Description
As a pivotal leader on Zendesk's Marketing Strategy & Operations team, the Director of Marketing Operations will build and scale the systems, processes, and operating rhythm that enable Marketing to execute with speed, quality, and measurable impact.
Responsibilities:
- Lead and develop a high-performing Marketing Operations team spanning funnel operations, campaign operations, journey orchestration, marketing technology, and process/workflow optimization.
- Own the operating model and roadmap for marketing operations, balancing near-term execution with scalable capabilities, clear governance, and continuous improvement.
- Design and optimize end-to-end funnel processes, including intake, lead and account management, scoring, routing, lifecycle progression, Sales handoff, and feedback loops.
- Set the strategy and governance for the marketing technology ecosystem, including marketing automation, CRM integrations, audience activation, data quality, and workflow tooling.
- Partner with Marketing, Sales/Revenue Operations, Product, Engineering, Finance, and regional teams to align priorities, dependencies, service levels, and business outcomes.
- Use automation and AI thoughtfully to improve campaign velocity, operational efficiency, decision quality, and stakeholder self-service while maintaining appropriate controls.
- Establish performance visibility for operational health, including funnel conversion, execution quality, process adoption, data integrity, and time-to-value.
- Translate complex operational and technical topics into clear recommendations for senior leaders and secure alignment on trade-offs and investment.
What you bring to the role:
- An operating leader who can move fluidly between strategy, systems, process design, and hands-on problem solving.
- Strong commercial judgment and a clear understanding of how marketing operations, technology, data, and process drive pipeline and customer growth.
- Exceptional communication and stakeholder leadership skills, with the ability to create clarity across teams with competing priorities.
- A systems mindset: you look for root causes, design durable solutions, and make complex work easier to execute and govern.
- A pragmatic approach to innovation, including the judgment to distinguish valuable automation and AI use cases from unnecessary complexity.
- A talent developer who builds accountable, collaborative teams and creates an environment of ownership, learning, and continuous improvement.
Qualifications:
- 10+ years of experience in Marketing Operations, Marketing Technology, Revenue Operations, or a related discipline, including experience leading teams.
- Proven experience owning marketing automation and CRM ecosystems and the processes that connect them to the broader go-to-market engine.
- Experience leading funnel management, campaign operations, lifecycle/journey orchestration, and cross-functional operating model improvements.
- Demonstrated ability to manage complex, multi-quarter programs, vendor relationships, prioritization, and executive communication.
- Working knowledge of platforms such as Salesforce, Marketo or equivalent marketing automation, analytics/BI, data enrichment, and workflow automation tools, and AI Tools such as Claude and ChatGPT.
- Experience in a high-growth B2B SaaS or similarly complex global marketing environment preferred.