Market Strategy & Activation Director, Central

Market Strategy & Activation Director, Central We are seeking an experienced Market Strategy & Activation Director to lead the strategy, performance, and execution of a multi-market retail engagement program within a highly regulated industry (tobacco/nicotine). This role serves as the senior leader across the field marketing organization, overseeing and developing a team of Market Managers while ensuring consistent, compliant, and high-quality execution across all markets. The ideal candidate can move seamlessly between strategy and execution, seeing the bigger picture, identifying patterns and opportunities across markets, and translating those insights into clear direction for field teams. The Market Strategy & Activation Director will be accountable for overall market performance, operational excellence, team effectiveness, and continuous program optimization. They will partner closely with agency and client stakeholders to turn program objectives into actionable market strategies, surface meaningful field intelligence, and ensure learnings from the field inform how the program evolves. This is a highly collaborative, hands-on leadership role for someone who understands that exceptional field marketing requires both disciplined execution and the ability to adapt quickly based on what is happening in the market. Key Responsibilities Market Strategy & Program Leadership • Own the overarching field strategy and activation approach across all participating markets, translating client objectives into clear priorities, expectations, and actionable plans for Market Managers. • Establish consistent standards for market execution while allowing teams to respond intelligently to local market dynamics, retailer needs, consumer behavior, and emerging opportunities. • Maintain a holistic view of program performance, identifying trends, risks, opportunities, and operational needs across markets. • Partner with agency and client leadership to evolve program strategy based on field performance, business priorities, and marketplace learnings. Market Manager Leadership & Development • Lead, coach, and develop a team of Market Managers, establishing clear expectations and accountability for performance within each market. • Create a strong operating rhythm across the field organization through regular communications, performance reviews, market check-ins, and sharing of best practices. • Empower Market Managers to effectively lead their local teams, solve problems, and make sound decisions while providing senior-level support and escalation when needed. • Identify performance gaps and development opportunities and provide direct, actionable coaching to strengthen individual and team effectiveness. • Foster a connected field culture in which teams learn from one another rather than operating as isolated markets. Performance & Operational Excellence • Own overall program performance across markets, ensuring teams consistently deliver against activation schedules, retailer commitments, consumer engagement goals, reporting requirements, and other established KPIs. • Establish processes and standards that create consistency, accountability, and operational discipline across the program. • Monitor market performance and proactively intervene when execution, staffing, inventory, retailer relationships, or other operational factors put results at risk. • Partner with Market Managers and internal teams to resolve systemic challenges and eliminate recurring barriers to strong execution. • Ensure program assets, inventory, staffing, and resources are effectively planned and deployed across markets. Compliance & Program Integrity • Champion a culture of rigorous compliance across the field organization, ensuring Market Managers and their teams understand and consistently adhere to all regulatory, brand, retailer, and program requirements. • Establish clear expectations and processes for monitoring compliance and reporting accuracy across markets. • Partner with Market Managers to quickly address discrepancies, compliance concerns, or executional risks. • Serve as a senior escalation point for sensitive or complex field issues, partnering with agency and client leadership as appropriate. Insights & Optimization • Turn field activity into actionable intelligence by identifying patterns across markets, consumer interactions, retailer feedback, competitive activity, and sales or performance data. • Look beyond individual market results to identify what is working, what is not, and where the program can improve. • Create mechanisms for sharing successful approaches and best practices across Market Managers and field teams. • Translate field insights into clear recommendations for agency and client stakeholders that strengthen future strategy and execution. • Continuously challenge the program to become smarter, more efficient, and more effective over time. Client & Cross-Functional Partnership • Serve as a senior field marketing partner to agency and client stakeholders, providing a clear view of market performance, emerging needs, risks, and opportunities. • Collaborate closely with account, strategy, operations, staffing, and other internal teams to ensure the field organization has what it needs to succeed. • Bring a solutions-oriented perspective to program challenges, balancing client expectations, field realities, operational considerations, and regulatory requirements. • Represent the voice of the field in broader program conversations while ensuring client and agency priorities are clearly understood and activated by market teams. Qualifications • 8–10+ years of experience in field marketing, experiential marketing, retail engagement, brand activation, shopper marketing, or related disciplines. • Significant experience leading multi-market or distributed field teams, including direct management of managers or senior field leaders. • Demonstrated ability to translate broader business and marketing objectives into effective field strategies and execution plans. • Experience overseeing complex, high-volume consumer-facing programs with multiple stakeholders and operational workstreams. • Strong understanding of compliance requirements and operational rigor, ideally including experience within regulated industries. • Proven ability to analyze field performance, identify meaningful patterns, and turn insights into actionable recommendations. • Strong people leadership skills with a track record of training, coaching, developing, and holding teams accountable. • Excellent communication and presentation skills with the ability to effectively engage field teams, agency leaders, clients, and retail partners. • Highly organized and comfortable managing multiple markets, priorities, and workstreams simultaneously. • Strong judgment and problem-solving skills, particularly in fast-moving environments where issues require timely decisions. • Ability to travel regularly to participating markets and work occasional evenings or weekends based on program needs. • Valid driver’s license and reliable transportation required. What We’re Looking For We’re looking for a field marketing leader who thinks like a strategist and operates like an owner. You know how to build clarity across a distributed team, empower strong managers, and create consistency without losing sight of what makes individual markets different. You are equally comfortable reviewing performance data, coaching a Market Manager, training a room full of 50 product specialists, troubleshooting an executional challenge, organizing and tracking inventory, walking a retail environment, or presenting a recommendation to senior stakeholders. Most importantly, you don’t simply oversee activity—you make the entire program better. You connect dots across markets, turn field intelligence into action, anticipate what teams will need next, and create the conditions for people to deliver exceptional work consistently, responsibly, and at scale.