Vice President, Integrated Brand Marketing

How You’ll Contribute

The Communications, Marketing and Brand team uses creative and strategic tools to further the mission of the National Geographic Society (NGS), while maintaining our place as one of the world’s most trusted non-profit organizations and global brands. The Division develops and executes mission-driven brand strategies and integrated strategic communications, marketing, creative, and audience growth for the National Geographic Society, unifying our efforts across owned channels, partners, and earned media. The team is composed of seven integrated departments: Creative, Integrated Brand Marketing, Partnerships Marketing, MarCom Operations and Internal Communications, Strategic Communications, Executive Communications, and Crisis Communications and Public Relations.

The VP, Integrated Brand Marketing is responsible for orchestrating a unified brand narrative across all touchpoints, working closely across all Marketing and Communications teams. This role defines the high-level brand strategy and ensures it is connected to tactical execution, working across channels to deliver a seamless and consistent experience. The VP of Integrated Brand Marketing will oversee the cultivation of a unifying brand story for the Society, emphasize and execute our “One Voice, One Brand, One National Geographic” approach, and ensure that the National Geographic brand promise and pillars show up as an authentic brand expression across all existing and new marketing, communications, and brand activations.

The VP of Integrated Brand Marketing will also lead customer growth and digital strategies to ensure a holistic digital growth roadmap, a clear customer experience, and a connected journey across channels that leads to audience growth and engagement. This role will partner closely with Advancement and Campus & Experience marketing teams, building the integrated strategy and ensuring coordination and optimization across all marketing, channel, and audience engagement efforts. The role will also work as a business partner to ensure delivery against broader fundraising goals and in support of Education and Mission Programs. This leader will also ensure we amplify efforts supporting our major multi-year comprehensive campaign, including planning and managing all internal and external marketing aspects to ensure impact and goals are achieved.

Your Impact

Responsibilities Include:

Brand and Marketing Strategy (35%)

• Lead and evolve the brand strategy across the Society and serve as a thought leader and key brand liaison to partners, including The Walt Disney Company, that are licensed to amplify the brand, leading brand positioning, brand expression, activation, and brand guardianship.
• Lead development of audience insights and market data into actionable brand positioning and compelling reasons to believe that drive differentiation and brand performance.
• Lead the development of comprehensive, integrated marketing plans that align with overarching business goals, working across divisions to translate business priorities into integrated calendars and seasonal initiatives, and ensuring alignment with larger brand priorities.
• Develop marketing strategies and execute multi-channel marketing plans for the Advancement and Education divisions, growing impact with donor, educator, and learner audiences.
• Define short- and long-term objectives and goals for marketing, establishing quantifiable metrics to track progress and ensure all efforts are data-driven and seamlessly integrated with broader fundraising and organizational goals.
• Synthesize market trends, competitive intelligence, and audience insights into a compelling brand narrative.
• Provide strategic direction for brand, creative, marketing, and other teams across the Communications division and the entire Society to produce innovative, compelling work of the highest standard.
• Build and execute marketing campaigns and effectively lead the creative development process.
• Serve as “brand guardian” and resident expert on brand guidelines, maintaining brand integrity across all initiatives, products, partnerships, activations, and opportunities.
• Partner with internal teams to vet new opportunities and partnerships, assess alignment with NGS brand standards and mission, evaluate potential brand or reputational risk versus reward, and recommend opportunities to leadership.
• Lead the team responsible for Society-wide brand training, working with key partners to ensure a unified brand voice and determine the appropriate brand education cadence.

Content Strategy and Content Orchestration (20%)

• Lead the Society-wide process for developing comprehensive content roadmaps, annual content and editorial plans, guidelines, and multi-channel distribution strategies across partner, owned, and other applicable channels.
• Lead the Brand and Content Committee, consisting of decision-makers across the Society, to review, evaluate, and make decisions on all audience-facing brand and content efforts.
• Perform content audits to assess effectiveness, map content to user journeys, maintain editorial calendars, and collaborate with designers, marketers, and stakeholders to ensure consistent messaging across channels.

