Senior Director, Marketing Investment & Operations

Senior Director Of Marketing Investment & Operations

The Senior Director of Marketing Investment & Operations is accountable for how marketing capital is allocated, governed, operationalized, and scaled across the enterprise. This role owns the systems, processes, and partnerships that ensure every marketing dollar is invested deliberately, executed compliantly, and deployed with maximum return and minimal risk.

As the financial and operational steward of the marketing organization, this leader builds a dynamic investment capability that continually answers:

• Where each dollar goes
• Why it goes there
• When it should move, scale, or stop

Sitting at the intersection of strategy, finance, operations, and risk, this leader translates growth ambitions into disciplined, executable investment plans while ensuring marketing operates within regulatory, legal, and operational guardrails. The ideal candidate is a general-manager-type leader with deep experience in investment modeling, performance analysis, and building defensible investment theses. The focus is primarily on developing and evolving dynamic investment models (approximately 75%), with the remaining emphasis on operationalization and governance (approximately 25%).

Success Looks Like:

• Marketing investments dynamically flow to the highest-return opportunities
• Marketing operates as a governed portfolio of investments, not static budgets
• Strong, predictable execution within legal, compliance, and risk guardrails
• Faster, higher-confidence investment decisions with fewer escalations
• Clear line of sight from strategy → funding → execution → performance → reallocation

Core Objectives:

• Dynamic Investment & Funding Model
• Maximize return on marketing investment through a dynamic, continuously reforecasted portfolio model
• Shift marketing from static budgets to actively managed capital
• Ensure investment decisions are transparent, repeatable, and performance-driven
• Enterprise Marketing Operations
• Build and run the operating system that enables marketing to scale efficiently, compliantly, and with speed
• Serve as the connective tissue between Marketing, Finance, Legal, Risk, Compliance, and Supply Chain

What You'll Do:

• Enterprise Marketing Investment Strategy
• Own the end-to-end lifecycle of marketing investments: opportunity identification → business case → approval → funding → performance tracking → reallocation
• Define the strategy for funding growth as a mirror to Marketing and Product strategy
• Act as the financial steward of the entire Marketing organization
• Maintain a holistic, portfolio-level view of all marketing investments across LOBs, channels, and states
• Lead cross-functional reforecasting, scenario planning, and budget optimization
• Advanced Investment Governance & Decisioning
• Create scalable and consistent business case frameworks for all incremental investment requests
• Establish clear investment criteria and decision frameworks to evaluate competing opportunities
• Mediate trade-off decisions across LOBs, channels, and states to ensure enterprise value over local optimization
• Project-manage investment proposals through approval forums (AO, Finance, Executive Leadership)
• Cross-Functional Growth Orchestration
• Partner with LOB Owners (Auto, Moat/Specialty, Commercial, Cross-sell/Bundling) to:
• Shape investment strategies aligned to LOB growth ambitions
• Pressure-test assumptions, demand forecasts, and return expectations
• Ensure end-to-end accountability for performance
• Partner with Channel Owners (Paid Media, Direct Mail, Email, Paid Search, SEO) to:
• Evaluate channel-specific growth opportunities
• Resolve overlapping or competing investment requests
• Optimize funding across paid, owned, and earned channels
• Collaborate with State Investment Owners to align state-level strategies with enterprise priorities
• Work closely with Analytics & Data Science to:
• Embed measurement into every investment
• Translate complex data into actionable investment insights
• Maintain clear, executive-ready dashboards for performance and decisioning
• Marketing Operations, Risk & Governance
• Own the marketing operating model, ensuring investments translate into executable, compliant programs
• Serve as the primary marketing partner to:
• Legal – regulatory adherence, approvals, and risk mitigation
• Compliance & Risk – governance frameworks, audit readiness, and control environments
• Supply Chain & Procurement – agency contracts, production capacity, vendor performance, and cost efficiency
• Establish operational guardrails that balance speed with risk management
• Create clear rituals and forums for financial, operational, and compliance alignment
• Ensure marketing execution scales without introducing operational, regulatory, or reputational risk
• Accountability & Performance Culture
• Drive clear ownership and accountability for all marketing spend
• Set expectations that funding is earned and defended through performance
• Move the organization from "budget ownership" to investment responsibility
• Build strong financial credibility with Finance and Executive Leadership

What We're Looking For:

• 10–15+ years in marketing finance or marketing FP&A with experience operating at senior leadership levels
• Strong understanding of media, digital, and brand marketing drivers
• Expertise in financial modeling, analytics, and performance measurement, including scenario planning and MMM
• Command of operational systems of high-functioning Marketing organizations
• Knowledge of governance frameworks (approval flows, contract compliance)
• Adept communicating with executive level and cross-functional leadership

Key Stakeholders:

• CMO and Marketing Leadership Team
• Lines of Business & Product Leadership
• Channel and State Investment Owners
• Finance, AO, Legal, Compliance, Risk
• Supply Chain / Procurement
• Analytics & Data Science

Annual Salary

$195,000.00 - $315,000.00

The above annual salary range is a general guideline. Multiple factors are taken into consideration to arrive at the final hourly rate/annual salary to be offered to the selected candidate. Factors include, but are not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the role, the selected candidate's work experience, education and training, the work location as well as market and business considerations.

At this time, GEICO will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization for this position.

The GEICO Pledge:

Great Company: At GEICO, we help our customers through life's twists and turns. Our mission is to protect people when they need it most and we're constantly evolving to stay ahead of their needs.

We're an iconic brand that thrives on innovation, exceeding our customers' expectations and enabling our collective success. From day one, you'll take on exciting challenges that help you grow and collaborate with dynamic teams who want to make a positive impact on people's lives.

Great Careers: We offer a career where you can learn, grow, and thrive through personalized development programs, created with your career – and your potential – in mind. You'll have access to industry leading training, certification assistance, career mentorship and coaching with supportive leaders at all levels.

Great Culture: We foster an inclusive culture of shared success, rooted in integrity, a bias for action and a winning mindset. Grounded by our core values, we have an established culture of caring, inclusion, and belonging, that values different perspectives. Our teams are led by dynamic, multi-faceted teams led by supportive leaders, driven by performance excellence and unified under a shared purpose.

As part of our culture, we also offer employee engagement and recognition programs