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Director, Global Marketing Strategy- Gearbox

Who We Are:

2K is headquartered in Novato, California and is a wholly owned label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO). Founded in 2005, 2K Games is a global video game company, publishing titles developed by some of the most influential game development studios in the world. Our studios responsible for developing 2K’s portfolio of world-class games across multiple platforms, include Visual Concepts, Firaxis, Hangar 13, CatDaddy, Cloud Chamber, 31st Union, and HB Studios. Our portfolio of titles is expanding due to our global strategic plan, building and acquiring exciting studios whose content continues to inspire all of us! 2K publishes titles in today’s most popular gaming genres, including sports, shooters, action, role-playing, strategy, casual, and family entertainment.

Our team of engineers, marketers, artists, writers, data scientists, producers, thinkers and doers, are the professional publishing stewards of our growing library of critically-acclaimed franchises such as NBA 2K, 2K PGA, Battleborn, BioShock, Borderlands, The Quarry, The Darkness, Mafia, Sid Meier’s Civilization, Marvel’s Midnight Suns, WWE 2K, and XCOM.

At 2K, we pride ourselves on creating an inclusive work environment, which means encouraging our teams to Come as You Are and do your best work! We encourage ALL applicants to explore our global positions, even if they don’t meet every requirement for the role. If you're interested in the job and think you have what it takes to work at 2K, we encourage you to apply!

What We Need:

The Director, Global Marketing Strategy reporting to the Sr. Director, Core Games, will assist the Sr. Director in driving the global marketing vision, strategy and execution for the Gearbox portfolio of partnered projects. We need a senior-level, business-oriented marketing leader who has a global mindset and is always looking for new ways to grow the business, build demand for our products, and foster a passionate community of lifetime fans. This is truly a unique opportunity to help grow the business in new and highly creative ways on a global level.

This role supports our business expansion strategy, specifically across the GBX business, and you will be the anchor to the team to develop the global marketing strategy and guide plan execution, driving long and short-term success, delivering business and brand/player results with an insight driven approach. A leader that is intrinsically ‘we’, vs ‘I’, is critical to ensure stability and that growth opportunities are developed and maintained for the team.

This role requires someone who is adept at flexing between serving as champion of the global vision up, down and sideways, a highly adept and innovative strategist, a coach directing the team, a doer who can operate at a strategic and tactical level, have mastery of the subject matter to get the job accomplished, be a strong collaborator who knows how to partner, build and maintain credibility with our partners, take and provide constructive feedback, set priorities, prop the team up, and know when to call the experts, bringing the right people in at the right time. Building relationships both within and across the team is critical, as well as balancing partnerships, challenging the status quo, and knowing when to bring people on the journey vs driving fast change and directing the team/s.

Understanding our player to develop customer journey driven plans, whether that is for players playing now, players who have lapsed or our future new player is crucial to ensure our positioning, storytelling, content, partnerships, marketing tech, audience targeting/engagement plan and KPIs are strategically sound, resonate, engage, and can be optimized and measured at the brand and conversion level. A non-traditional marketing mindset is key, bringing in new ways of thinking and a willingness to try new ways of marketing, as well as someone that can lead and do the work vs relying on agencies to prepare the strategy and ideas.

You and your team are expected to know our product and our competitors’ products intimately; what they do today and what they plan to do in the future, why customers play and what they’re needs are, to develop the most compelling marketing strategies and actions, as well as contribute and influence our product strategy.

You will lead and collaborate across global and international marketing teams with a business/player and market centric approach to develop and deliver innovative programs and content that drive demand not only at launch, but also across the lifecycle. These initiatives will serve to build our brands, the people who love them, as well as meet our yearly targets.

A global mindset is crucial, as ultimately you are responsible for global targets, whether these be financial, brand or player. Ensuring strategies are not developed off US centric thinking with international markets as an afterthought is of the utmost importance. The ability to author, foster and grow marketing ideas that bring the strategy to life vs being cool for cool's sake, TV first, or being reliant on agencies to do the thinking are table stakes for this role. A focus on player acquisition, as well as player engagement both at launch and across the lifecycle to build deeper relationships is critical. A focus on brand building at the same time as meeting our business targets, quality and an eye for detail, ability to prioritize and adapt are critical to your success, as well as a desire to be able to determine what is working and what isn’t and optimize accordingly.

What You’ll Do:

Global Marketing and Product Strategy

● Starting with the insights- customer, product, competitor, cultural, macro etc. build and drive strategic marketing planning with a 5-, 3- and 1-year view. This is not marketing communications only, rather a business and player orientated marketing strategy that leverages our product and contributes to how we develop our current and future products.
● Lead the GBX core GMS team working closely with regional and cross functional teams to build and evolve the marketing strategy, define customer journeys, target audience prioritization, product positioning, brand partnership guidelines and activations, cross sell and upsell strategies, innovative ideas and key messaging and content plans.
● Work with the relevant teams and develop strategic plans around user engagement and acquisition, inputting to SKU and promotional plans and ensure the team executes flawlessly against the plan and tactics.
● Be a creative and qualitative thinker that can translate insights and technical details into compelling actions, as well as engaging stories for our player, which other marketers will look at and wish they came up with.
● Consult with product development teams to ensure products meet relevant positioning and RTB, are feature competitive and relevant, and partner with development and growth teams on multi-year franchise roadmaps.

