Director of Marketing

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Department:

School of Business Administration

Job Summary:

The School of Business Administration at the University of Mississippi is hiring a Director of Marketing. This is the senior marketing and communications role for the school. The Director reports to the Dean, sits on the Dean's leadership team, and owns how the school presents itself to prospective students, alumni, donors, the press, and the broader business community.

The school is looking for a builder. Someone who can see marketing as the engine that pulls the rest of the school along and who has the instinct to set the agenda rather than wait to be handed one.

Job Description:

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required. Advanced degree preferred (MBA, master's in marketing, communications, business, or a related field).
• At least fives years of experience, 3 years supervisory or team leadership experience.
• Demonstrated experience developing and executing a comprehensive, multi-channel marketing, communications, or external engagement strategy.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including experience writing for and presenting to senior audiences.
• Working knowledge of digital marketing, CRM or marketing automation platforms, web content management, and marketing analytics.

Preferred Experience

• Experience. Ten or more years of progressively responsible leadership experience in marketing, communications, advancement, public relations, or a closely related external-facing function.
• Senior leadership. Significant senior-level experience leading marketing, communications, or brand functions in higher education, advancement and philanthropy, professional services, or a comparably complex mission-driven environment.
• Advancement partnership. Demonstrated track record of partnering with development, advancement, or alumni teams to advance fundraising, donor engagement, and constituent relationships.
• Recruitment marketing. Experience leading recruitment, enrollment, or audience-acquisition marketing, ideally across multiple programs or product lines.
• People and budget leadership. Proven success building and leading high-performing teams, and managing meaningful budgets with discipline and transparency.
• Stakeholder navigation. Experience operating in a federated environment with many internal stakeholders and bringing them into alignment without heavy-handed control.

Skills and Capabilities

• Storytelling. A storyteller at heart, with a strong editorial instinct and the ability to translate complex ideas into clear, human narratives.
• Strategic judgment. Strategic and analytical, able to set direction, prioritize ruthlessly, and use data to make and defend decisions.
• Brand instinct. Sophisticated brand sensibility, with an eye for visual quality and a commitment to consistency.
• Executive presence. Skilled communicator and trusted advisor who can move comfortably between the Dean's office, faculty, donors, alumni, students, and the press.
• Operating muscle. Operationally strong, with the ability to build the planning rhythms, processes, and dashboards that make a function reliable.
• Channel fluency. Deep fluency across digital, content, PR, social, paid media, and CRM-enabled communications.

Mindset and Values

• Mission orientation. Mission-driven, with a genuine interest in education, in the people behind the work, and in building something that matters.
• Directness. Direct, honest, and easy to partner with. Comfortable giving and receiving candid feedback.
• Presence. Confident in the room. Comfortable taking control of a conversation when the moment calls for it, willing to push back on senior stakeholders, and able to keep a high-stakes meeting pointed at the outcome rather than the agenda.
• Leadership style. Generous with credit, deliberate with attention, and steady under pressure.

Job Responsibilities:

Strategy and Leadership

• Set the direction. Develop and lead a comprehensive, school-wide marketing, communications, and brand strategy aligned with the Dean's priorities and the school's strategic plan.

• Advise at the top. Serve as a senior advisor to the Dean and leadership team on positioning, reputation, audience strategy, and external messaging.

• Build and lead the team. Directly supervise the Communications Manager and social media interns; recruit, onboard, and develop talent; build an accountable, collaborative team culture with clear roles and high standards.

• Manage partners and budget. Steward the function's budget and external vendor partnerships, including agencies, photographers, videographers, and media buyers, to extend the team's capacity and protect quality.

Brand, Reputation, and Storytelling

• Own the brand. Define and steward the school's brand identity, voice, and visual standards, ensuring a consistent and elevated presence across every audience and channel.

• Lead PR. Lead earned-media and public relations strategy, building relationships with national, regional, and trade outlets to elevate faculty thought leadership, student outcomes, and school milestones.

• Tell the story. Oversee signature storytelling and content production across web, email, social, video, print, and event collateral, ensuring a consistent voice and visual identity at every touchpoint.

Advancement, Alumni, and Donor Engagement Partnership

• Partner with development. Partner closely with the school's development and alumni relations teams to align marketing strategy with fundraising priorities, campaign messaging, and donor-facing communications.

• Make the case. Lead the creation of case-for-support materials, campaign collateral, donor stories, impact reports, and stewardship communications that support the Dean and the development team in advancing the school's philanthropic priorities.

• Engage alumni. Elevate alumni storytelling and engagement programming so that alumni see themselves, and want to stay close to the school across the full arc of their careers.

Recruitment and Enrollment Marketing

• Drive enrollment. Lead integrated recruitment marketing strategy across undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs, in close partnership with admissions and program leadership.

• Use data. Apply data and audience insight to prospect generation, nurture, yield, and conversion across the full funnel.

• Sharpen positioning. Position the school's programs in a competitive landscape and articulate clear value propositions for each audience.

School-Wide and University Coordination

• Coordinate the school. Provide strategic oversight of marketing and recruiting efforts across all academic departments, centers, institutes, and administrative offices within the school.

• Coordinate up. Partner with university-level marketing and communications on shared brand standards, joint campaigns, and resource sharing.

• Align the work. Streamline and align marketing initiatives across the school to ensure efficiency, brand consistency, and shared measurement.

• Set the operating model. Establish operating norms, planning rhythms, and a service model that makes the marketing function easy to work with and faster than the alternatives.

Digital and Campaign Marketing

• Own digital. Lead the school's digital marketing strategy across web, SEO and SEM, paid media, email marketing, marketing automation, social, and CRM-driven communications.

• Run the campaigns. Direct campaign planning and execution for program recruitment, rankings submissions, signature events, and special initiatives.

• Run the web. Manage and continuously improve the school's web presence in coordination with university IT and web teams.

• Measure what matters. Define KPIs, dashboards, and reporting cadences that link marketing investment to enrollment, engagement, reputation, and philanthropic outcomes.

Substitution Statement : An equivalent combination of related experience and education may be considered for this role. Substitutions of the required experience or education will be assessed on a 1:1 substitution basis.

Education Qualifications:

Bachelor's (Required)

Experience:

Relevant experience | 5 Years, 3 years supervisory | Required

Compensation:

$91,395.20 - $137,113.60

Interview Requirement:

Interview Requirements: Any candidate who is called for an interview must notify the Department of Equal Opportunity/Regulatory Compliance in writing of any reasonable accommodation needed prior to the date of the interview.

EEO Statement:

The University of Mississippi provides equal opportunity in any employment practice, education program, or education activity to all qualified persons. The University complies with all applicable laws regarding equal opportunity and does not unlawfully discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment based upon race, color, gender, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, national origin, ethnicity, citizenship, age, disability, military status, protected veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status.

Background Check Statement:

The University of Mississippi is committed to providing a safe campus community. UM conducts background investigations for applicants being considered for employment. Background investigations include a criminal history record check, and when appropriate, a financial (credit) report or driving history check.