Vice President of Brand Marketing

Position Summary

The Vice President, Brand Marketing leads the vision, development, and execution of transformative brand marketing that fuels growth, builds brand equity, and keeps Mendocino Farms at the center of culture as the company pursues 20% annual unit growth toward becoming a national brand. Reporting to the Chief Marketing Officer, this role owns brand strategy & positioning, integrated brand campaigns, menu and product marketing, and the build-out of the Integrated Marketing function (PR, social, and content) driving bold, breakthrough ideas across paid, owned, and earned channels.

This role is the brand's chief storyteller and visionary: translating business strategy into compelling, guest-relevant creative and campaigns that push creative boundaries while delivering measurable business results. As a key member of the marketing leadership team, the Vice President of Brand Marketing partners closely with Growth Marketing, Creative & Production, Operations, and Culinary to ensure the brand shows up with clarity, consistency, and cultural relevance everywhere the guest encounters it.

Core Responsibilities

Brand Strategy & Vision

• Owns and evolves Mendocino Farms' brand positioning, voice, and creative platform as the primary brand visionary for the company.
• Translates business and growth strategy into a clear, differentiated, breakthrough brand strategy that scales consistently across both established and first-to-market communities.
• Maintains a deep understanding of consumer trends, media behavior, cultural insights, and emerging communications opportunities to keep the brand relevant and differentiated.
• Serves as the brand's internal champion, ensuring consistency of brand expression across marketing, operations, real estate, and new markets.

Brand Campaigns & Creative Leadership

• Leads development and execution of bold, integrated brand campaigns across paid, owned, and earned channels — including social, PR, influencer marketing, and experiential activations. Partners closely with VP, Growth Marketing to ensure fully 360° campaign execution across paid media, local store marketing, and new store openings.
• Owns the direct agency relationships with the brand strategy & campaign agency and the PR, Influencer & Experiential agency — directing campaign strategy and development from brief through concept evaluation, feedback, and approvals.
• Reviews and approves creative concepts, messaging, and campaign strategy to ensure fit with brand identity and voice; final creative execution and design sign-off sits with Creative & Production.
• Partners closely with VP, Growth Marketing to build annual and seasonal brand marketing plans and calendars aligned to business priorities and new store growth.
• Owns the company's external communications and PR strategy, managing agency and media relationships.
• Sets the strategy for organic social and content that builds brand affinity, community engagement, and cultural relevance.
• Owns the brand marketing and campaign agency budget, ensuring investment is allocated efficiently and delivers measurable business results.

Integrated Agency Management

• Serves as the connective tissue across Mendocino Farms' full integrated agency roster — including agencies owned by other marketing functions — ensuring strategic alignment, consistent ways of working, and seamless collaboration across agency partners and internal stakeholders.
• Establishes shared processes and governance (briefing standards, handoffs, approval workflows) that keep every agency partner operating cohesively toward integrated campaigns across paid, owned, and earned channels.
• Partners with individual agency relationship owners across the marketing team to evaluate agency performance, collaboration, and contribution to business results.

Product & Menu Marketing

• Owns go-to-market strategy for menu innovation, limited-time offerings (LTOs), and product launches, partnering closely with Culinary and Operations.
• Leads the Product Marketing Manager and function to ensure menu launches are guest-relevant, on-brand, and operationally feasible.
• Champions guest and market insights to inform menu marketing strategy and prioritization, including regular category strategy updates.
• Monitors product performance and menu mix, driving focus areas for incremental growth.

Guest Experience & Insights Oversight

• Provides leadership oversight for the Guest Relations Lead, ensuring service-recovery and guest-feedback trends inform brand and campaign decisions.
• Partners with Guest Insights & Analytics to bring guest and consumer data into brand strategy, creative development, and campaign targeting.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Partners closely with Growth Marketing, Guest Insights & Analytics, and Executive Leadership to align priorities and ensure seamless execution of initiatives.
• Partners with Creative & Production to keep brief and execution separate but tightly aligned, preserving creative integrity.
• Builds strong relationships across functions and fosters a culture of collaboration, accountability, transparency, and continuous improvement.