● Support the Sr. Director in development of business plans and bottoms up budget proposals to deliver the business targets (commercial, brand and player), as well as opportunistic proposals to grow specific territories or specific targets (brand love, installs, revenue, engagement, loyalty, or other business critical KPIs)
● Manage project budgets and ensure on-plan delivery of costs and outcomes, demonstrating an understanding of key P&L leverage points and always with a view to know what is working and what isn’t for always on optimization and to avoid ‘we always do it this way’.
● Direct global property planning and execution whether this be creative, brand partnerships, events or community activations.
● Be player and channel first to build content plans that support the global marketing strategy with the right message, at the right time and right place, caring about the conversion channels and messaging as much as the brand channels and messaging. Every touch point matters.
● Be a master at overall brief writing, leading the team to distill all the noise to get to the single-minded proposition/story or ask, caring deeply about the executional teams that are often impacted by poor or last-minute briefs or changes to plans.

Global and Insight Driven Mindset

● Define and work with relevant teams guiding development of go-to-market, user acquisition, engagement & retention strategies in territories, demonstrating an understanding of cultural practices, global perspectives and adapt solutions based on insight-based decisions and overall marketing/business needs.
● Maintain constant contact with international marketing teams in the US, Europe and Asia regarding regional marketing approaches and insights to ensure on brand/strategy but locally relevant to drive the business forward and connect with our player.
● Be the expert on our player - who are they, their needs and passions, how they buy, to not only input to our product development but guide the marketing strategy and prioritized executional development.
● Be an expert on our competition, how they are positioned to ensure we have a clear differentiation in our offerings and communications.

Optimization and Innovation Mindset

● Demonstrate curiosity to bring outside thinking in and apply to our business where appropriate ensuring it is adapted/applied taking into consideration the nuances for game/entertainment marketing.
● Demonstrate the courage to advocate for and test innovative new approaches even when challenged by legacy ways of working.
● Continuously assess the effectiveness of your team’s marketing program, leaving no stone unturned. Define key metrics to determine what is working, what isn’t, leading marketing collaboration framework process that evaluates metrics, flags opportunities / risks and drives solutions that foster positive player relationships, as well as business targets.
● Incorporate best practices derived from analysis of in-game data, sale/financial metrics, brand/player data/results, communicating key takeaways to team and management, driving relevant actions to continuously optimize all marketing plans and actions globally and in territory.
● Drive live service marketing and player engagement via integrated dev / analytics / marketing / regional efforts.
● Be responsible for the marketing budget: From global production to regional allocation, maintain innate understanding of our targets and our expenses and always be optimizing

Leadership, Collaboration and Communication

● Be an impactful influencer in a leadership role with your direct team, also cross functionally to add value to the product and business strategy, as well as negotiate the best for 2K.
● Working directly with commercial and other cross functional teams to develop growth plans, providing relevant marketing insight, needs and guidance.
● Create an environment that inspires and empowers the team to do their best creative thinking and work - both direct and indirect teams and be willing to have the hard conversations when needed.
● Lead and grow the team, further developing roles and responsibilities to ensure clarity, as well as career development plans and OKR’s for the team.
● Regularly partner, present and report to studio leadership and 2K stakeholders on marketing strategies, plans, findings, results and recommendations.
● Maintain constant contact with international marketing teams and territories regarding regional marketing approaches and insights.
● Oversees and/or direct the tasks and progress of both direct and indirect reports, weekly, if not daily, conducting meetings to touch base, observe, and guide team production as necessary.

What Will Make You a Great Fit:

● You are a world class brand strategist, progressive thinker with 15+ years marketing experience in entertainment, e-commerce, DTC, a hyper growth/changing industry or business that have a highly engaged/vocal community - Gaming experience is a plus, but not mandatory.
● The ideal candidate has both hands-on experience and a tenured leadership foundation as a business orientated marketer in the following areas: marketing strategy, planning & process, product marketing, live-service marketing, marketing communications strategy & execution, creator and content, partnerships and the technical requirements that are needed for marketing today (and tomorrow).
● Deep experience managing a live product that requires sustaining effort to maintain engagement.
● Significant experience in leading, mentoring and scaling teams.
● Someone who is comfortable being uncomfortable, knowing the only constant is change, who can remove the noise and chaos, be agile and move quickly between leadership modes (directing, coaching, supporting or leading)
● Able to comfortably dive into any area of the business or product, understand business needs, and contribute to executive decisions based on changing priorities.
● Highest level of integrity and management of confidential information
● Proven ability to track, prioritize, and drive multiple concurrent projects to success. This position is expected to utilize insights, data and metrics to communicate needs with the ease of a business unit owner.
● Excellent communicator in written and verbal form being a master at changing communication styles, content or modes for the audience; ability to work well with executives, and able to lead and influence across multiple levels and multiple functions of an organization.
● Entrepreneurial, with high tolerance for ambiguity and complexity, and efficient with limited resources being proud to leverage and amplify our owned properties vs simply relying on large budgets.
● A good sounding board for others, with low ego, an ability to read a room, speak the truth vs people please and high ethics to be able to disagree and commit.

● Passion for video games, sports, content driven experiences and/or kids and family entertainment
● Strong financial acumen and ability to use data and market insights to prove what is – or isn’t –working.
● Ability to collaborate successfully in a highly matrixed organization, across several different teams and global locations.
● Ability to seamlessly integrate into the existing marketing team, and build trust and credibility with product development, commercial, and other internal & external partners.
● Available to travel both domestically and internationally.

Please note that 2K Games and its studios never uses instant messaging apps or personal email accounts to contact prospective employees or conduct interviews and when emailing, only use 2K.com accounts.

The pay range for this position in California at the start of employment is expected to be between $173,000 and $220,000 per Year. However, base pay offered is based on market location, and may vary further depending on individualized factors for job candidates, such as job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and other objective business considerations. Subject to those same considerations, the total compensation package for this position may also include other elements, including a bonus and/or equity awards, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment. If hired, employee will be in an 'at-will position' and the company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation or benefit program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, company or individual department/team performance, and market factors.

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