Vice President, Marketing

Join our Mission to Protect Humankind!

Vaxcyte is a clinical-stage vaccine innovation company engineering high-fidelity vaccines to protect humankind from the consequences of bacterial diseases, which have serious and costly health consequences when left unchecked. Working to eradicate or treat bacterial infections such as invasive pneumococcal disease, Group A Strep, and Shigella is just the beginning. Our path to success is clear and well-defined, and Vaxcyte is set up to go the distance.


WHAT we do is every bit as important as HOW we do it! Our work together is guided by four enduring core values:

*RETHINK CONVENTION: We bring creative and intellectual diversity to every facet of the work we do in order to innovate and re-innovate the way vaccines are delivered.

*AIM HIGH: We embody our collectively audacious goal to courageously make the most complex biologics ever attempted to protect humankind.

*LEAD WITH HEART: Everyone leads at Vaxcyte with a kindness-first, inclusive approach to collaboration and vigorous debate that advances our business objectives.

*MODEL EXCELLENCE: The magnitude of our challenge requires our shared commitment to demonstrating integrity, accountability, equality and clarity across communications and decision making.

Summary:

We are seeking a Vice President of Marketing to lead our marketing strategy as we prepare to become a U.S. commercial vaccine company within the next 18 months. This role is critical to shaping our U.S. launch, building the marketing foundation for a first commercial product, and positioning the company for future global expansion.

The ideal candidate brings deep vaccine marketing experience, a strong understanding of the U.S. immunization landscape, and a proven track record of leading pre-launch and launch activities in a highly regulated environment. This leader will balance strategic vision with hands-on execution, building capabilities, teams, and processes appropriate for a first commercial launch. This individual should have demonstrated experience driving commercial demand across target audiences-including healthcare providers, consumers/patients, payers, and public health stakeholders-with a particular emphasis on consumer engagement strategies that build disease awareness and motivate vaccination behavior.
Essential Functions:

U.S. Launch & Commercial Strategy

• Lead the development and execution of the U.S. marketing strategy for our initial vaccine launch, including disease awareness, brand positioning, and go-to-market planning.
• Develop differentiated value propositions grounded in clinical data, public health impact, and real-world evidence.
• Partner closely with the Chief Commercial Officer to align marketing strategy with overall commercial, sales, and market access plans.

Vaccine & Immunization Expertise

• Apply deep understanding of the U.S. vaccine ecosystem, including immunization schedules, CDC/ACIP considerations, public health stakeholders, and provider types.
• Design marketing strategies that address the unique dynamics of vaccine adoption, including site-of-care complexity, and public trust.
• Collaborate with Medical Affairs and Regulatory to ensure compliant, scientifically sound communications.
• Partner with Government Affairs and Policy teams to ensure marketing strategies account for evolving immunization policy, public funding mechanisms, and advocacy stakeholder dynamics.
• Collaborate with HEOR and Market Access to develop evidence-based value narratives and payer-facing materials that support formulary positioning and access.

Brand & Portfolio Marketing

• Establish the company's commercial brand and narrative as we transition from a development-stage biotech to a commercial organization.
• Lead brand development, messaging, and omnichannel promotional strategy across HCP, payer, and patient audiences.
• Design and execute integrated omnichannel engagement strategies spanning personal promotion, digital channels, and non-personal promotion to optimize customer reach, frequency, and impact across the vaccine adoption journey.
• Develop digital-first engagement models for hard-to-reach HCP segments, including pharmacists and public health practitioners critical in vaccine delivery.
• Develop and execute consumer/patient engagement strategies-including disease awareness campaigns, direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, and health literacy initiatives-that drive vaccination demand at the population level.
• Build multi-audience demand generation strategies that create a pull-through effect across HCPs, consumers, payers, employers, and public health decision-makers to maximize vaccine adoption.
• Partner with Patient Advocacy organizations and community health stakeholders to inform patient-centric messaging and overcome barriers to vaccination, including vaccine hesitancy and health equity gaps.
• Develop lifecycle and indication expansion strategies to support future growth and pipeline advancement.

Market Insights & Analytics

• Lead market research, customer insights, and competitive intelligence to inform launch readiness and ongoing optimization.
• Define KPIs and performance metrics to measure marketing effectiveness and launch success.
• Leverage data analytics and AI-powered tools to enhance competitive intelligence, identify prescriber behavior patterns, and inform real-time marketing optimization decisions.

Team, Infrastructure & Capability Building

• Build and lead a high-performing marketing organization, scaling the team and capabilities over time.
• Establish agency partnerships and external vendors to support launch execution. Build and manage a high-performing agency roster with clear scopes of work, performance metrics, and governance structures that drive accountability and cost efficiency.
• Implement marketing processes, governance, and operating models consistent with U.S. commercial and regulatory requirements.
• Implement marketing operations infrastructure including project management systems, digital asset management (DAM), and content supply chain processes designed for scale and speed-to-market.
• Own the marketing budget, ensuring disciplined resource allocation across brand, digital, and promotional investments with clear ROI measurement and launch investment frameworks.

Future Global Expansion

• Design U.S. marketing strategies with future global scalability in mind.
• Partner cross-functionally to support early planning for potential international expansion, including global brand frameworks and knowledge transfer.

Digital Innovation & AI-Enabled Marketing

• Champion the integration of AI and emerging technologies into marketing workflows to improve quality, speed, cost efficiency, and decision-making across the marketing organization.
• Evaluate and deploy AI-powered tools for content creation, personalization, competitive intelligence, and customer engagement-ensuring all applications comply with regulatory and MLR requirements.
• Leverage generative AI to accelerate content development cycles, enable omnichannel personalization at scale, and streamline the Medical-Legal-Regulatory (MLR) review process.
• Establish an AI-informed marketing operations model that uses predictive analytics to optimize targeting, message sequencing, and media mix allocation.
• Identify opportunities to use AI and automation to reduce agency costs, accelerate time-to-market for promotional materials, and improve ROI across marketing investments.
• Partner with IT, Data Science, and Commercial Operations to build a connected, data-driven marketing ecosystem from the ground up.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree (MBA, MS, PhD) preferred with 15+ years of progressive marketing experience in biotech or pharmaceuticals.
• Other combinations of education and/or experience may be considered
• Significant experience in vaccine marketing, including U.S. launch experience.
• Demonstrated success leading pre-launch and first-launch marketing efforts.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience building a marketing organization in a pre-commercial or first-launch biotech environment.
• Track record of leading omnichannel marketing strategies integrating digital, non-personal, and field-based promotion.
• Experience managing complex agency rosters and marketing vendor ecosystems across creative, media, digital, and analytics functions.
• Familiarity with AI/ML applications in marketing, including content generation, customer segmentation, predictive analytics, and campaign optimization.
• Demonstrated fluency in marketing analytics, including KPI frameworks, attribution modeling, and data-driven optimization.
• Experience with MLR processes and demonstrated ability to partner effectively with Medical and Legal/Regulatory in a compliant promotional environment.
• Strong executive presence with the ability to influence C-suite stakeholders and represent the marketing function on cross-functional leadership teams.
• Proven experience driving commercial demand generation across both HCP and consumer/patient audiences in a regulated healthcare environment, including DTC, disease education, or unbranded awareness campaigns.
• Public health marketing or disease awareness campaign experience preferred

Reports to: Chief Commercial Officer

Location: San Carlos, CA / US Remote

Compensation:

The compensation package will be competitive and includes comprehensive benefits and an equity component.

Salary Range: $315,000 - $385,000 (SF Bay Area). Salary ranges for non-California locations may vary.

Relocation:

This role is not eligible for relocation assistance.


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We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status.