Director of Brand Experience

Job Title
Director of Brand Experience
Status
Officer
Reports To
Chief Marketing Officer
Summary
The Director of Brand Experience is a visionary leader responsible for designing, developing, and overseeing the delivery of a world-class customer experience across all customer engagement channels. This role ensures that the customer experience is seamless and consistent, whether interactions are face-to-face, over the phone, or via digital formats such as print, email, and web. Additionally, the Director will lead and manage the brand and content groups, driving the overall brand strategy and content creation to support business objectives.
The Director will champion creativity across the company, introducing innovative tools, processes, and platforms to differentiate First Financial in the marketplace. The Director will be instrumental in driving First Financials’ strategic goals through a holistic approach to brand management, customer engagement, and experience delivery across all channels. They will work closely with business teams to ensure that the customer experience is fully aligned with broader business strategies. Furthermore, the Director will manage relationships with key stakeholders to embed customer-centric design thinking into the organizational DNA, using meaningful customer insights to drive better outcomes for both clients and the business.
Typical Job Entry Requirements
(To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential job duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill and/or ability required.)

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, business, communications, or a related field.
• Minimum of 10+ years of experience in customer experience, brand management, or related fields, with a focus on leadership.
• Prior banking or financial services experience is preferred.
• Proven experience overseeing brand and content teams, with strong leadership skills to drive alignment and performance.
• Expertise in digital platforms, marketing automation, CRM systems, and customer data analytics.
• Strong creative, strategic, and analytical abilities.
• Ability to influence and collaborate with cross-functional teams.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience in embedding customer-centricity into organizational processes and culture.

Primary Activities
(Essential duties and responsibilities include the following. Other duties may be assigned. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.)
Customer Experience Design and Delivery

• Develop and implement a customer experience strategy that ensures a consistent and seamless experience across all customer engagement channels, including in-person, phone, email, and digital formats.

• Oversee the brand and content groups, ensuring alignment between content creation and the broader brand strategy to drive business growth and customer engagement.
• Champion creativity throughout the organization, leveraging innovative tools, processes, and platforms to enhance the customer experience and position the brand as a market leader.
• Lead the website rebuild, demand generation, and marketing automation initiatives in partnership with the Marketing Insights group to leverage data, analytics, and CRM.

Brand & Content Group Leadership

• Define and enhance the experience across both digital channels and in-branch interactions, ensuring a consistent and superior experience that drives customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Provide strategic direction and leadership to both the brand and content teams, ensuring that all content is on-brand, customer-centric, and aligned with business goals.
• Oversee the development of content that supports both brand storytelling and demand generation efforts, ensuring consistency across all channels.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with business teams, including training, call center, client-facing teams, and delivery groups, to ensure customer-centricity is embedded across all functions.
• Work with business leaders across the company to infuse the voice of the customer into every initiative and continuously improve the delivery of customer experiences.
• Lead efforts to ensure associates are trained to understand, articulate, and deliver all components of the brand experience.

Customer Insights & Innovation

• Leverage customer insights to drive improvements in the customer experience, ensuring that actionable data fuels innovations in processes and procedures.
• Partner with the Marketing Insights group to leverage data and analytics for creating data-driven campaigns that align with our brand story and are designed to convert leads at every stage of the funnel, maximizing ROI on marketing spend.
• Spearhead the introduction of marketing automation tools that enhance our ability to cross-sell, upsell, and nurture leads, driving incremental revenue.
• Utilize CRM insights to refine targeting, segmentation, and personalization strategies, ensuring that our demand generation efforts are both effective and efficient.
• Drive customer-centric design thinking across the organization, ensuring that all decisions are informed by the needs and desires of the customer.
• Manage stakeholder relationships across multiple levels to ensure alignment between customer experience initiatives and business objectives.

Experience-Based Culture Implementation

• Lead the implementation of an experience-based culture that reinforces product and brand loyalty while delivering meaningful customer value propositions.
• Foster a culture that values and prioritizes the customer experience, ensuring that all associates are aligned with the company's experience-based goals.

Website Rebuild & Digital Revenue Generation

• Lead the comprehensive rebuild of our website, focusing on optimizing the digital customer journey to drive conversions and revenue.
• Oversee the integration of a new CMS platform, ensuring it supports robust content management and personalized user experiences that lead to increased engagement and sales.
• Develop and execute demand generation strategies in close collaboration with the Marketing Insights group, leveraging data, analytics, and CRM systems to drive targeted and effective campaigns.

Brand Experience: Digital and In-Branch

• Define and enhance the experience across both digital channels and in-branch interactions, ensuring a consistent and superior experience that drives customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Lead the redesign of banking centers to reflect our brand values and create an environment that promotes cross-selling opportunities and enhances the in-person client experience.
• Ensure that digital touchpoints, including mobile and online banking, offer a seamless and user-friendly experience that supports customer retention and growth.

Expected Outcomes

• A state-of-the-art website that is not only a reflection of our brand identity but also a powerful engine for revenue generation, driving higher conversions and sales.
• Enhanced marketing automation capabilities that increase cross-sell opportunities and improve lead nurturing, leading to measurable revenue growth.
• A consistent and superior client experience across all touchpoints, resulting in higher customer satisfaction, retention, and lifetime value.
• A well-executed brand strategy that directly supports the company’s financial goals, positioning First Financial as a leader in both brand excellence and revenue generation.

Competency/Skill Level
(The behaviors, knowledge, and motivations important to success in the job.)

• Strong customer service, project management and analytical capabilities
• Customer-Centric Design Thinking
• Strategic Leadership & Innovation
• Brand and Content Team Leadership
• Data-Driven Decision Making & Insights
• Experience-Based Culture Implementation

Key Behaviors

• The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• The ability to create innovative content for the Bank’s products and services.
• Collaborate with others to develop or implement marketing strategies.
• Collaborate with others to determine design specifications or details.

Bank Secrecy Act
Maintain sufficient knowledge and understanding of the Bank Secrecy Act, Anti-Money Laundering/Anti-Terrorist Financing/PATRIOT Act and OFAC regulations to fulfill applicable requirements and responsibilities under the bank’s related policies and programs.
Unfair, Deceptive and Abusive Acts or Practices
Maintain sufficient knowledge and understanding of the UDAAP regulations to fulfill applicable requirements and responsibilities under the bank’s related policies and programs.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
Maintain sufficient knowledge and understanding of the W3C WCAG 2.0 guidelines to fulfill applicable requirements and responsibilities under the bank’s related policies and programs.
Critical Job Elements
(Essential duties and responsibilities include the following. Other duties may be assigned. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.)

• Good working environment with little exposure to noise, extreme temperatures, or other adverse factors.
• Above average physical effort of hand and eye coordination, and dexterity of hand and fingers to work efficiently and accurately.
• Average mental effort consisting of concentration and memory.
• Considerable effort and eyestrain from continued checking on the accuracy of all information processed within the department.