SVP, Growth Audiences

dentsu•Chicago, IL

1d•$163,000 - $235,000•Hybrid

About The Position

WE WELCOME REMOTE U.S.-BASED CANDIDATES The SVP, Head of Growth Audiences sets the audience system that powers experience-led strategy across dentsuX. Reporting into the EVP, Head of Activation, this role ensures a single, actionable view of priority audiences is translated into planning, activation, and measurement decisions, enabling clearer experience choices and stronger business outcomes for clients. This leader defines what “good” audience work looks like across the agency by setting standards, frameworks, and governance. The focus is not on audience segmentation as a standalone output, but on ensuring audience insight shows up in client deliverables as clear experience decisions: who to prioritize, what to say or do, where to show up, and how to prove impact. This role sits at the intersection of strategy, media, data, analytics, and technology and acts as a critical partner to senior client and agency leadership. The SVP, Head of Growth Audiences is both a trusted client advisor and a change leader, responsible for institutionalizing new ways of working across dentsuX.

Requirements

15+ years of experience leading audience strategy, growth strategy, experience strategy, media, or data-driven marketing within complex organizations.
Deep expertise in developing and governing audience systems, including audience definitions, prioritization frameworks, identity, signals, and measurement implications.
Demonstrated ability to translate audience insight into clear experience and growth decisions that shape messaging, channel roles, journey design, and test-and-learn agendas.
Strong fluency across the media, data, and technology ecosystem, with the ability to navigate platform constraints, addressability considerations, and signal availability.
Proven experience operating as a senior strategic partner to strategy, activation, and measurement teams within a matrixed agency or consulting environment.
Executive-level storyteller and advisor, skilled at translating complexity into compelling, actionable narratives for senior client and internal stakeholders.
Demonstrated success leading teams through ambiguity, organizational change, and new ways of working.
Experience building, leading, and mentoring senior talent and establishing standards that enable teams to operate with clarity, accountability, and speed.
Ability to travel up to 25% as required to support client, team, and business needs (including travel for new business pitches).

Responsibilities

Audience System Ownership & Strategy Leadership Own the end-to-end audience system, including audience definitions, priority tiers, and signal taxonomy used consistently across planning, activation, and measurement.
Define and maintain audience governance, including how audiences and signals are created, updated, documented, approved, and deployed across channels and over time.
Ensure audience work translates into clear experience choices, with explicit implications for messaging, channel roles, journey design, and test-and-learn priorities.
Establish standards that demonstrate how priority audiences directly drive growth, performance, and experience outcomes, with clear mechanisms for validation, learning, and ongoing evolution.
Strategic Partnership & Experience Integration Act as a strategic counterpart to the Strategy team, ensuring audience insight shapes strategic platforms, growth narratives, and experience frameworks from the outset, not as a downstream input.
Help shift the organization from campaign-led thinking to consistent, consumer-centric, experience systems.
Ensure audience insights are embedded within strategy and experience outputs, rather than delivered as isolated deliverables.
Serve as a senior strategic voice with internal and external stakeholders, translating complexity into clear, actionable direction that informs decision-making.
Organizational Transformation & Ways of Working Drive a meaningful organizational shift, positioning audience work as a shared operating system rather than a specialist function.
Establish true shared ownership across planning, activation, and measurement teams, partnering end-to-end from audience definition through deployment and learning.
Create common standards, shared language, and clear guardrails to guide decision-making across teams.
Define and implement new operating rhythms, including shared planning moments, activation readiness checkpoints, and measurement readouts that continuously inform and evolve the audience system.
Lead through change by coaching teams through ambiguity, iterating in-market, and continuously improving how audience work shows up in client deliverables.
Talent, Capability & Influence Build, lead, and mentor senior growth audience talent.
Advance the growth audiences capability through thought leadership, experimentation, and cross-functional collaboration across dentsu X and the broader dentsu network.
Create clarity and alignment within a matrixed organization, enabling teams to operate with confidence, accountability, and speed.