Senior Director, Technology Strategy

dentsu•Chicago, IL

3d•$136,000 - $190,000•Remote

About The Position

Merkle is a data-driven, technology-enabled, global performance marketing agency with a 32-year track record of assisting the world's top brands in crafting personalized experiences at every phase of the customer life cycle. Fortune 1,000 companies and leading nonprofit organizations have collaborated with us to develop and optimize the value of their customer portfolios. About the Team The Technology Strategy group helps marketing and technology leaders develop and execute holistic plans to harness technology in pursuit of their goals. With a services offering ranging from capability assessments/road mapping, emerging technologies workshops, integrated solution architecture, and platform selection our team combines expertise in digital strategy, marketing technology and consulting, covering both the art and technical know-how needed to ideate, develop and orchestrate customer experiences. In a nutshell: We assist clients in selecting, purchasing, implementing, integrating, and adopting technology within a winning strategy. As our new Technology Strategy Senior Director you will work remotely and report into the VP/SVP, Technology Strategy. You will lead and partner with other strategy senior leaders, serve as career advocates to analysts and managers on the team, establish and maintain a strong thought leader presence within the strategy organization and the broader Merkle organization as a whole, and will serve a critical role in supporting business development for specific industry verticals on behalf of the Tech Strategy team. You will be expected to lead all of the various Tech Strategy offering engagements with the ability to manage scope and clients independently, supporting multiple clients at a time. You will be called to master our frameworks and develop a deep understanding of how the entire marketing technology stack comes together to enable our client’s vision. You will have the opportunity to work across industries with subject matter experts and thought leadership that will come together in sound consulting deliverables informing planning, key decisions and technical implementations, and ideally bring forth a deep expertise in a specific area of the marketing technology stack with experience working in or with one of Merkle’s major technology partners (i.e. Adobe, Salesforce, AWS, Snowflake, etc.)

Requirements

12+ years of experience in consulting within marketing technology OR 12-15 years of experience working in a digital agency operating marketing technology in a specific field
Advanced knowledge of Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) technical concepts, customer experience technology, including AI, loyalty, service, commerce, content, analytics and cloud technologies
Expert knowledge in a focused capability and/or capabilities around cloud data warehouses, customer data integration, identity resolution, analytic modeling, journey orchestration, experience management, commerce, loyalty, digital messaging, service and business intelligence systems will be evaluated
Certifications in specific technology solutions
Experience managing people and leading a cross-functional team
Expert proficiency with MS Teams, Powerpoint, Excel, Lucidchart, Miro and Vizio
Bachelor's degree from an accredited college/university
Ability to travel for clients up to 25%

Nice To Haves

Deep understand & proficiency on how a technology ecosystem works and is implemented to be used by marketing/business teams, including platforms such as, Email Service Platform, CDP, Digital Asset Manager, Data Lake, or ID Resolution technology. This should include major requirements for successful implementation and the problems a technology is built to resolve. It may also include an understanding of different vendors for a technology and how they each provide unique solutions in the larger marketplace for the technology
Success in leading consulting work for clients and providing presentations and deliverables to a client
Demonstrated aptitude in testing, expanding, and correcting one’s personal knowledge of a topic to continually improve existing skill set
Desire to understand client systems and challenges innately enough to provide insightful, nuanced, and actionable recommendations specific to the client.

Responsibilities

Provide expertise, vendor knowledge, and industry best practices across digital technology components including: Identity Resolution, Data Management and Architecture, Analytics/ Measurement & Reporting, Artificial Intelligence and Modeling, Audience Management, Orchestration, Testing and Optimization, Content Management and Delivery, Channel Personalization, Demand Generation, Workflow Management and AdTech
Be responsible for setting the strategic technology vision for our clients, with the ability to connect technology capability challenges or goals to business needs and build compelling stories to articulate incremental value
Build and maintain strong relationships with clients and internal partners, with the ability to manage clear expectations by facilitating and driving client meetings and discussions
Lead daily delivery efforts partnering with the engagement team members to complete materials in powerpoint, excel, and Lucidchart. Leading client facing communications and meetings.
Lead and refine our approach for discovery meetings with clients, new partners, vendors or subject matter experts taking thorough notes, gathering documentation and identifying follow-ups
Bring an industry leading perspective / POV about a key area of the customer experience technology stack and create thought leadership to serve as a subject matter expert at Merkle.
Provide opinions and recommendations in all manner of marketing-related technology use cases that can be articulated and understood at various levels of our client’s organizations (C-Suite, IT Executives, Marketing Executives, Product Owners etc.)
Lead consulting engagements by building the storytelling and developing recommendations for how to best leverage information and technology to drive programs across all channels and media, and generate future revenue opportunities for other Merkle practice areas
Direct and manage consulting analysts to guide work product development, coach on presentation and storytellng skills, and educate on technology capabilities
Serve as an active contributor to establishing and maintaining an engaging and empowering culture within the Tech Strategy Team
Leverage existing frameworks, and proactively optimize or develop net new
Own internal initiatives to improve the offerings and capabilities of the overall team including bringing new consulting engagements to leadership for consideration
Develop materials to illustrate and educate teams on how CX technology components work together to support personalized experiences
Lead business development opportunities for a specific vertical as a technology strategy SME and find opportunities within existing clients