Senior Director, Digital Acceleration & Brand Growth Marketing

Hebard Search Partners has been retained by our valued client, Goodwill Industries International (GII), to help them identify and recruit a seasoned marketing leader for this critical new role for the organization. A more complete overview of this role will be provided to qualified candidates after our initial screening process.

Reporting directly to the Chief Marketing Officer, the Senior Director of Digital Acceleration & Brand Growth Marketing leads the evolution of the Goodwill® brand for a digital-first, AI-influenced world. This role is responsible for advancing how the Goodwill brand is experienced, discovered, trusted, and recommended across the digital ecosystem, with the goal of driving brand relevance, measurable growth, and local impact at scale.

This leader combines brand strategy, digital innovation, performance marketing, emerging

platforms, AI enablement, and network mobilization to move Goodwill beyond campaign centric marketing toward a connected, data-informed marketing system where every

channel, from AI search to social to CRM, reinforces the others and compounds trust over

time. The role shapes end-to-end marketing journeys, translates innovation into practical

playbooks for the network, and ensures the Goodwill brand continues to earn relevance,

credibility, and recommendation with its audiences while supporting the mission delivery

of local member organizations.

The Senior Director of Digital Acceleration & Brand Growth Marketing is responsible for

setting and executing a multi-year, digital-first brand growth strategy for Goodwill Industries

International (GII) and the Goodwill member network. This role designs and advances an

integrated digital marketing system, spanning brand, SEO and AI search, content, social,

paid, CRM, and analytics, that strengthens brand equity, builds trust as a durable

competitive advantage, drives performance outcomes, and enables consistent and locally

adaptable execution across markets. Rather than managing channels in isolation, this

leader treats marketing as a connected system in which every signal strengthens the next.

A core function of the role is identifying emerging platforms, technologies, and marketing

models, that help speed the delivery of actionable strategies, guidance, playbooks, and

best practices for adoption across the member network. The role works closely with

internal teams, executive leadership, member organizations, and external partners to

ensure Goodwill brand and marketing capabilities continue to evolve in step with changing

consumer behavior and category dynamics.

• A. Digital-First Brand Strategy Develop and lead enterprise-level, digital-first brand growth strategies aligned to GII’s business and mission objectives. Shape how the Goodwill brand is experienced across owned, paid, earned, and emerging digital platforms, building the authority and consistency that earns brand trust and recommendation. Use a modern, digitally native lens to advance brand positioning, messaging, storytelling and creative assets.
• B. Brand Trust & AI Search Visibility Build the Goodwill brand into one that AI tools (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity) are confident recommending. Prioritize original research and proprietary insight and turn customer and community outcomes into measurable proof points that strengthen credibility across every channel. Align SEO, AI Search/Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), content, PR, and social under one connected strategy so that consistency across every touchpoint compounds trust rather than fragmenting it.
• C. Digital Innovation Develop and optimize end-to-end digital marketing journeys that drive awareness, engagement, loyalty, and action.
• D. Performance & Consumer Journey Delivery Lead performance marketing strategies in partnership with the analytics team, ensuring insights inform optimization and investment decisions. Prioritize pipeline, retention, and donor/customer growth as the measures of success. Champion experimentation, test-and-learn approaches, and scalable innovation across platforms and channels.
• E. Emerging Platforms & AI Enablement Identify emerging platforms,…