VP, Customer Strategy

Merkle is a leading technology-enabled, data-driven customer experience management (CXM) company. For over 30 years, Fortune 1,000 companies and leading non-profit organizations have partnered with us to build and maximize the value of their customer portfolios.

We are champions for meaningful progress, and we aim to be a force for good—for our people, our clients, the industry, and our society. We keep our people at the center, creating space for growth, understanding, and learning so they can grow. We embed diversity in our mindset, products, and teams to empower an inclusive, equitable, and culturally fluent environment. Building this culture within our teams makes us better collaborators and our clients, driving better outcomes for all. Merkle is an agency of dentsu.

The Retail Practice Lead will join the Customer Strategy team, a group of talented marketers focused on customer experience transformation. At Merkle, our mission is to partner with clients seeking to reimagine their customer experiences, modernize and scale their marketing organization and operations, accelerate growth, and unlock value through investment in people-based marketing capabilities.

We believe the future of business is customer experience. We believe that when guided by strategy, data, technology, and creativity hold the power to create experiences that make our lives better, easier, and more meaningful. The ideal candidate for this position has a strong passion for problem solving, and a deep understanding of how businesses, brands and customers interact, along with an advanced knowledge of the rapidly evolving role that data and technology play in this relationship. Candidates must possess the ability to identify and prioritize business growth opportunities and develop strategic recommendations to support client goals and build relationships.

The Customer Strategy Practice Lead must have in-depth Retail & CPG industry expertise to advise clients on data-driven marketing strategies that meet the business needs and customer expectations in these sectors. You should have the ability to establish credibility quickly and build strong relationships both externally with clients and internally with cross-functional Merkle teams. This role will focus on taking the Customer Experience Transformation of some of the world’s leading retailers and brands to the next level.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Solution Development: Construct innovative solutions and define strategies for our clients’ utilizing data and insights and designed to deliver business outcomes. Create new solutions to meet the evolving needs in retail and CPG and differentiate Merkle in the marketplace.
• Build Client Relationships: Ensure meaningful client value is delivered by focusing on measuring progress to show the impact on both customer KPIs and business financials. Lead a disciplined planning process across teams and stakeholders and champion the vision of customer-centric marketing and transformation.
• Industry Thought Leadership: You will have the opportunity to set the direction for the future of marketing in the retail industry as a thought leader for Merkle.
• New Business Development: Act as a key leader in new business development efforts.
• Organic Growth: Play a key role in identifying opportunities and driving growth of existing accounts.
• Foster Innovation: Continually monitor current marketing trends, new technology solutions, and competitive strategies – and then translate them into new marketing ideas for clients.
• Retail/CPG Practice Leader: Establish a retail community of practice to share learnings and best practices from ongoing strategic engagements, as well as discuss innovation in the industry to encourage creative thinking and new ideas grow our business.
• Financial Planning: Ensure accurate financial forecasting for the Retail/CPG portfolio and establish ongoing communication for growth potential and opportunities.

Collaboration: Partner and develop relationships with internal Merkle teams (account management, operations, creative, analytics etc.), and partner agencies to understand the feasibility of cross-channel recommendations/plans.

• 10 relevant years in Retail and/or CPG environments
• 15 years’ experience in data driven customer experiences – specifically CRM/ email / Online media / Offline media.
• 3- 5 years working in an agency or consulting firm.
• Proven experience in developing solutions to support the sale of new services to existing clients with a lens for how this will aid in their end transformation to a Customer Experience led company.
• Strong writing, presentation and client facing communication skills.
• Experience translating data analysis into actionable marketing recommendations and presentations.
• Self-starter high intellectual curiosity and highly collaborative working style
• Comfort and experience working within a matrix-ed organization in roles with a wide degree of latitude.
• Estimate 10%-20% travel required

Merkle fosters a diverse environment that encourages original thinking about our business and empowers us to communicate with a global world of customers. We embrace differences of opinion and diversity of thought as they help us challenge and refine our solutions. Merkle, as a best-in-class marketing agency, welcomes big ideas, and believes they can come from anywhere. We empower the world’s leading brands to transform their data, technology, and organizational capabilities to deliver differentiated customer experiences. Merkle is the world’s leading Customer Experience Marketing agency. You will work beyond the cutting edge of the industry ... not only executing it but defining it as you engage with our clients. Merkle is also on the leading edge of work culture and inclusiveness. Dentsu & Merkle recently received a perfect score of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2022 Corporate Equality Index, the nation’s foremost benchmarking survey and report measuring corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ workplace equality.

The anticipated salary range for this position is $200k $230k. Salary is based on a wide range of factors that include relevant experience, knowledge, skills, other job-related qualifications, and geography. Additionally, this position is eligible for discretionary bonus compensation. The company’s bonus compensation plan is subject to change. A range of medical, dental, vision, 401(k) matching, paid time off, and/or other benefits also are available. For more information regarding dentsu benefits, please visit https://dentsubenefitsplus.com/