Senior Marketing Strategy & Operations

Zendesk•US - California - Fully Flexible, CA

7d•$134,000 - $200,000•Hybrid

About The Position

As a pivotal senior individual contributor on Zendesk’s Marketing Strategy & Operations team, the Sr. Marketing Strategy & Operations Lead will help translate marketing strategy into clear priorities, scalable operating plans, and measurable execution. This role sits at the intersection of planning, business operations, performance management, and cross-functional coordination — helping leaders make trade-offs and helping teams deliver against the work that matters most.

Requirements

A structured thinker who can bring order to complex, cross-functional work without creating unnecessary process.
Strong business judgment and comfort balancing strategic priorities, operational realities, and measurable outcomes.
Excellent communication and facilitation skills, including the ability to influence without formal authority.
A bias toward clarity and action: you define the decision, the owner, the next step, and the measure of success.
Analytical fluency and the ability to use data to challenge assumptions, frame trade-offs, and support recommendations.
A collaborative, low-ego working style and a genuine interest in making teams more effective.
8+ years of experience in marketing strategy, business operations, marketing operations, consulting, finance, or a related discipline.
Proven experience leading planning, forecasting, business reviews, operating rhythms, or cross-functional strategic initiatives.
Strong analytical and financial modeling skills, with the ability to connect marketing activity to pipeline, revenue, and resource decisions.
Experience building executive-ready narratives, recommendations, and operating materials from complex inputs.
Demonstrated ability to manage multiple priorities, drive alignment, and deliver through influence.

Nice To Haves

Experience in a high-growth B2B SaaS or similarly complex global marketing environment preferred.

Responsibilities

Partner with Marketing leaders to translate strategy into annual and quarterly priorities, operating plans, milestones, dependencies, and measurable outcomes.
Drive planning and business-management processes, including target setting, forecasting, pipeline pacing, budget and resource discussions, and executive business reviews.
Create clarity across cross-functional initiatives by defining ownership, decision rights, workstreams, risks, dependencies, and communication cadences.
Develop operating frameworks, templates, playbooks, and mechanisms that improve prioritization, accountability, visibility, and execution quality.
Analyze business and marketing performance to identify implications, surface trade-offs, and recommend actions to improve growth and operational effectiveness.
Partner with Marketing Operations, Analytics, Finance, Sales/Revenue Operations, Product, and regional teams to connect plans and ensure coordinated execution.
Facilitate working sessions and leadership discussions that turn ambiguity into decisions, aligned action, and documented follow-through.
Identify opportunities to simplify processes, automate recurring work, and improve the way Marketing makes and executes decisions.