Director of Advertising-St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Lee Enterprises•St. Louis, MO

14d

About The Position

The Director of Advertising at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is a high-impact sales leader responsible for driving revenue growth, developing talent, strengthening client relationships, and advancing the organization’s digital sales strategy. The role leads a sales team, establishes performance expectations, and builds a culture centered on accountability, initiative, and results. The ideal candidate moves quickly from strategy to execution, identifies opportunities, solves problems, and turns ideas into measurable business results. The director leads revenue growth and sales strategy, supports new business acquisition and existing-account growth, and develops the team's ability to sell digital and integrated multimedia solutions. The role also involves coaching and developing employees, building strategic client relationships, monitoring the market and competition, and maintaining disciplined pipeline and CRM practices. The director collaborates with marketing, content, digital, operations, and leadership teams to maximize revenue opportunities. Lee Enterprises describes itself as a provider of local news and information, serving 114 markets across 25 states. It emphasizes valuable, intensely local news and information and states that it is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion.

Requirements

Proven sales leadership experience.
Strong track record of growing revenue.
Ability to win new business and expand existing client relationships.
Digital fluency and understanding of the changing media and digital advertising landscape.
Ability to coach people toward higher performance.
Ability to use data to make decisions and measure results.
Action-oriented approach, with ownership, problem-solving ability, energy, competitiveness, and urgency.

Responsibilities

Lead the sales team in achieving and exceeding revenue, new business, retention, and growth objectives.
Develop and execute strategies for acquiring new business and growing existing accounts.
Establish sales priorities, activity expectations, pipeline goals, and performance metrics.
Focus on prospecting, pipeline development, conversion, and closing.
Identify opportunities to increase client spend, expand relationships, and introduce additional products and solutions.
Promote consultative selling that connects client objectives to measurable outcomes.
Participate in high-value opportunities and strategic client relationships when appropriate.
Analyze sales performance, address gaps, and capitalize on opportunities.
Ensure the team can explain and sell digital advertising, audience targeting, branded content, data, social, video, email, and emerging solutions.
Identify revenue opportunities arising from changes in consumer behavior, technology, and the media marketplace.
Build the team's capability and confidence in selling integrated digital and multimedia solutions.
Directly manage, coach, and develop sales team members.
Establish a culture of accountability, urgency, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Conduct regular one-on-ones, pipeline reviews, coaching sessions, and performance discussions.
Recognize strong performance and constructively address underperformance.
Recruit, retain, and develop sales talent, and empower salespeople to own their results.
Build and maintain relationships with key clients and business decision-makers.
Develop strategic partnerships that create long-term client value.
Monitor the competitive landscape, marketplace trends, and evolving advertiser needs.
Represent the organization as a strategic media and marketing partner in the business community.
Maintain disciplined pipeline and CRM management across the sales organization.
Use data and performance reporting to identify trends, opportunities, and areas requiring intervention.
Collaborate with marketing, content, digital, operations, and leadership teams to maximize revenue opportunities.
Ensure sales initiatives are executed consistently, urgently, and with measurable accountability.