Overview

Tribune Publishing is hiring a Senior Director, Marketing Operations at our offices located in Prudential Plaza in downtown Chicago. This integral, hands-on leadership role at Tribune Publishing Company – publisher of Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel and many other influential brands – powers all campaigns associated with acquiring and retaining digital subscribers. At the intersection of marketing plans and technical capabilities, this problem-solving, detail-oriented leader ensures our promotions and processes are innovative, efficient and flawless. The role leads a team of 14 full-time or contracted employees, spread among 3 direct reports.

About Us

Tribune Publishing Company (TPCO) is a media company rooted in award-winning journalism. Headquartered in Chicago, Tribune Publishing Company operates local media businesses in eight markets with titles including the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, The Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida’s Sun-Sentinel, Virginia’s Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot, The Morning Call of Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, and the Hartford Courant.

Tribune Publishing Company also operates Tribune Content Agency (TCA) and the Daily Meal and is majority owner of BestReviews.

Our brands are committed to informing, inspiring and engaging local communities. We create and distribute content across our media portfolio, offering integrated marketing, media, and business services to consumers and advertisers, including digital solutions and advertising opportunities.

Responsibilities

• Directs the operation of all systems that facilitate web sales of digital and print subscriptions. Currently this includes managing the “MG2” system for subscription services, “DSI” that bills our customers, “Vindicia” that enables credit card recycling, and “Epsilon/Harmony” that deploys customer emails, and internal systems that handle user registration and our paywall meter.
• Builds scalable tools, templates and processes that improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our end-to-end marketing processing. Ensure all of this output has the appropriate functionality to serve our changing business needs, to save employee handling time and cost, and to ensure 24/7 access for employees and consumers.
• For outbound email campaigns, leads the team that sets up these campaigns, deploys tests to internal stakeholders, executes campaigns and provides reporting of email statistics. Directly specifies and approves workflow to ensure this campaign work is done flawlessly. Investigates new processes for these activities that would save the Company expense, make the emails more flexible and automated, and eliminate the possibility for error.
• Serves as a vital partner to colleagues in Technology and Product Development on special projects that power efficient, compliant and consistent consumer experiences across Tribune’s network of properties.
• Leads quality assurance personnel who ensure flawless implementation of new programs, and continued excellent operation of existing processes and sites.
• Coordinates a cross-section of employees – both on own team and in creative, legal and technical groups – in their development of landing pages, pay panels, meter-related modals and test executions. This multi-team, intricately harmonized leadership ensures proper operation, correct rates and copy, approved legal language and coherent consumer flow. This work is vital to increasing strategically and financially important digital subscription and revenue growth.
• Works with local markets and finance on approved consumer rates, and ensures that her team and their finance colleagues correctly set them up in our systems. This leader also seeks to reduce complexity in our rate structure, reducing the total number of rates we use for digital subscription from several dozen to just a handful, thereby streamlining our marketing assets that communicate a multitude of prices.
• Leads the data team that pulls segmented lists of customers for every outbound campaign.
• Supports campaign reporting needs by ensuring proper campaign tracking, and occasional ad hoc analysis that affirms or refutes downstream system output. Identifies and coordinates the use of Tableau to automate this reporting.
• Troubleshoots and resolves problems reported by colleagues or customers about our transactional sites or emails.
• Partners with Technology and Product on the exploration and vetting of new systems.
• Carefully manages expenses associated with the systems we use.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in operations, technology or related field or equivalent work experience, MBA preferred
• 10+ years of leadership experience with a background in marketing operations
• Hands-on experience with digital marketing technologies
• Must have the ability to effectively communicate with executive management
• Excellent analytical and organizational skills
• Must have the ability to develop a high-performing team
• Ability to work in a matrixed organization