Marketing Director

Our client company is redefining the quick-service café experience with bold, indulgent cream cheese flavors, fresh-baked bagels, and a vibrant brand that resonates with families, students, and breakfast lovers nationwide.

With rapid expansion across cities and states—and a differentiated growth strategy centered around college campuses—our client is entering an exciting stage of growth. As they scale their multi-state footprint, they are building the team, technology, and operating infrastructure needed to support the next phase of the company.

Seeking a highly entrepreneurial Director of Marketing to own and build the company's marketing function during a period of significant expansion.

This is not a traditional corporate marketing role—and it is not a position for someone who expects to inherit a large team or established marketing infrastructure.

The Director of Marketing will initially be the sole dedicated marketing leader, responsible for setting the strategy and executing against it. The right person is a hands-on operator who can move comfortably between brand strategy, social media, local store marketing, digital acquisition, content, analytics, and new-store openings.

The ideal candidate brings experience in consumer-facing, multi-location businesses, preferably within the quick-service restaurant (QSR), restaurant, hospitality, retail, or franchise environment.

Just as importantly, this person must understand how modern technology and AI can dramatically increase the productivity and capabilities of a lean marketing organization.

Own and evolve the marketing strategy as the company expands into new markets. Protect and strengthen the brand while developing campaigns that increase awareness, customer traffic, engagement, and loyalty.

Lead the brand's presence across Tik Tok, Instagram, and emerging social platforms, developing a distinctive voice and content strategy that connects authentically with our core audiences.

Understand what makes content shareable and culturally relevant—and be willing to test, learn, and move quickly rather than rely on traditional marketing playbooks.

Build a modern, technology-enabled marketing operation.

Identify and leverage AI and marketing technologies to accelerate content creation, creative development, customer insights, campaign execution, analytics, testing, and overall productivity.

Company leaders are not looking for someone who simply "uses AI." They want someone who understands how to incorporate it into the way marketing actually operates.

Develop repeatable marketing playbooks for new store openings and existing locations, including pre-opening awareness, launch campaigns, community engagement, partnerships, events, promotions, and ongoing local-store marketing.

Create scalable programs that can be deployed efficiently as the company enters additional cities and states.

Develop marketing strategies specifically designed for college-campus expansion strategy. Build programs that reach students where they spend their time—digitally, socially, and on campus—and develop partnerships, activations, ambassadors, and other creative approaches that make the company part of campus culture.

Develop programs that drive measurable customer acquisition, frequency, loyalty, and lifetime value. Use customer data, digital channels, loyalty programs, promotions, and experimentation to understand what drives traffic and repeat visits.

Establish clear marketing KPIs and reporting.

Measure what works, what doesn't, and where the company should invest its…