VP/Head of Marketing

VP Marketing / Head of Marketing Silver Brands | Rockville, Maryland | On-Site Company Overview Silver Brands is a highly regarded, multi-unit restaurant company based in Rockville, Maryland, with two distinctive operating brands: Silver Diner and Silver New American Brasserie. The company has grown from a single restaurant founded in 1989 into a successful regional restaurant platform known for chef-driven food, high hospitality standards, fresh ingredients, strong local sourcing, and a contemporary approach to classic American dining. This search represents a planned leadership transition following the retirement of the company’s long-serving marketing leader. The next marketing leader will help guide the next chapter of growth for Silver Brands as the company continues to strengthen its existing restaurants and expand in the Mid-Atlantic region. Role Overview Silver Brands is seeking a proven VP-level marketing leader with meaningful restaurant experience to lead marketing across its two brands. This is a senior, in-person leadership role reporting to the President and CEO and working closely with the executive team, Culinary, Operations, Finance, Development, People, Area Directors, store managers, and outside partners. The role is responsible for helping drive profitable top‑line sales growth, strengthening brand awareness and brand storytelling, representing the guest in executive decision‑making, building marketing capability, supporting new‑store growth, and ensuring marketing programs are executed effectively all the way to the restaurant level. The role requires a leader who can combine brand stewardship, restaurant operating understanding, consumer insight, analytics, loyalty, local-store execution, team development, and C-suite-level judgment. The strongest candidate will bring the discipline of a classically trained marketer, meaningful restaurant experience, strong analytical capability, creative judgment, and the resourcefulness to lead in a smaller, entrepreneurial, hands‑on company. Key Responsibilities Lead annual and multi-year marketing strategy for Silver Brands and its two operating brands, aligned with sales, guest‑count, profitability, unit growth, guest experience, and brand‑equity objectives. Serve as the senior marketing leader responsible for marketing’s contribution to profitable top‑line growth across traffic, guest frequency, check, menu mix, loyalty, daypart opportunity, and new‑store performance. Strengthen the Silver Brands story and ensure both brands’ defined points of difference are clearly articulated, ownable, differentiated, and consistently expressed across guest touchpoints. Use consumer research, guest feedback, transaction data, loyalty insights, store observation, reviews, and competitive intelligence to identify actionable growth opportunities. Lead loyalty, CRM/CDP, email, SMS, digital engagement, guest lifecycle, lapsed-guest recovery, and personalization strategies in a brand‑right and economically sound way. Develop disciplined new-store opening and new-market marketing playbooks that create awareness, trial, repeat visits, loyalty capture, community connection, and measurable opening momentum. Build local-store marketing systems that Area Directors, operators, and store managers can execute effectively in established restaurants, newer restaurants, and priority trade areas. Partner closely with Culinary and menu leadership to make menu items heroes through photography, storytelling, menu communication, seasonal campaigns, product launches, and guest-facing content. Lead digital, social, website, online review, local search, PR, communications, and guest engagement strategies. Apply practical AI-enabled tools and modern marketing technology responsibly to improve insight, productivity, reporting, personalization, campaign workflow, and restaurant-level execution. Manage the marketing budget, agencies, freelancers, vendors, media partners, technology partners, and outside resources with strong ROI discipline. Lead, coach, and develop the marketing team so team members grow as career marketers and the department builds stronger long-term capability. Prepare board-ready and executive-ready updates that connect consumer insight, brand health, marketing investment, traffic, loyalty, guest sentiment, campaign ROI, and new-store performance. Ideal Candidate Profile 10+ years of progressive marketing leadership experience required; 15+ years preferred. Candidates should have meaningful senior leadership experience at the VP, Head of Marketing, CMO, or equivalent level. Meaningful restaurant experience required; multi‑unit restaurant, hospitality, or closely related location-based consumer experience strongly preferred. Experience managing multiple brands under one umbrella preferred. Classically trained marketer with grounding in brand management, consumer insight, strategy, creative development, communications, analytics, and business planning. Experience in both larger, professionally disciplined organizations and smaller, entrepreneurial or founder-influenced companies where resources are leaner and execution is closer to the field. Demonstrated record of profitable sales growth, brand building, guest acquisition, loyalty, local-market activation, new-market entry, and measurable campaign results. Analytically fluent and commercially grounded; able to personally read the numbers, evaluate programs, understand what is driving traffic, sales, frequency, menu mix, loyalty, and profitability, and make resource-allocation decisions without depending on added marketing headcount. Strong creative and strategic instincts, with the ability to shape a brand idea, direct creative work, and make the work executable in restaurants. High contemporary fluency in loyalty, CRM/CDP, marketing analytics, digital media, social, reviews, content, local search, email/SMS, personalization, and modern guest engagement. Strong executive presence and ability to operate as a peer to the C-suite while partnering closely with IT, Finance, Operations, Development, People, Area Directors, store managers, and restaurant teams. Able to respect what has been built while bringing a fresh, objective, growth-oriented point of view on how marketing can strengthen the brands, sharpen priorities, improve performance, and help drive the business forward. Must be willing to work in person, be fully present in the local market, spend meaningful time in restaurants, and relocate if not already local. Education Bachelor’s degree required. MBA preferred, particularly when combined with strong practical restaurant, retail, hospitality, franchise, or multi-unit operating-company experience. Why This Role This is a rare opportunity to join a successful, profitable, founder-influenced restaurant company with strong brands, high-volume restaurants, a long-tenured leadership team, and a meaningful growth path. The right leader will have the opportunity to shape the next chapter of Silver Brands’ marketing, strengthen the brand story, build modern marketing capability, and help drive profitable growth across existing and future restaurants. #J-18808-Ljbffr Silver Brands