VP, Strategic Communications & Commercial Marketing

VP, Strategic Communications & Commercial Marketing Role Overview Smartly is seeking a highly strategic, commercially-driven Vice President (VP) of Strategic Communications & Commercial Marketing who combines deep communications expertise with commercial acumen and operational rigor. This revamped leadership role directly replaces our former "VP of Global Communications and Programs". At Smartly, we believe that brand messaging, public relations, and corporate events must not operate in isolation—they must serve as a high-performance, measurable commercial engine. Reporting directly to the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), this VP will lead our global communications, brand PR, analyst relations, corporate events and customer and field marketing teams. This leader will transition the department from traditional "vanity-focused" communications into a modern, Comms Ops and Center of Excellence (CoE) model. At Smartly, communications is both a reputation and growth lever. This leader will connect brand narrative, earned media, industry & customer influence, and events to deliver on the company's GTM priorities. Just as important, this role will modernize how the function operates. By leveraging automated content pipelines, strict process governance, and deep revenue-funnel integration, this executive will scale Smartly's global brand presence while directly driving pipeline and supporting go-to-market execution. 18-Month Strategic Mandate This leader will own the communication strategy, brand narrative, and event operations to achieve the following departmental objectives: Commercial Event Impact: Reorient the events team to scale event-influenced pipeline from the current $10M baseline to 12M–13M, while achieving a 98%+ customer retention rate for event and certificate program participants. Strategic Industry Validation: Build a proactive earned media, thought leadership, and executive visibility strategy that positions Smartly and its leaders at the center of the industry conversations shaping advertising, AI, creative, and intelligence to accelerate brand validation by increasing annual third-party milestones (top-tier business publications, analyst Wave commentary, G2 reviews) from 10 to 15 quarterly validations. Pipeline Scaling: Support the broader marketing organization in scaling from 430–440 Sales Accepted Leads (SALs) to 600 weighted SALs within 18 months, while optimizing SAL acquisition costs by 5%. Funnel Conversion: Drive a 10% year-on-year increase in the conversion of sales accepted leads (SALs) to sales qualified leads (SQLs), sharing this muscle closely with the sales enablement and commercial teams. Brand Framework & Internal Alignment: Drive an 8+ point score in our internal understanding of Smartly's company mission, vision, and revamped brand principles. Brand Advocacy & Awareness: Propel overall global brand awareness and familiarity by 5%, while establishing structured employee advocacy programs to scale our social presence. Customer & Partner Academy: Collaboratively launch and scale our customer/agency partner academy—a shared OKR with Ed's client enablement and agency teams. Key Responsibilities Strategic Communications, PR & Executive Visibility Global Communications Strategy: Own and execute Smartly’s global corporate and brand communications strategy across earned media, executive communications, thought leadership, analyst engagement, awards & industry influence. Speaking & Thought Leadership: Build and manage a strategic speaking program for Smartly executives, identifying and securing high-value opportunities across major industry events, conferences, podcasts, and other programs. Prepare executives for those moments through speechwriting, briefing materials, message development, rehearsal and media/speaker preparation. Narrative Development: Maintain a clear, differentiated corporate narrative and messaging architecture that connects Smartly’s company stra