Director, Strategic Marketing and Communications

Metropolitan Airports Commission•Minneapolis, MN

About The Position

The Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) is seeking an innovative, people-focused leader to head our Strategic Marketing and Communications Department. This role influences how millions of people connect with Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) and how our organization’s story is told across Minnesota and beyond. In this position, you will set MAC’s marketing and communications strategies, guide an integrated team of experts, and keep our brand voice consistent, compelling, and grounded in research. You will decide how work is prioritized, ensure creative stays strategically aligned, and steer the content and channel strategies that grow engagement, build the brand, and drive revenue. You will direct how MAC engages audiences and enhances public trust through media relations, crisis communications, and executive and internal communications. You will also champion data-informed decisions and advance customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities to deepen passenger and stakeholder connections. If leading an in-house team that operates like a marketing and communications agency, aligning cross-divisional work, and building campaigns that elevate brands and strengthen community impact appeal to you, this is your role. It offers the chance to shape MAC’s next chapter and leave a meaningful mark on one of the nation’s largest airport systems.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in a related field
Ten years of experience in marketing and communications
In lieu of a bachelor’s degree, 14 years of experience in marketing and communications
Seven years of experience managing and supervising direct reports, including responsibility for hiring, disciplining, coaching, rewarding and terminating employees
Experience working in a marketing or communications agency, supporting multiple clients or projects in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.
Experience using data, analytics and performance metrics to inform marketing and communications strategy and measure impact
Experience owning and managing a department or program budget
Willing and able to respond to emergencies, including being reachable to join response calls and reporting on-site on short notice when the situation requires
Reliable transportation to travel between worksites

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in a related field
Experience building or maturing a work intake, prioritization or campaign management function
Experience leading or championing adoption of AI platforms in marketing and communications
Experience leading customer relationship management (CRM) strategy and leveraging the platform to drive campaigns and grow adoption across an organization
Experience leading brand strategy and creative teams
Experience with business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketing
Experience with crisis communications, issues management and executive communications
Experience leading a multi-level department and influencing leaders who report to other functions
Familiarity with Emergency Operations Center (EOC) roles and responsibilities
Aviation, airline industry, or MAC experience and/or knowledge
Hospitality, travel, or tourism industry experience
Public sector experience

Responsibilities

Lead the Strategic Marketing team to develop marketing strategies and campaigns that build the brand identities for the MAC and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP), amplify impact for organizational activities and drive non-aeronautical revenue.
Serve as a business partner to internal teams to develop annual marketing plans.
Demonstrate a strong understanding of how to translate business objectives into smart marketing strategy.
Ensure brand personas, market segmentation and consumer insights inform marketing strategies.
Manage the Strategic Communications team responsible for media relations, crisis communications, issues management, executive communications, internal communications and stakeholder communications.
Ensure Strategic Communications campaigns are strategically sound and integrated as appropriate with divisional campaigns.
Support a cross-departmental process to share insight and content and identify the best channels for implementation.
Provide coaching to key stakeholders to ensure consistency in our best practices.
Ensure social media and website content efforts support key division initiatives and organizational strategies.
Lead the Brand Creative team to deliver strategically aligned creative solutions and ensure the team maintains strong creative direction and quality.
Ensure creative for multi-channel strategic marketing and communications campaigns delivers on organizational priorities.
Guide the team to integrate marketing and communications objectives and keep messaging strategically consistent while tailored to each channel.
Evaluate content and content strategies for effectiveness and recommend changes as warranted.
Manage the strategic campaign manager and ensure this role is integrated into all relevant activities to produce more strategic and aligned outcomes.
Operate the department as an internal marketing and communications agency, steering demand management and client service approach.
Partner with the department’s assistant directors and strategic campaign manager to prioritize client requests and navigate trade-offs, providing the deciding authority when it is needed.
Engage directly with clients when needed to clarify strategic outcomes and work through issues.
Lead the continued build-out, refinement and maturing of the strategic campaign management process.
Educate the broader organization on the process and its value.
Prioritize clear marketing and communication objectives and channel strategy.
Work across the division to ensure all initiatives are strategically grounded.
Ensure channel utilization and trends are analyzed to identify key channel insights and recommend the optimal macro marketing mix.
Produce strategic analysis around growth opportunities, marketing insights and core business metrics to drive efficiencies, decisions and results.
Guide department teams to develop and track ROI measurement, design and implement marketing testing and incorporate learning into future plans.
Champion integration of data and metrics to measure results and inform development of marketing, communication, creative and campaign strategies.
Lead the continued development of digital marketing capabilities including social, mobile, web, AI, advertising and search.
Drive CRM strategy, steering the continued maturity, adoption and enterprise-wide scaling of CRM.
Partner with the CRM team to deepen customer and passenger engagement and deliver greater value through personalization and data-driven targeting.
Champion a strategic marketing and communications competency across MAC, helping the organization understand the strategic value of the discipline and how to apply it well.
Collaborate closely across the organization to ensure strategic needs are reflected in what is delivered for department partners.
Stay connected to the broader marketing and communications field, tracking trends, best practices, and destination and economic research, and representing MAC externally as opportunities arise.
Partner with MAC senior leaders on key strategic projects and initiatives to achieve consensus, prioritize as needed and optimize execution.
Perform other job-related duties as assigned.
Foster a rewarding, productive work environment where people do their best work.
Encourage mentorship and development with meaningful assignments that provide room to grow.
Develop the department's leaders, building a strong leadership team and depth in key roles.
Champion continuous improvement and new ideas, strengthening the department's processes, efficiency and prioritization.
Integrate MAC's purpose, values and focus areas into the department's work and priorities.
Keep the team aligned to organizational goals, sharing information and surfacing issues through regular communication.
Set clear performance expectations and standards, review performance through regular discussion and give feedback throughout the year.
Exercise supervisory authority in accordance with MAC Human Resource Policy and the MAC Administration Manual.
Hire, develop, recognize, transfer, discipline and discharge employees.
Own the department budget and manage spend to plan, making allocation and trade-off decisions to stay within approved funding while delivering priorities.
Work with the Strategy and Stakeholder Engagement division leadership team on the annual budget process.
Manage department accounts payable process and key vendor relationships.
Track and forecast department spend throughout the year to catch issues early.