VP, Marketing & Customer Experience

Gilson Inc•Middleton, WI

About The Position

Gilson is seeking a commercially minded, customer-focused leader to evolve how the company engages, grows, and serves customers worldwide. The Vice President, Marketing & Customer Experience will lead an integrated customer growth strategy that connects brand, demand generation, digital commerce, customer data, and customer success into a cohesive commercial engine. The role calls for a leader who understands scientific customers and laboratory environments, translates customer insight into growth, and builds the systems, capabilities, and teams that strengthen the customer journey from awareness through adoption, retention, expansion, and advocacy. As a member of the senior leadership team, the VP will represent the voice of the customer and help shift Gilson toward a business that combines exceptional products with a strong customer-centered commercial experience. The role owns global brand strategy and positioning, develops measurable demand generation in close partnership with Sales, and makes CRM and customer data practical tools for managing the customer lifecycle. It also advances e-commerce, establishes a Customer Success capability, and creates global strategies and standards that support effective regional execution. The leader will establish a measurable growth operating model across Marketing, Sales, Product, Service, Applications, IT, and regional organizations. This includes setting shared priorities, governance, decision rights, and performance measures, while focusing resources on the capabilities and programs with the greatest impact. Success is measured through business and customer outcomes such as pipeline and conversion growth, stronger customer data and CRM adoption, e-commerce revenue and repeat purchases, faster onboarding, improved adoption and retention, increased attachment of consumables and services, and stronger customer lifetime value and recurring revenue.

Requirements

Significant leadership experience in life sciences, laboratory technology, scientific instrumentation, diagnostics, scientific software, medtech, or another technically complex B2B market.
Deep understanding of scientific customers, laboratory workflows, purchasing journeys, adoption barriers, and customer value drivers.
Experience leading multiple areas of marketing, demand generation, CRM, digital commerce, customer analytics, and/or customer lifecycle management.
Demonstrated ability to connect marketing investment to measurable commercial outcomes, such as pipeline, revenue, retention, recurring revenue, customer lifetime value, and expansion.
Experience strengthening brand positioning, awareness, differentiation, or market preference.
Experience with CRM platforms, customer data, installed-base data, funnel analytics, segmentation, and lifecycle management.
Experience improving customer retention, service or consumables attachment, repeat purchasing, adoption, or expansion.
Strong partnership with Sales and experience working across direct and distributor/channel go-to-market models.
Experience operating across multiple geographies; North America and Europe experience is preferred in the posting's wording as 'ideally.'
Track record of building or transforming capabilities without relying on large teams or unlimited budgets.
Experience influencing senior leadership and helping traditionally product- or engineering-led organizations become more market- and customer-driven.
Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Life Sciences, Communications, or a related discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.

Nice To Haves

MBA or another advanced degree is preferred but not required.
Experience operating across North America and Europe is ideal.

Responsibilities

Represent the voice of the customer in strategic business decisions, bringing customer understanding to portfolio, investment, go-to-market, service, digital, and experience decisions.
Create stronger connections between Gilson leaders and customers through Voice of Customer programs, research, direct engagement, and meaningful customer metrics.
Turn customer insight into action across Marketing, Sales, Product, Service, Applications, IT, and regional teams.
Own Gilson's global brand strategy and positioning, building awareness, trust, differentiation, and preference in target scientific markets.
Develop an integrated global demand-generation strategy that converts priority audiences into qualified opportunities.
Partner with Sales to establish funnel definitions, lead management, nurturing, attribution, conversion measurement, and closed-loop learning.
Connect marketing activity to pipeline contribution, conversion, customer acquisition, and revenue impact.
Establish business ownership for customer data, lifecycle processes, segmentation, installed-base visibility, dashboards, and customer insights; partner with IT on implementation shaped around business and customer needs.
Develop e-commerce as a meaningful commercial and customer-experience channel by improving merchandising, conversion, repeat purchasing, and self-service.
Identify opportunities to monetize the installed base through consumables, accessories, service, and other recurring customer needs.
Establish a Customer Success capability focused on onboarding, adoption, time-to-value, customer health, retention, and expansion.
Define how Customer Success partners with Sales, Service, Applications, Product, and other teams to deliver a seamless customer experience.
Set global strategies, platforms, standards, and measurement while enabling regional execution across North America, Europe, and other key markets.
Partner with commercial leaders on campaigns, events, channel activation, and field programs.
Create a measurable growth framework across Marketing, Sales, Product, Service, Applications, IT, and regional organizations, including shared priorities, governance, decision rights, and performance measures.
Redirect resources from lower-value activities to capabilities and programs with the greatest impact.
Influence senior leaders and help the organization become more market- and customer-driven.
Measure and improve brand awareness and preference, qualified pipeline and conversion, customer and installed-base visibility, CRM adoption and data quality, e-commerce revenue and repeat purchasing, onboarding and time-to-value, adoption, retention, expansion, attachment, customer lifetime value, and recurring revenue.