Customer Growth, Engagement, and Digital Strategy (20%)

• Design and partner across the organization to lead a holistic digital growth roadmap that aligns with high-level business goals for revenue and audience expansion.
• Lead development of an integrated customer experience (CX) across all platforms—website, social, and email—to drive engagement.
• Oversee or create high-quality content, ensuring optimization for SEO/SEM and user experience (UX) across Society channels.
• Utilize customer data and CRM systems to analyze behavioral trends, create journey maps, and identify personalized interactions that drive efficiency and increase retention.
• Lead development, deployment, and optimization of NGS channels, including email, web, and social, in support of broader campaign and audience engagement goals.
• Partner on the development of customer data and martech needs supporting digital programs and integrated marketing strategies.

Team Development/Management (25%)

• Develop a vision for the team and build innovative solutions and strategies to complex problems; articulate clear goals, KPIs, insights, and plans; and advance key projects to meet business objectives.
• Recruit and manage a team to support the development and execution of marketing and brand strategies.
• Lead and mentor junior to mid-level team members to build a culture of high performance, creative thinking, and risk-taking.
• Establish and monitor staff performance and development goals; assign accountabilities; set objectives; establish priorities; conduct annual performance appraisals; and administer salary adjustments.
• Serve as a marketing thought leader and trusted advisor to the CAO and Chief Education and Community Engagement Officer and their senior leadership team, and participate in key divisional leadership meetings.
• Ensure activities drive agreed-upon Advancement and Education goals and KPIs.

What You’ll Bring

Educational Background

Bachelor’s degree required in branding, marketing, business, or a related field. MBA or advanced degree preferred.

Minimum Years of Experience

15+ years of experience in brand building and integrated marketing, with experience in content strategy, audience engagement, and omni-channel management and deployment.

Necessary Knowledge and Skills

• Experience building a global brand, developing brand positioning and repositioning, assessing brand risk, and maintaining brand standards, including with partners.
• Understanding of the creative process and experience managing agencies and working with in-house creative teams to develop high-quality and effective creative.
• Proven success acting as a brand guardian while strategically assessing and adding partners and advancing growth opportunities.
• Experience building integrated marketing campaigns, including digital channels, content strategy, and audience growth, with experience executing omni-channel engagement activities.
• Ability to analyze data to gauge success, adjust strategies quickly and efficiently, and forecast growth and engagement goals.
• Technical proficiency and working knowledge of key martech systems, including content management systems, SEO platforms, digital analytics, marketing automation, social listening platforms, and audience analytics.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills and meticulous attention to detail.
• Ability to handle sensitive information confidentially and exercise sound professional judgment.
• Proven leadership and management experience, with the ability to develop talent and lead teams to meet deadlines and produce exceptional work.
• Self-starter comfortable with ambiguity, able to adapt to change, and capable of thriving in a fast-paced environment.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication, and relationship management skills.
• Leads by example, demonstrating highly collaborative, influential, and creative approaches to problem-solving.

Desired Qualifications

• Agency experience or experience managing an agency.
• Experience in advocacy, non-profit, and/or fundraising environments.
• Experience working with a legacy brand is a plus.

Supervision

5 direct reports; will supervise a team of 15–20 people.

Salary Information

The National Geographic Society offers a competitive and holistic total rewards package. Our compensation structure and transparent pay philosophy are based on industry-specific market data for similarly sized nonprofit organizations.

The salary range for this position accounts for a wide range of factors, including but not limited to organizational need, specific skill sets, experience and training, certifications, and more. Individuals are typically hired at or near the starting point of the salary range, and compensation decisions depend on the facts and circumstances of each case.

Salary Range: $228,000.00 – $240,000.00

In addition, the National Geographic Society offers a comprehensive benefits package that includes medical, dental, and vision insurance; a wellness program; 401(k) with matching after six months; flexible paid time off (up to 22 days annually, prorated for new hires); 10 days of sick leave; 12 paid holidays; a paid winter break (December 25–31, role-dependent); paid parental leave; adoption and surrogacy reimbursement; fertility benefits; learning and development opportunities; lifestyle spending account; pet adoption assistance and insurance; pre-tax transportation benefits with employer subsidy; employer-paid life insurance and disability; and National Geographic discounts and perks.

Job Designation

Hybrid: Most staff work in a hybrid model, with required in-office days at Base Camp every Tuesday and Wednesday. Additional in-office days are optional.

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States. This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

We encourage you to apply even if your experience is not a 100% match. We value relevant skills and experience over a perfect checklist and aim to support your growth while strengthening our organization.

Apply here