Within Gartner’s Corporate Communications group, Marketing Solutions Leaders (AKA Pod Leaders) are responsible for managing the day-to-day activities for a high performing, highly-motivated team of subject-matter-experts working in a Pod model. This is achieved by aligning priorities, building roadmaps, managing workflows and motivating colleagues to deliver high quality deliverables to key business stakeholders across the enterprise. This a linchpin role that enables marketing to greatly scale its impact overall.
The Marketing Solutions Lead (MSL) is included in all planning and campaign review sessions conducted by a business or corporate partners in order to establish and maintain a road map that aligns with the strategic direction for a given group. The MSL leverages this insight to propose strategies, establish objectives, and define initiatives for all the subject matter experts within a given pod. The MSL is actively involved in the solution development process and adapting/revising both to deliver on immediate goals and improve Gartner’s overall marketing disposition. This is a leadership role and requires in-depth understanding of key Marketing practices, such as paid media, user experience, SEO, content, design, and multimedia storytelling.
The MSL ensures that the activities of all the experts working within a Pod come together in full support of the business partner’s strategy. The incumbent must be equally adept at influence and relationship management, capable of building and maintaining strong relationships while also challenging team members and partners to improve performance on objectives. The MSL will propose and advocate for adapted schedules, manage the aggregate Pod resource capacity and individual associate capacity within the Pod. This role will work with adjusted plans whenever external trends suggest a new opportunity. Daily, the MSL will identify and eliminate impediments and promote the use of standards and best practices. The MSL ensures smooth operation of continuous delivery processes and is responsible for leading Pod stand-ups, prioritization meetings, sprint planning sessions and retrospectives.
This role will report into the Head of Integrated Marketing Solutions. The role will directly prioritize the work of approximately 12 Pod members.
What you will lead:
- Work with business unit leads to communicate strategy and measurable KPIs for key initiatives.
- Deliver monthly, quarterly, and annual Pod progress and Pod health reports including connect points for business unit stakeholders and Pod associates.
- Lead key digital initiatives in lockstep with pod project manager along with digital, SEO and content business partners.
- Effectively manage cross-functional dedicated team members capacity via sprint cycles and weekly priorities.
- Organize and facilitate marketing activities including a consistent cadence of stand-up meetings, retrospectives, and workload pipeline prioritization sessions with their dedicated business partner and team.
- Proactively identify and resolve impediments to team progress and productivity, consistently seeking continuous improvement. Includes analysis and optimization of existing processes/workflows.
- Ensure that all meetings are positive, productive, stay on topic, and are action/results oriented.
- Utilize team feedback and metrics (e.g., quality, delivery, cadence, etc.) to identify areas of opportunity and work with the team to continuously improve.
- Coach members of the Pod to improve collaboration and self-management, promoting productive interactions both within the team and with external stakeholders.
- Represent the team at broader campaign and program planning & coordination sessions.
- Experiment (pilot) new practices and frameworks to improve team outcomes. Innovate rapidly. Champion and facilitate adoption of agile standards, tools, and best practices.
- Steer poorly conceived project ideas towards high-impact initiatives that align with business priorities.
- Resource plan and manage a dedicated freelance budget to expand, when needed, the capacity of your pod based on business demand and priority.
- Directly manage a project manager and be able to lead high priority, high visibility projects and problem solve together as needed.
- Collaborate and coordinate with other pod leads on best practices, shared learnings and efficiency of work.
- Coach business partners in best practices to facilitate self-service i.e. directs BUs to re-use, templatized assets, and self-service alternatives when appropriate.
What you will need:
- Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent years of experience).
- 10+ years of industry experience in marketing management consulting, business strategy, product marketing, brand management or applicable marketing experience OR Internal Gartner experience with relationship management, marketing strategy.
- 5+ years of project management experience, working in an agile scrum environment, strongly preferred OR Internal Gartner experience with relevant agile knowledge.
- Agile, scrum, or project management certification preferred (e.g. CSM, CSP, PMP, SAFe).
- Knowledge of agile practices, frameworks, and techniques.
- Excellent people and project management skills.
- Coaching skills and ability to motivate teams.
- Strong communication and presentation skills.
- Strong analytical, reporting, and problem-solving skills.
- Experience with agile planning, project and/or collaboration tools.
- Digital (web) project experience.
- Experience in capacity planning, forecasting & budget management.
- Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to work effectively in a matrixed organization.
- Demonstrated ability to influence without authority and ability to deliver through others in a matrixed organization.
- Strong process management skills with the ability to prioritize efforts among multiple projects.
- Prior experience and proven ability to manage multiple business functions and multiple direct reports.
- Experience with using project management software.