Vice President, Marketing and Insights

The Vice President of Marketing & Insights provides strategic leadership for Houston Zoo's marketing, promotions, events marketing, and consumer insights functions. This role is responsible for driving attendance, revenue, brand engagement, and audience growth through data-informed marketing strategies and integrated campaigns.

The Vice President serves as a key leader in connecting consumer behavior, market intelligence, and organizational priorities to marketing execution. Through strong leadership of both people and processes, this individual builds a high-performing team, establishes operational excellence, and develops marketing programs that strengthen the Zoo's position as a leading wildlife conservation organization and one of Houston's most valued cultural institutions.

This role partners extensively across the organization to align marketing strategies with guest experience, conservation impact, membership growth, educational programming, development initiatives, and revenue-generating opportunities.

Our Mission: Houston Zoo connects communities with animals, inspiring action to save wildlife.

Our Vision: Houston Zoo will be a leader in the global movement to save wildlife.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

• Leads the development and execution of integrated marketing strategies that drive attendance, revenue, membership growth, and audience engagement.

• Establishes annual marketing plans and priorities aligned with organizational goals and budget objectives.

• Oversees paid, owned, earned, and partnership marketing channels to ensure effective and efficient audience reach.

• Guides campaign development across seasonal initiatives, special events, exhibitions, membership acquisition, and revenue-driving programs.

• Evaluates market conditions, industry trends, and competitive activity to identify opportunities and inform strategic decision‑making.

• Ensures marketing investments are aligned with measurable business outcomes and organizational priorities.

• Establishes and lead the Zoo's consumer insights strategy, utilizing research, analytics, guest feedback, market trends, and behavioral data to inform decision‑making.

• Translates complex data into actionable insights that guide business strategy, guest experience improvements, pricing decisions, marketing investments, and audience development efforts.

• Develops reporting frameworks, dashboards, and performance metrics that measure marketing effectiveness and organizational outcomes.

• Champions a culture of evidence‑based decision‑making across marketing and other business functions.

• Partners with teams across the organization to identify emerging audience needs, market opportunities, and barriers to growth.

• Provides strategic oversight for promotional initiatives designed to drive awareness, attendance, revenue, and engagement.

• Leads marketing support for major Zoo events, seasonal experiences, and other revenue‑generating programs.

• Ensures promotional strategies are aligned with audience insights, organizational goals, and brand standards.

• Evaluates promotional effectiveness and continuously optimize campaign performance and return on investment.

• Leads, develops, and inspires a high‑performing marketing and insights team through coaching, mentoring, and professional development.

• Establishes clear objectives, priorities, and performance expectations that support organizational success.

• Fosters a culture of accountability, innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

• Builds organizational capabilities by developing team expertise in marketing strategy, analytics, campaign management, consumer research, and emerging technologies.

• Effectively manages team structure, resources, and workflows to maximize efficiency and impact.

• Develops and implement scalable processes that improve planning, prioritization, campaign execution, reporting, and cross‑functional collaboration.

• Creates operational discipline around project management, budget management, performance measurement, and marketing resource allocation.

• Leads annual marketing budgeting, forecasting, and investment planning processes.

• Establishes standards and best practices that improve effectiveness, consistency, and organizational alignment.

• Continuously identifies opportunities to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and audience outcomes.

• Partners with Conservation Education, Animal Programs, Development, Membership, Guest Experience, Revenue Operations, and other departments to advance organizational goals.

• Serves as a strategic advisor on audience trends, consumer behavior, marketing opportunities, and guest engagement.

• Presents marketing strategies, performance insights, and recommendations to leadership.

• Builds and maintains productive relationships with agency partners, vendors, sponsors, strategic partners, and community organizations.

• Ensures marketing efforts consistently support and advance Houston Zoo's mission, values, and brand positioning.

• Contributes to saving animals in the wild through reduction of waste, water and energy use and inspiring guests and staff to take wildlife protecting actions.

• Contributes to other operational priorities as needed.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree (BA/BS) from four-year college or university; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

• Minimum of ten (10) years of progressive leadership experience in marketing, audience development, brand management, consumer insights, analytics, or related disciplines.

• Minimum of five (5) years leading and developing high‑performing teams.

• Demonstrated success developing and executing integrated marketing strategies that drive measurable business outcomes.

• Experience using consumer insights, research, analytics, and performance measurement to inform decision‑making.

• Proven ability to manage complex projects, multiple priorities, and significant budgets in a dynamic environment.

• Strong business acumen with experience translating strategy into execution.

• Exceptional relationship‑building, communication, and presentation skills.

About Houston Zoo

Houston Zoo is made up of many moving parts with over 6,000 permanent residents (our animals) for whom we provide housing, meals, medical care and, yes, even education! There are over 2 million guests each year who come to experience our incredible variety of animals and ecosystems, as well as attend special private and public events and entertainment. Our dedicated staff works around the clock to ensure that the Zoo is always running smoothly for the safety and well‑being of our residents and guests. We strive to ensure the protection of all the counterparts of the animals we have at the Zoo and in the wild.

Join Houston Zoo and become a part of an organization that is focused on the preservation of wildlife and their habitats by combining conservation with education and promotion of sustainable livelihoods in the local communities. Houston Zoo is an Equal Opportunity Employer.