Director, Marketing Operations – Email & Digital Subscriptions
Hearst · Dallas, Houston, New York City · $150,000–$160,000 (stated in the posting)
Role Overview
Hearst Newspapers (HNP) is looking for a strategic and hands-on Director of Marketing Operations to lead the technology, processes, and team supporting our digital subscription marketing business. Reporting to the VP of Digital Subscriptions, this role leads a team of four and serves as the operational bridge between Marketing, Product, Engineering, Business Intelligence, Editorial, Finance, and Customer Service. This role sits within our central group.
A major focus of the role is email and newsletter optimization—ensuring our customer communications, lifecycle programs, audience segmentation, personalization, and marketing automation are effective, scalable, and continuously improving. This person will also help manage and evolve the MarTech ecosystem supporting our digital subscriber journey, from audience and customer data through website experiences, offers, checkout, and ongoing subscriber communications.
This is not primarily a campaign execution, Sales Operations, Ad Operations, or project management role. We’re looking for someone who understands the technology behind modern marketing and can translate business needs into scalable solutions.
What You’ll Do
- Lead and develop a team of four Marketing Operations professionals.
- Own and continuously improve the technology and operational processes supporting email, newsletters, lifecycle marketing, CRM/CDP, and marketing automation.
- Partner with Marketing and Editorial to improve the performance, personalization, segmentation, and effectiveness of email and newsletter programs.
- Work closely with Product and Engineering to translate marketing needs into technical requirements and deliver new capabilities.
- Help oversee the technology supporting the digital customer journey, including websites, audience data, personalization, subscription offers, and customer communications.
- Diagnose and troubleshoot issues across platforms, data flows, integrations, campaigns, and customer experiences.
- Establish effective intake, prioritization, QA, governance, and release processes across multiple Hearst newspaper markets.
- Identify opportunities to use AI and automation to reduce manual work, improve efficiency, and enable Marketing teams to do more.
- Evaluate vendors and technology solutions and help ensure the MarTech ecosystem is scalable and well integrated.
- Build strong relationships across Marketing, Product, Engineering, BI, Editorial, Finance, and Customer Service.
- Create processes and capabilities that can scale consistently across Hearst Newspapers’ markets while still supporting local needs.
What You’ll Bring
Required Qualifications
- Significant experience in Marketing Operations, preferably leading a Marketing Operations function or team.
- Deep, hands-on experience with email and/or newsletter operations, including segmentation, lifecycle communications, personalization, QA, testing, and optimization.
- Strong knowledge of MarTech platforms, marketing automation, CRM/CDP, and customer data.
- Experience partnering closely with Product and Engineering to build or improve marketing capabilities.
- Strong understanding of how data moves across marketing systems and the ability to troubleshoot issues and identify root causes.
- Experience managing and prioritizing competing requests across multiple stakeholders or business units.
- Proven people leadership experience.
- Strong business judgment and the ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear business decisions.
- Experience using AI and automation to improve marketing processes and team efficiency.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in media, publishing, subscriptions, or consumer marketing.
- Experience supporting multiple brands, markets, or decentralized organizations.
- Experience with website/digital customer experiences, personalization, subscription offers, or checkout.
- Experience with platforms such as BlueConic, Sailthru, Salesforce, or comparable MarTech solutions.
- Familiarity with SQL, APIs, data integrations, or data activation.
- Experience evaluating vendors and implementing new marketing capabilities.
The Person We’re Looking For
You’re someone who enjoys figuring out how things work and how to make them work better.
You don’t simply take a request and pass it along to Engineering. You ask questions, understand the underlying business and technical problem, identify the right solution, and bring the right teams together to make it happen.
You’re comfortable moving between marketing strategy, technology, data, and operations, and you know when to get into the details and when to step back and lead.
You’re curious about AI, constantly looking for ways to eliminate manual work, and comfortable operating in a complex, multi-market organization where priorities don’t always align.
Additional Information
- Sponsorship: This position does not provide immigration sponsorship. Applicants must have the right to work in the U.S. without immigration sponsorship.
- Accommodations: We are committed to an accessible application process. If you need an accommodation to apply, please contact hnpemployment@hearst.com. This email address is for accommodation requests only.
Benefits
We support our employees through personal and professional development and promote physical, financial and emotional wellbeing for employees and their families. Our benefits include:
- Physical Wellbeing: Medical, dental and vision coverage to help keep you and your family healthy.
- Invest for the Future: Competitive retirement plan with a matching program in most markets.
- Generous Paid Time Off: Ample time off, including holidays and vacation.
- Paid Parental Leave: Paid leave to support growing families and new parents.
- Monthly Child & Dependent Care Reimbursement: Financial support for the care of your loved ones.
- Emotional Wellbeing: Mental wellness benefits to support your emotional wellbeing.
- LGBTQ+ & Inclusive Health Services: Inclusive healthcare designed for individual needs.
- Fertility Coverage & Menopause Support: Support throughout different stages of your health and family journey.
- Pet Wellness Reimbursement & Rover Credits: Support to help keep your pets happy and healthy.
- And more: Learn more about additional benefits and details here.
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Compensation
The base salary range below is the Company's good-faith estimate for this position in the posted work location at the time of posting. Final starting salary will be based on permissible, non-discriminatory factors, including but not limited to skills, experience, training, certifications, education, location and market considerations.