Director, Customer Advocacy & Referral Marketing

Why UKG:

At UKG, the work you do matters. The code you ship, the decisions you make, and the care you show a customer all add up to real impact. Today, tens of millions of workers start and end their days with our workforce operating platform. Helping people get paid, grow in their careers, and shape the future of their industries. That’s what we do.

We never stop learning. We never stop challenging the norm. We push for better, and we celebrate the wins along the way. Here, you’ll get flexibility that’s real, benefits you can count on, and a team that succeeds together. Because at UKG, your work matters—and so do you.

About the Team

Customer Marketing at UKG is responsible for turning customer success into measurable growth. We partner closely with Sales, Product, and Customer Experience to translate customer outcomes into expansion pipeline, accelerated deal velocity, and referral-driven revenue.

This team operates at the intersection of customer advocacy, expansion strategy, and revenue enablement ensuring Sales has credible customer proof and scalable programs that influence live deals.

About the Role

The Director, Customer Advocacy & Referral Marketing is a senior leadership role responsible for building and scaling UKG’s customer-led growth engine.

This role owns the strategy and execution of customer advocacy, reference operations, and referral marketing programs that directly impact expansion revenue, win rates, and sales efficiency. This is not a coordination or campaign-only role it is a builder role focused on creating systems, plays, and programs that Sales trusts and actively uses in live deals.

You will operate as a strategic partner to Sales leadership, working directly with customers and account teams to deploy the right customer proof at the right moment in the deal cycle. Your work will help Sales win faster, expand accounts more effectively, and turn customer advocacy into a repeatable, measurable growth motion.

What You’ll Own

Customer Advocacy & Reference Operations

• Build and scale a strategic, revenue-aligned customer reference and advocacy program

• Deploy customer proof into live deals to improve win rates and reduce time to proof

• Develop segmented advocacy pools (Enterprise, Mid-Market, SMB, Product Innovation)

• Establish intake, prioritization, and matching models aligned to Sales needs

Referral Marketing

• Design and launch a global customer referral program that generates qualified pipeline

• Embed referral triggers across the customer lifecycle

• Track referral-to-pipeline and referral-to-revenue performance

• Define referral incentives and reward structures in partnership with Sales and Legal

Expansion & Sales Enablement

• Partner with Sales leadership to activate customer-led expansion plays in priority accounts

• Standardize expansion and advocacy plays for consistent execution across Sales and BDR teams

• Improve sales efficiency by making customer proof easier to access, trust, and use

Systems, Scale & Enablement

• Build a scalable Customer Evidence System that delivers the right proof and advocacy signals at the right time

• Partner with Marketing Operations to enable self-service access to customer proof

• Leverage AI and automation to scale reference matching, signal identification, and insight extraction

• Stabilize and grow a team by introducing clarity, rigor, and operational confidence

How Success Is Measured

• Expansion pipeline generated and influenced

• Closed-won expansion revenue impact

• Win-rate lift on deals using customer evidence

• Referral-sourced pipeline and conversion rates

• Adoption of standardized advocacy and expansion plays by Sales and BDR teams

About You

Basic Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in B2B SaaS marketing, revenue marketing, customer marketing, or sales-adjacent roles with direct impact on pipeline or revenue

• 5+ years of direct people leadership experience , including hiring, performance management, and team development

• Proven experience building or scaling a customer advocacy and/or reference program

• Demonstrated ownership of programs tied to pipeline, expansion revenue, win rates, retention, or NRR

• Hands-on experience partnering closely with Sales leadership to support live deals and priority accounts

• Experience working across multiple customer segments (Enterprise, Mid-Market, SMB)

• Strong understanding of pipeline metrics, attribution, and revenue influence

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience operating in a large, matrixed organization

• Demonstrated builder mentality , including rebuilding or stabilizing a function

• Strong sales fluency and credibility with Sales leaders

• Operational mindset with the ability to design scalable systems and processes

• Comfort working directly with customers and executives in high-impact moments

• Proven ability to influence without authority across Sales, BDR, Product, and Customer Experience teams

Company Overview:

UKG is the Workforce Operating Platform that puts workforce understanding to work. With the world's largest collection of workforce insights, and people-first AI, our ability to reveal unseen ways to build trust, amplify productivity, and empower talent, is unmatched. It's this expertise that equips our customers with the intelligence to solve any challenge in any industry — because great organizations know their workforce is their competitive edge. Learn more at ukg.com.

Equal Opportunity Employer

UKG is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, disability, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, genetic information, and other legally protected categories.

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UKG participates in E-Verify. View the E-Verify posters here ( .

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

Disability Accommodation in the Application and Interview Process

For individuals with disabilities that need additional assistance at any point in the application and interview process, please email View email address on click.appcast.io .

The pay range for this position is $145,600 to $209,300. The actual base pay offered may vary depending on skills, experience, job-related knowledge and work location. In addition to base pay, employees may be eligible to participate in a performance-based bonus plan and to receive restricted stock unit awards as part of total compensation. Learn more about UKG’s benefits and rewards at

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