Director of Brand and Content Strategy

Job Description

Job Description

Headquartered in Waterloo, Iowa, VGM is a 100% employee-owned company providing professional business services to organizations across North America. Services include group purchasing, commercial insurance, management of healthcare services and networks in post-acute cases, healthcare distribution direct to patient homes, specialty consulting, online education, digital, print, and traditional marketing and more. VGM Group has been named the Top Workplace in Iowa on multiple occasions and is proud of its role in the communities in which it serves. For more information visit   

Why this role matters 

The Director of Brand and Content Strategy for VGM's marketing team plays a crucial role in ensuring a consistent audience-focused brand message across all customers, vendor partners, and channels. The Director of Brand and Content Strategy is responsible for bringing VGM's brand to life through compelling storytelling, meaningful content, and exceptional creative execution. Partnering closely with leadership, this role translates brand strategy and organizational priorities into narratives, campaigns, content, and experiences that strengthen audience engagement, build trust and affinity, and support business growth. 

The Director leads and develops team members, elevates the strategic and creative quality of work, and fosters a culture of curiosity, accountability, collaboration, and innovation. Success in this role requires the ability to move seamlessly between strategy and hands-on leadership, translating complex business objectives into clear, relevant stories that connect with audiences, and drive measurable outcomes to advance the business. 

What’s more? At VGM Group, we are 100% employee owned. Click to view more about VGM!  

Reporting to: Vice President of Marketing, VGM 

Working Location: Hybrid, on-site in Waterloo, Iowa or Des Moines, Iowa preferred. Employees whose primary residence is around a 30-mile radius of VGM Headquarters in Waterloo, Iowa are expected to work onsite at least four days per week. Specifics will be under the leader's discretion and subject to manager approval and business needs. 

Work Hours Classification: Full-time, Monday-Friday 8-5, with additional hours based on business needs. 

What you'll do 

The Director of Brand and Content Strategy will develop strategic planning for brand and content initiatives, partnering with key stakeholders to align marketing strategies, plans, and results with business priorities.

Duties Include: 

• Translate the organization’s brand vision and strategy into clear messaging, content, creative direction, and audience experiences that advance VGM’s business objectives. 

• Lead brand and content strategy, ensuring marketing activities strengthen VGM’s positioning, relevance, differentiation, engagement, and affinity among key audiences. 

• Champion VGM’s brand across channels and touchpoints, ensuring consistency in messaging, voice, tone, storytelling, and visual identity. 

• Develop and evolve messaging frameworks, content standards, brand guidelines, and governance practices that strengthen brand consistency while enabling creativity. 

• Lead the development and execution of an integrated content strategy that connects audience needs, organizational priorities, market opportunities, and business objectives. 

• Translate complex business priorities, customer insights, industry trends, and market opportunities into clear, compelling, audience-centered stories, and marketing initiatives. 

• Partner with executives, organizational thought leaders, and business leaders to develop messaging and content that demonstrate expertise, build credibility, and advance strategic priorities. 

• Serve as a strategic advisor to leaders and cross-functional partners on brand positioning, storytelling, messaging, audience engagement, and customer needs. 

• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team of creative, content, design, and digital marketing professionals, establishing clear expectations for strategic thinking, creativity, quality, and execution. 

• Provide creative direction and feedback across content and design, ensuring work aligns with brand standards, audience needs, campaign objectives, and the broader customer journey. 

• Establish priorities and allocate team resources toward initiatives that deliver the greatest strategic value and business impact. 

• Build scalable workflows, standards, and best practices that improve the quality, consistency, efficiency, and effectiveness of content, and creative development. 

• Use audience research, customer feedback, market intelligence, and performance data to understand audience perceptions, inform strategy, and continuously improve content, and marketing effectiveness. 

• Establish measures of content effectiveness and use performance insights to optimize messaging, topics, formats, channels, and audience strategies. 

• Represent the audience and customer perspective in strategic and cross-functional discussions, providing insights that inform marketing, product, and business decisions. 

• Ensure creative work appropriately aligns with VGM Group and applicable business-unit brand standards. 

• Perform additional duties and complete other projects as assigned. 

  What will make you successful  

Education and experience: 

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, business administration, communications, or a related field; MBA or advanced degree preferred. 

• 7+ years of progressive experience in content strategy, brand marketing, and business communication. 

• 5+ years of experience writing and developing content strategies in support of client needs, executive leaders, and organizational thought leaders. 

• 3+ years in a leadership role preferred, specifically with experience leading team members within a creative, content, digital, communications, and creative strategy discipline.

• Proven experience in strategic planning and execution of branding, content, and marketing initiatives that support organizational business objectives.

• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives and influencing stakeholders across multiple levels of an organization. 

• Demonstrated experience using audience insights, market intelligence, and performance data to improve content and marketing effectiveness. 

Skills and competencies: 

• Exceptional communication and storytelling skills, with demonstrated strength in writing, editing, executive communication, and translating complex business concepts into clear, compelling, audience-centered narratives.

• Expertise in brand and content strategy, including brand positioning, messaging architecture, voice and tone, content marketing, and audience engagement.

• Sound creative judgment, with the ability to effectively evaluate messaging, content, and creative outputs for brand alignment, audience relevance, strategic impact, and overall quality.

• Proven leadership capabilities, including coaching, team development, engagement, prioritization, resource management, and clear communication. 

• Strong influence and relationship-building skills, with the ability to establish trusted partnerships.

• Ability to analyze data and ideas to guide strategy, evaluate effectiveness, and inform decisions. 

• Project management skills, with the ability to drive initiatives from strategy through execution.

• Proficiency in marketing tools and platforms, Microsoft Suite (Word, Excel, etc.) 

• Proven attention to detail, follow-through skills, and problem-solving skills. 

Physical Requirements: 

• Operation of office equipment and using technology efficiently such as computers, phones, misc. office equipment

• Visual abilities to include reading, distance vision and peripheral vision

• Moving throughout the VGM facilities when needed 

• Willingness to work a flexible schedule and overnight travel 

Compensation Overview 

The annual base salary range provided for this position is a nationwide market range and represents a broad range of salaries for this role across the country. The actual salary for this position will be determined by a number of factors, including the scope, complexity and location of the role; the skills, education, training, credentials and experience of the candidate; and other conditions of employment. As part of our comprehensive compensation and benefits program, employees are also eligible for performance-based cash incentive awards. 

This job description reflects the general duties of the job but is not a detailed description of all duties which may be inherent to the position. Reasonably related additional duties may be assigned to the individual Associate. 

VGM Group, Inc. provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. 

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.