Leadership Competencies

• Enterprise Brand Vision: Sets a compelling long-term brand direction, translates growth priorities into a differentiated strategy, and champions consistent brand expression across markets and touchpoints.
• Creative Leadership and Storytelling: Inspires bold, culturally relevant ideas; articulates a clear creative point of view; and raises the quality of storytelling while maintaining alignment with business objectives.
• Strategic and Commercial Acumen: Connects brand decisions to guest behavior, unit growth, menu performance, and financial outcomes; makes disciplined investment choices that strengthen both equity and demand.
• Guest-Centered, Data-Informed Judgment: Integrates consumer, cultural, market, and performance insights with sound brand intuition to set priorities and make timely decisions.
• Integrated Leadership: Unifies paid, owned, and earned efforts across brand, growth marketing, communications, social, content, culinary, operations, and creative teams.
• Influence and Executive Communication: Communicates complex ideas with clarity, earns trust across functions and senior leadership, and rallies stakeholders around a shared brand ambition.
• Agency and Partner Leadership: Establishes clear expectations, governance, and accountability across agency partners; provides decisive feedback and fosters high-performing collaboration.
• Talent Building and Team Development: Builds scalable capabilities, develops strong leaders and specialists, delegates effectively, and creates a culture of ownership, candor, and continuous improvement.
• Change Leadership and Adaptability: Operates effectively in a fast-growth environment, anticipates evolving needs, and guides teams through ambiguity with focus, resilience, and a bias toward action.
• Operational Excellence and Accountability: Converts strategy into executable plans, clarifies decision rights and handoffs, tracks outcomes, and ensures commitments are delivered with quality and speed.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Builds productive relationships across the enterprise, balances competing perspectives, and resolves friction in service of the guest and the business.
• Hospitality and Values Leadership: Models integrity, guest-first thinking, and inclusive leadership while reinforcing the behaviors and standards expected of the Mendocino Farms brand.

Qualifications, Education & Experience

Required:

• Education and Experience: Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Advertising, Communications, Business Administration, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience; 12+ years of progressive brand marketing experience, including at least 5 years leading senior teams or major marketing functions in a complex, multi-location consumer business.
• Brand and Campaign Leadership: Demonstrated success defining brand positioning, voice, and creative platforms and leading integrated campaigns across paid, owned, and earned channels that strengthen brand equity and support growth.
• Consumer and Commercial Acumen: Track record of applying guest, cultural, market, and performance insights to improve awareness, consideration, traffic, sales, menu mix, and marketing effectiveness.
• Product and Menu Marketing: Experience leading go-to-market strategy for product innovation, seasonal programs, limited-time offerings, or comparable launches in partnership with culinary and operations teams.
• Agency and Financial Management: Extensive experience directing integrated agency partners, establishing effective ways of working, managing significant budgets, and evaluating performance and return on investment.
• People and Cross-Functional Leadership: Demonstrated ability to build and develop high-performing teams, establish accountability, and align executive, marketing, creative, culinary, operations, analytics, development, and field stakeholders.
• Executive Communication and Creative Judgment: Exceptional written, verbal, presentation, influencing, and creative-review skills, with the ability to simplify complex ideas, provide clear feedback, and secure senior-level alignment.
• Work Environment: Ability to lead effectively in a fast-growth, evolving organization and travel as needed to restaurants, markets, agency meetings, and company events.

Preferred Skills

• MBA or advanced degree in marketing, business, communications, or a related discipline.
• Leadership experience with a restaurant, hospitality, retail, food and beverage, or other multi-unit consumer brand.
• Experience scaling a regional brand into new markets or supporting rapid unit growth while maintaining a consistent national brand platform.
• Deep expertise in contemporary media, creator and influencer ecosystems, cultural partnerships, experiential marketing, and earned-media strategy.
• Genuine passion for hospitality, food culture, guest experience, and building distinctive brands that earn lasting affinity.