Marketing Director FT Professional

About Us

The FT has an uncompromising mission: delivering independent, quality information, news and services to individuals and companies around the globe. It’s the cornerstone of our reputation and the heart of our ambitions for the future. But for our people, the FT offers so much more than what we do. FT people come from all kinds of backgrounds and work across a huge range of disciplines and locations, and find an empowering, warm and welcoming culture that values curiosity and rewards smart, ambitious thinking. Those who are willing to unite around our mission and live our values will find plenty to challenge, inspire and interest them. Like the audiences we serve, no two FT people are the same; but together we help our audience be better informed and understand the world around them. It’s a job that’s never mattered more, and a career that can take you anywhere you want to go.

In FT Professional, we are proud to serve more than 800k professionals and students at nearly 8k corporate, government and academic customers in more than 120 countries globally. Our impressive growth to date has been built on providing access to the FT’s journalism via the FT.com website and FT app or by selling journalism as data. We also manage important relationships with media partner platforms and syndication agreements with other publishers. The next chapter of success for the FT Professional business involves continued growth of the core business plus accelerated growth through investment in new products and services. This requires the evolution of our Go-To-Market (GTM) approach to support a portfolio of products and services that we sell and support with a greater focus on communicating smartly and effectively with our customers. 

Our strategy is to help our customers make more confident decisions, be more innovative and run better-performing organisations through actionable insights, collaborative tools and professional development of their people. The customer is at the heart of that strategy and the Marketing team is one of our most important touchpoints in attracting and converting new customers as well as ensuring that existing customers see increasing value from their relationships with us. 

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion in the workplace

At the FT, we give all employees a voice so that diverse perspectives are heard and valued. We believe that a supportive workplace is one where employees feel they can be themselves at work. We'll continue to remove barriers for all, and in particular barriers facing employees from underrepresented groups.

The Role / Position Overview

Reporting to the Managing Director of FT Professional, the Marketing Director will join a collaborative and ambitious leadership team to manage a global team of 19 colleagues (main hubs in New York, London, Singapore and Hong Kong) and a marketing budget of over £1m (excluding headcount costs).

Main responsibilities / Key outcomes

• Contribute to the strategy and leadership of this fast-growing and ambitious business unit
  • Develop highly impactful collaborative working relationships with leaders of the Sales, Customer Success, Operations & Product and Technology teams
  • Represent Marketing at the global FT Professional leadership team and clearly communicate the strategy and plan to the Marketing team and wider FT Professional.
    
    
• Drive performance, innovation and experimentation in our Marketing function
  • Provide practice leadership to the global marketing team
  • Optimise structure, processes and ways of working to ensure that the team can provide maximum commercial value and align with other FT Professional functions
  • Recruit, retain and develop a world-class team of highly engaged, influential and ambitious Marketers 

• Grow revenues from our existing client base and extend our audience
• Lead the team to
• Devise and deliver integrated marketing and communications strategies 
• Grow the marketing/sales pipeline by developing lead generation campaigns, objectives, goals and metrics 
• Track the reach and impact of different campaigns, measuring effectiveness and continually optimising to drive return on investment
• Support successful product launches and interactive feature enhancements
• Accelerate new business development across core business lines and new products
• Ensure effective communication throughout the lifecycle to drive engagement and customer loyalty

• Own the definition, evolution and communication of our value proposition
  • Own the entire FT Professional communication landscape and marketing funnel
  • Take ownership of our reputation and recognition; including brand, PR and communications activities as needed
  • Manage and bring on board new agencies and 3rd parties as needed to optimise growth
    
    
• Represent FT Professional marketing across the FT Group’s marketing leadership 
  • Proactively share knowledge and best practices across your peer group
  • Drive commercial collaborative partnerships - particularly with colleagues in our Consumer Revenue Group (B2C subscriptions), but also other FT entities (such as FT Specialist, FT Live, TNW, Headspring, Longitude etc) 

You will have… 

• Proven experience of running a global marketing team in the B2B information / SaaS space
• Experience of running a B2B subscriptions marketing team across multiple regions 
• Demonstrable success in driving collaboration between marketing and sales, customer success & product management 
• GTM for new  product launches and established products
• Audience / client engagement and growth marketing activities  

You are known for…

• Ambitious pragmatism in planning and decision-making
• A relentless focus on delivery and results - with a bias for execution / action
• Excellent communication - clearly articulating ideas
• Collaboration - using a consultative approach to diagnostic and planning activities 
• Leadership through influence and persuasion - throughout the organisation (up, down, across) and across the hybrid working landscape
• A highly commercial & entrepreneurial approach
• Adaptability of style and communication approach to different situations and audiences 

What’s in it for you? Our Benefits

Our benefits vary depending on location, but we are committed to providing best-in-class perks across all our offices as well as an inclusive environment to develop your career. Examples of our benefits include; generous annual leave allowances, flexible working (including working from home), medical cover, enhanced parental packages, subsidised gym memberships and Giving Back opportunities. Full details of our benefits can be found here.

Further Information

Across the FT Group, our people are united by a mission to deliver world-class information, news and services to our global audiences. We're a digital-first organisation made up of journalists, technologists, product managers, event planners, strategists, commercial and finance experts, marketing and communications specialists - and much more. Our strength is in our employees.

The FT is committed to providing an inclusive working environment for all. We are an equal opportunities employer who seeks to recruit and appoint the best talent regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We also promote flexible working and will consider specific requests around flexibility for all roles where it can be accommodated. Please let us know if you require any adjustments as part of the application process or to enable you to attend an interview. If you would like to discuss your requirements, or have any questions, please contact a member of our HR team who will be happy to help.

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