Assistant Director, Performance Marketing - Office of Academic Innovation - Penn Engineering

University of Pennsylvania•Woodworth, OH

About The Position

The Office of Academic Innovation at Penn Engineering is seeking an Assistant Director of Performance Marketing to lead the day-to-day execution, management, and continuous improvement of marketing efforts across Penn Engineering’s residential and online graduate and professional programs. This role serves as the central executional owner for marketing strategy, translating institutional priorities and growth goals into coordinated, high-quality delivery across channels. The Assistant Director manages staff, oversees program-level messaging and product marketing, owns lifecycle and enrollment communications, and ensures accountability through reporting and performance management. This position plays a critical role in supporting recruitment and enrollment while building scalable processes and operational discipline across the marketing function.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree and 3 -5 years of experience in higher education marketing, enrollment marketing, or related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Demonstrated experience managing complex, cross-channel marketing execution
Experience supervising staff and coordinating work across teams
Strong organizational, communication, and prioritization skills
Ability to operate independently in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.

Nice To Haves

Experience working with admissions, academic, or program teams preferred

Responsibilities

Strategy Execution & Day-to-Day Leadership: Serve as the primary owner of the day-to-day execution of graduate growth and enrollment marketing strategies across online and residential programs. Translate high-level strategy into actionable plans, priorities, and deliverables across channels and teams. Manage workload, sequencing, and execution to ensure alignment with recruitment cycles, institutional priorities, and available resources. Provide direct leadership and supervision to marketing staff, setting clear expectations, assigning work, and ensuring timely, high-quality delivery. Act as the central point of accountability for execution across initiatives.
Product Marketing, Messaging & Positioning Own product marketing and program-level positioning for Penn Engineering’s graduate and professional programs. Ensure messaging is clear, consistent, audience-appropriate, and aligned to enrollment objectives across web, email, editorial, and campaign-based marketing. Serve as the owner of lifecycle and enrollment communications strategy, ensuring cohesive messaging from inquiry through enrollment, with execution carried out by program leads. Maintain consistency across programs while allowing for differentiation where appropriate.
Website Management & Content Execution Manage the Penn Engineering graduate and professional programs website from an execution and optimization standpoint, including content prioritization, messaging alignment, and ongoing improvements. Partner with leadership to implement SEO, GEO, and content strategy, and oversee execution across program pages, editorial content, and supporting assets. Coordinate updates, enhancements, and optimization efforts to ensure the website effectively supports recruitment, engagement, and conversion goals.
Reporting, Performance, & Accountability Own regular reporting and performance monitoring across marketing channels, including email, web, editorial, and campaigns. Ensure visibility into progress, outcomes, and areas for improvement. Partner with analytics and strategy leads to interpret performance data and apply insights to execution. Hold the team accountable for delivery, timelines, and outcomes, escalating risks and tradeoffs as needed.
Vendor & Cross-Functional Management Manage and coordinate external marketing and creative vendors in support of executional needs, ensuring clear scope, timelines, and quality standards. Serve as a key liaison between marketing, admissions, student affairs, career, and LDT teams, and leadership to ensure alignment and smooth execution. Collaborate closely with admissions leadership to support recruitment events, yield initiatives, and enrollment communications.
Marketing Operations & Scalability Support the development and refinement of scalable marketing operations, including intake, prioritization, workflows, and tools. Ensure requests are evaluated against strategic priorities and capacity, and that processes support efficiency, transparency, and sustainable execution.

Benefits

The University offers a competitive benefits package that includes excellent healthcare and tuition benefits for employees and their families, generous retirement benefits, a wide variety of professional development opportunities, supportive work and family benefits, a wealth of health and wellness programs and resources, and much more.
Health, Life, and Flexible Spending Accounts: Penn offers comprehensive medical, prescription, behavioral health, dental, vision, and life insurance benefits to protect you and your family’s health and welfare. You can also use flexible spending accounts to pay for eligible health care and dependent care expenses with pre-tax dollars.
Tuition: Take advantage of Penn's exceptional tuition benefits. You, your spouse, and your dependent children can get tuition assistance here at Penn. Your dependent children are also eligible for tuition assistance at other institutions.
Retirement: Penn offers generous retirement plans to help you save for your future. Penn’s Basic, Matching, and Supplemental retirement plans allow you to save for retirement on a pre-tax or Roth basis. Choose from a wide variety of investment options through TIAA and Vanguard.
Time Away from Work: Penn provides you with a substantial amount of time away from work during the course of the year. This allows you to relax, take vacations, attend to personal affairs, recover from illness or injury, spend time with family—whatever your personal needs may be.
Long-Term Care Insurance: In partnership with Genworth Financial, Penn offers faculty and staff (and your eligible family members) long-term care insurance to help you cover some of the costs of long-term care services received at home, in the community or in a nursing facility. If you apply when you’re newly hired, you won’t have to provide proof of good health or be subject to underwriting requirements. Eligible family members must always provide proof of good health and are subject to underwriting.
Wellness and Work-life Resources: Penn is committed to supporting our faculty and staff as they balance the competing demands of work and personal life. That’s why we offer a wide variety of programs and resources to help you care for your health, your family, and your work-life balance.
Professional and Personal Development: Penn provides an array of resources to help you advance yourself personally and professionally.
University Resources: As a member of the Penn community, you have access to a wide range of University resources as well as cultural and recreational activities. Take advantage of the University’s libraries and athletic facilities, or visit our arboretum and art galleries. There’s always something going on at Penn, whether it’s a new exhibit at the Penn Museum, the latest music or theater presentation at the Annenberg Center, or the Penn Relays at Franklin Field to name just a few examples. As a member of the Penn community, you’re right in the middle of the excitement—and you and your family can enjoy many of these activities for free.
Discounts and Special Services: From arts and entertainment to transportation and mortgages, you'll find great deals for University faculty and staff. Not only do Penn arts and cultural centers and museums offer free and discounted admission and memberships to faculty and staff. You can also enjoy substantial savings on other goods and services such as new cars from Ford and General Motors, cellular phone service plans, movie tickets, and admission to theme parks.
Flexible Work Hours: Flexible work options offer creative approaches for completing work while promoting balance between work and personal commitments. These approaches involve use of non-traditional work hours, locations, and/or job structures.
Penn Home Ownership Services: Penn offers a forgivable loan for eligible employees interested in buying a home or currently residing in West Philadelphia, which can be used for closing costs or home improvements.
Adoption Assistance: Penn will reimburse eligible employees on qualified expenses in connection with the legal adoption of an eligible child, such as travel or court fees, for up to two adoptions in your household.