Vice President, Product Marketing

Paychex•Cincinnati, OH

About The Position

Leads the product marketing function for Paychex with accountability for the commercial strategy of every product set: the ideal customer profile, the positioning and value narrative, the pricing and packaging architecture, the go-to-market strategy, and the market intelligence that helps inform the product roadmap. Serves as the voice of the market inside Paychex, translating industry, buyer, competitive, and regulatory signal into evidence-based recommendations on what we build, who we build it for, what we charge, and how we win. Partners with Product to influence roadmap direction, owns the pricing and bundling recommendation brought to governance, and supplies the points of view and messaging strategy that Content, Design, Demand Generation, and Enablement execute against. Transforms product marketing from a request-driven execution function into a market-facing strategic partner to Product, Sales, Finance, and the broader organization — and builds the team, standards, decision rights, and operating cadence required to sustain it.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Economics, Communications, or related field - Required
12 years + Product marketing, product management, or commercial strategy in a B2B technology, SaaS, or business services environment, including responsibility for a multi-product portfolio.
5 years of experience in Leading a product marketing team, including leading other people leaders, with accountability for hiring, developing, and organizing the function.
3 years of experience in Direct ownership of pricing, packaging, or monetization strategy with measurable accountability for revenue, margin, or attach outcomes.
3 years of experience in Influencing product roadmap decisions through market, buyer, and competitive evidence in a matrixed organization, without direct authority over the roadmap.
3 years of experience in HCM, payroll, HR technology, benefits, insurance, or financial services experience serving small and mid-sized business customers.
Transforming a product marketing function from a request-driven, execution-oriented model to a strategic, market-facing one.
Market sensing and synthesis Expert
Customer and buyer insight Expert
Commercial and monetization acumen Expert
Narrative and message craft Expert
Go-to-market orchestration Expert
Influence without authority Expert
Executive communication Expert
Analytical rigor and measurement Advanced
Organizational leadership and talent development Advanced
Decisiveness under ambiguity Expert

Nice To Haves

Master's Degree in MBA or related advanced degree - Preferred
Pragmatic Institute Product Marketing Certification, Product Marketing Alliance certification; Professional Pricing Society Certified Pricing Professional (CPP) - Preferred

Responsibilities

Own continuous sensing of the HCM market — industry and technology trends, regulatory and compliance change, competitive movement, win/loss findings, analyst and channel influencer input, and market sizing. Bring a written, evidence-based point of view to every product roadmap review to influence prioritization and investment decisions, while Product Management retains the prioritization decision.
Own the definition, maintenance, publication, and organizational adoption of the ICP, buyer and user personas, buying committee dynamics, and journey maps for every product set. Establish the voice-of-customer research program — primary interviews, advisory boards, and survey research — and hold the organization accountable to targeting, building for, and serving the profiles defined.
Own the monetization strategy, analysis, and recommendation for each product set: pricing model and metric, tiering, packaging fences, bundle architecture, willingness-to-pay research, competitive price positioning, price change programs, and discount guardrails. Partner with Finance, Product, and Sales for input and modeling, and secure approval through the pricing governance forum.
Own portfolio-level and product-level positioning and the messaging architecture that cascades across every channel. Translate product capability into customer benefits and quantified business outcomes, deliver points of view and messaging briefs to Content, Design, Demand Generation, Brand, and Enablement, and govern message consistency across the enterprise.
Own the launch tiering model, go-to-market plans, and cross-functional launch readiness across Product, Sales, Enablement, Service, Compliance, and the partner channel. Hold go/no-go authority on go-to-market readiness, accountability for 30/60/90-day post-launch performance, and ownership of end-of-life and migration go-to-market.
Own the post-sale commercial narrative: activation and time-to-value messaging, feature adoption strategy, cross-sell and attach strategy by ICP, the retention and renewal narrative, and the customer proof and reference agenda.
Build and lead a team organized by product set, including Directors and Principal or Senior Product Marketing Managers. Define the job architecture and competency model, assess and develop existing talent, recruit scarce capabilities in pricing and monetization, competitive intelligence, and primary research, and coach the team to author and defend points of view.
Represent the market point of view to executive leadership. Establish and operate the interlocks the function depends on — roadmap review participation, the pricing governance forum, and messaging governance — and define and report the business outcome metrics that replace activity-based measures of the function.