Marketing Director

About the job

Company Description The way we gather is broken. Modern culture trades presence for digital sedation, and nightlife makes good health the price of admission. We're building the successor to the bar — a new kind of third space, designed from first principles for how people want to gather today. Doors open in New York City this winter, and the model is built to scale nationally.
We're artists and serial entrepreneurs — builders of creative & nightlife communities, wellness brands, and tech companies. We've spent our careers pushing culture forward, and this is our biggest swing yet.

We're backed by founders of some of the most influential technology companies of the past two decades, alongside one of the most followed voices in health.

The role

This is the top marketing seat at Saunter. You'll join the founding team pre-launch to build our go-to-market strategy from a blank page — the goals, the campaigns, the channels, the community — and be an integral part of actually launching our first location. We are looking for a strategic, creative, data-fluent marketing leader who builds excellent teams and turns a brand people love into a business that performs.

We're building a lifestyle brand that is highly differentiated — one that touches wellness, hospitality, culture, and much more — and this role owns how that brand takes shape and reaches people. Because everything here is being built for the first time, cross-functional collaboration is critical: you'll work shoulder to shoulder with the CEO and Ownership, General Manager, and programming and operations leads to form the foundational systems the brand will run on for years.

Reporting directly to the Co-Founder and CEO, this is a ground-floor leadership role for someone who wants to put their name on a new category-defining brand with ambition to grow rapidly. The voice, audience, and reach of the brand will carry your fingerprints for years, as we expand to new locations.

What you'll do

1. Own the go-to-market. In collaboration with the CEO, develop and execute the launch strategy for our first location — goal and KPI setting, campaign calendar, channel strategy, community strategy, paid strategy, and the annual marketing budget — and carry it through opening day and beyond.
2. Build the team. Design the marketing org from scratch — recruit, hire, train, and develop a best-in-class team and the agency and creative partners around it, coach them toward shared goals, and keep them.
3. Shape the brand. Guide overall creative direction so a highly differentiated lifestyle brand — spanning wellness, hospitality, and culture — shows up consistently in every channel, campaign, and detail.
4. Drive the numbers. Own performance across the full marketing mix — bookings and memberships, social, paid, email, and community — monitor budgets and KPIs, produce weekly and monthly reporting, and turn marketing data into decisions.
5. Build the systems. Work cross-functionally and with development partners to stand up and maintain our marketing technology — website, integrations, data systems, and membership product — as foundational infrastructure for the business.
6. Grow the community. Design the community and membership strategy that turns first visits into regulars and regulars into advocates, and build genuine standing for Saunter in the neighborhood and culture around us.
7. Lead at the table. Represent marketing on the executive team — align campaigns with programming and operations, present strategies and results in leadership meetings, and help drive high-level decisions across the business.

Who you are

• You've led marketing for a consumer-facing brand in hospitality, wellness, lifestyle, or culture — and you've driven measurable growth doing it.
• You're a brand builder with real taste — you can guide creative direction, hold a distinctive voice, and know what makes a brand feel alive rather than manufactured.
• You're fluent with data — you set KPIs, manage budgets with rigor, analyze large sets of data, and present insights that move the business.
• You hire well and coach well, with a proven track record of organizing and leading teams that do the best work of their careers.
• You're both strategic and hands-on — as comfortable setting the annual plan as you are getting in the weeds on a campaign when the moment calls for it.
• You're a natural cross-functional collaborator with excellent communication skills — you build alignment across departments and make the whole team better.
• A fast-paced pre-opening or launch excites you rather than daunts you.

In Accordance with Applicable Law, the Following Represents a Good Faith Estimate of the Minimum and Maximum Compensation Range for This Position

• The estimated annual base salary range for this role is $120,000.00–$160,000.00.
• There may be future opportunities for continued pay progression based on continued strong performance in the role.
• Full-time positions are also eligible for a competitive benefits package and equity in the form of profits interests.
• Learn more at saunter.space/gtm.

Compensation for this role will be determined based on permissible, non-discriminatory factors such as a candidate's qualifications, skills, and experience.