation, and cost management. They should possess a proven ability to manage multiple stakeholders, implement strategic initiatives, communicate effectively, demonstrate resilience, and exemplify Ford+ Behaviors. The Integrated Services Marcomm organization is tasked with accelerating the Ford+ strategy, which aims to transform the company by building sustained, always-on customer relationships and capturing new, high-margin services and digital revenue. This position is critical to delivering exponential year-over-year revenue growth for existing and emerging services businesses. The role requires managing efficient planning, processes, and information flows for the IS Marketing and Business teams to enable strategic decision-making and uncover blind spots. The manager will anticipate and accelerate planning and forecasting cycles, integrating with business and marketing partners to forecast needs and dependencies. They will also interface with Business Office teams to ensure timely delivery of materials, drive organizational agility through sustainable processes, and manage marketing governance within Ford and with Dealer Councils. Additionally, the manager will govern vendor relationships to ensure optimal resource utilization and establish cost management accountability. As Services marketing is a new discipline at Ford, this role will be critical in establishing a performance-based organizational mindset and operating cadence to meet business objectives. The manager will connect key areas of transformation to communicate value creation to stakeholders, develop regular reporting on impact and success stories, and coordinate compelling internal business unit reviews with corporate leaders. They will also support the development of a cohesive global team, foster strong relationships across marketing and IS business organizations, and drive a performance-based mindset across the organization.

Responsibilities

• Manage efficient planning, processes, and information flows for the IS Marketing and Business teams to enable strategic decision making and uncover blind spots.
• Anticipate and accelerate planning and forecasting cycles; integrating with business and marketing partners to forecast needs and dependencies.
• Interface with Business Office teams and stakeholders to ensure timely and robust delivery of materials including pre-reviews and filings.
• Drive organizational agility through the implementation of replicable and sustainable processes facilitating best practice sharing and transparency of results.
• Manage marketing governance within Ford and with Dealer Councils, setting agenda, coordinating with presenters, facilitating the meetings to drive to decisions, and following up on actions.
• Govern vendor relationships to ensure optimal resource utilization, bridge capability gaps and establish cost management accountability working with Agency Ops teams and vendors directly.
• Ensure clear Directly Responsible Individuals (DRI) are assigned for each area of work.
• Work with key stakeholders for development and management of IS integrated calendar and recurring lookaheads to identify connections and gaps.
• Accelerate org design and staffing needs ensuring alignment and support across org, HR and business offices for timely posting, recruiting and onboarding.
• Central point for organizational cost and resource management working with leadership and finance teams on building and structuring flexible and agile staffing and vendor models.
• Identify and execute roadmap for capability gap analysis given business objectives including vendor optimization and skill-based assessments.
• Establish departmental test and learn discipline coordinating across SMEs to ensure continuous performance improvement and tracking to L1 and L2 objectives.
• Ability to accelerate and optimize processes (including automation) through the identification and implementation of processes, programs and software applications.
• Develop and deliver regular reporting on impact, success stories, and ROI to the organization, Ford IS and Ford Motor company leadership teams.
• Coordinate with Finance, CEO's Chief of Staff, and Investor Relations teams for ongoing storytelling of value creation proof points and metrics.
• Coordinate compelling internal business unit reviews with corporate leaders.
• Celebrate wins and support a culture of thoughtful risk taking where appropriate.
• Support the development of a cohesive global team ensuring all voices and perspectives are included.
• Foster strong relationships across the broader marketing and IS business organizations to drive growth and profitability.
• Provide ad-hoc expertise on project framework, approach, tools and organization data to other teams.
• Drive a performance-based mindset across organization to ensure clear goal setting with ownership and accountability across all levels of the team.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in an appropriate field of study.
• 8+ years in a services/subscription marketing role with proven experience organizing and directing multiple teams and departments.
• Executive presence with a proven ability to lead complex organization and/or operational initiatives.

Nice-to-haves

• Master's degree in business administration or similar field.
• Deep understanding of integrated marketing and communications strategies and how they come together to provide measurable results.
• Previous experience in subscription or services marketing with track record of accountability for business outcomes.
• Superior written and verbal communication skills; strong presentation skills with ability to 'tell the story'.
• Strategic ability and process-oriented mindset with emphasis on hands-on implementation and fast impact creation.
• Ability to use data and analytics to drive decision-making and assess ROI.
• Ability to collaboratively work in a diverse, cross-functional, and international environment.
• Proficient with data manipulation (data structuring, wrangling) and analysis.
• Strong analytical, problem solving and critical thinking skills.
• Extremely versatile, dedicated to efficient productivity.
• Proven success in a project coordination role.
• Nimble business mind with a focus on developing creative solutions.
• Strong project reporting skills, with a focus on interdepartmental communication.
• Passion for working in a fast-paced, complex global environment.
• Validated leadership skills including the ability to educate, empower, and influence others.

Benefits

• Immediate medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage
• Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up child care and more
• Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and more
• Vehicle discount program for employees and family members and management leases
• Tuition assistance
• Established and active employee resource groups
• Paid time off for individual and team community service
• A generous schedule of paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year's Day
• Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.