Executive Director of Digital Marketing, External Affairs

The Executive Director of Digital Marketing is a strategic and hands-on leader within Boston Universitys External Affairs division charged with building the universitys digital marketing infrastructure and its analytics and insights capability from the ground up. Reporting to the Assistant Vice President of Digital Marketing and Brand Management this leader will serve as BUs central point of strategy for the digital marketing work happening across BUs colleges schools and administrative units including the external vendors and agencies those units engage ensuring that decentralized investment is coordinated strategic and clearly tied to institutional return on investment. This role will also stand up BUs analytics and reporting backbone beginning with an internal performance dashboard for External Affairs and growing into a comprehensive university-wide data reporting and insights structure that lets BUs marketing community learn and improve together.

The ideal candidate is an experienced digital marketing pro and people leader an industry expert who is fluent in current and emerging trends (including AI) a confident builder of infrastructure and process a strategist with a keen eye toward performance metrics and above all a trusted relationship-builder who can bring together a large decentralized institution around shared standards of excellence. Boston University is a leading private research and teaching institution with more than 38000 students 11000 faculty and staff 300 programs of study and 130 research centers and institutes. Our scholars are at the forefront of innovation successfully competing for more than $574 million in sponsored research awards last year. Our students come from all 50 states and more than 140 countries and nearly 20 percent of our undergraduates are first-generation college students.

What Youll Own:

Digital Marketing Strategy & Infrastructure

• Design build and maintain BUs digital marketing infrastructure: the platforms tools workflows and governance the University runs on.
• Define and champion best practices in SEO digital advertising marketing technology and channel strategy across BU.
• Tie digital marketing investment at both the University and the unit level to institutional goals such as enrollment persistence and fundraising and to demonstrable return on investment.
• Analytics Reporting & Insights Build an internal analytics dashboard for External Affairs that gives leadership real-time visibility into digital marketing performance.
• Design and lead a university-wide data reporting and insights structure so BUs colleges schools and units learn and improve together rather than in silos.
• Partner with Institutional Research IS&T and unit stakeholders to define shared metrics data governance and reporting schedules tied to institutional priorities.
• Translate complex data into clear actionable insight for senior leadership unit partners and the External Affairs team.

Cross-Campus Partnership & Vendor Strategy

• Serve as the day-to-day strategic partner to BUs colleges schools and administrative units on digital marketing building trusted advisory relationships with unit marketing leaders and the agencies and vendors they engage.
• Establish and maintain a consistent University-wide framework for evaluating engaging and managing digital marketing vendor relationships keeping them aligned with BUs brand strategy and goals.
• Analyze current vendor engagements and digital spend to find opportunities for consolidation efficiency and stronger return on investment.
• Advise unit leaders on digital advertising strategy investment and vendor performance raising the quality and consistency of the digital marketing done on their behalf.

Team Leadership & Culture:

• Lead coach and develop a team of digital marketing and analytics experts setting clear goals growth plans and performance expectations.
• Build a high-performing collaborative team culture grounded in curiosity excellence and partnership with colleagues across campus.
• Work across reporting lines by design encouraging collaboration within External Affairs and across BUs wider marketing community.

Industry Leadership & Innovation

• Scan the marketing and higher education landscape for emerging tools platforms and practices including generative AI and translate them into practical opportunities for BU.
• Prepare the University for the impact of AI on marketing search and analytics and lead BUs response.
• Represent BUs digital marketing work externally stay active in professional networks and benchmark BUs performance against peer institutions and leading consumer brands.

Work Arrangement:

• This position is hybrid and requires three days per week on campus at 985 Commonwealth Avenue Boston MA. Tuesday and Wednesday are required in-office days.
• The third in-office day is determined in consultation with the manager.
• Position requires occasional night and weekend work.

Boston University offers competitive pay and a comprehensive benefits package that includes:

• Tuition remission for employees and eligible dependents.
• Retirement contributions.
• Health and dental coverage.
• Paid time off.

• Bachelors degree in marketing Communications Advertising Business Analytics or a related field.
• 8 years of progressive digital marketing leadership experience including budget and vendor/agency management.
• Demonstrated experience overseeing SEO digital advertising and marketing analytics functions.
• Proven success building or scaling marketing analytics reporting or dashboard infrastructure.
• Track record of leading developing and retaining high-performing marketing teams.
• Strong vendor and agency management experience including contract and performance oversight.
• Excellent relationship-building influence and communication skills with a demonstrated ability to build trust and drive alignment across a large decentralized matrixed organization.
• Current working knowledge of digital marketing and marketing-technology trends including practical applications of AI in marketing and analytics.

Preferred:

• Experience in higher education marketing or another complex multi-unit institutional environment.
• Experience partnering with Institutional Research or a similar data/decision-support function.
• Familiarity with higher-education marketing and analytics platforms.

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race color natural or protective hairstyle religion sex age national origin physical or mental disability sexual orientation gender identity genetic information military service pregnancy or pregnancy-related condition or because of marital parental or veteran status. We are a VEVRAA Federal Contractor.