Sr Director Marketing Strategy and Planning

OVERVIEW

Experience the possibilities of our progressive, omnichannel approach to beauty retail. At Ulta Beauty, our Marketing team is applying the latest technologies to personalize the buying experience of true beauty enthusiasts— in ways that surprise and delight. Building love and loyalty, one communication, one experience, one brilliant idea at a time. We represent the perfect blend of strategy and creativity. Of tactics and analytics.

To make Ulta Beauty a brand guests will advocate for. Growing share of heart. Delivering with disciplined consistency. Whether your deepest passion is for design or content, strategy or data, or some combination of all things marketing, Ulta Beauty will provide significant latitude to explore your talents and passions, with opportunities to stretch and deepen, to grow and build. Truly, the possibilities are beautiful.

The Senior Director, Marketing Strategy & Planning is a critical leader responsible for shaping Ulta Beauty’s marketing agenda, setting priorities, and ensuring the seamless execution of integrated marketing strategies and plans that drive sales, fuel customer loyalty and strengthen brand equity. This role translates business and marketing objectives into clear strategies and activation plans, driving alignment across functions, channels, and customer segments.

Partnering with the Marketing Leadership Team, the Senior Director leads annual and long‑term planning, establishes performance measures, and oversees governance to ensure resources are focused on the highest‑impact opportunities, managing the reconciliation of new priorities throughout the year.

The Senior Director operates in close partnership with cross‑functional Marketing Team leaders of Brand Strategy, Category Marketing and Brand Partnerships, Customer Strategy, Loyalty, Strategic Analytics and Insight, and Paid and Owned Media, to ensure a unified, agile, and high‑performing marketing organization.

This leader also drives operational excellence by developing, optimizing, and communicating marketing processes, fostering consistency across the function, and ensuring organizational readiness through effective change management and storytelling. With deep collaboration across Marketing, Merchandising & Digital, IT, Retail Operations, Finance, HR, Procurement, and other corporate functions, the Senior Director ensures that marketing strategies are fully aligned with enterprise priorities and positioned to deliver measurable business impact.

• Develop and lead the marketing strategy planning process – from long‑term strategy to annual marketing plans to seasonal and in‑season execution – to ensure plans are aligned with enterprise business goals and drive measurable impact.
• Establish and enforce marketing governance by defining priorities and decision‑making frameworks to optimize focus and productivity across all marketing initiatives.
• Drive operational discipline across marketing functions by standardizing processes, implementing best practices, and ensuring consistency in execution across channels and teams, including management of key leadership decision‑making forums.
• Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) for marketing programs, campaigns, and initiatives to measure effectiveness, ROI, and alignment with business objectives, and establish proper cadence and reviews of marketing performance against strategy and plans.
• Partner with cross‑functional stakeholders including Merchandising, Digital, IT, Retail Operations, Finance, HR, and Procurement to ensure alignment of marketing strategy with enterprise priorities.
• Oversee marketing forecasting and resource planning, including budget management, capacity planning, and allocation of investments to maximize ROI and business outcomes.
• Implement change management practices to support new marketing processes, tools, and initiatives, ensuring organizational readiness and adoption across the marketing function.
• Drive continuous improvement by evaluating workflows, identifying inefficiencies, and implementing process optimizations to increase productivity and operational excellence.
• L…