Director, Marketing Planning

The Director, Marketing Planning at AARP is based in Washington, DC and works in a hybrid environment. AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that empowers people 50 and older to shape how they live as they age. The Director owns planning frameworks, operating models, and processes that bring clarity and accountability to a complex, multi-channel marketing organization. The role evaluates and improves operational tools and systems to enhance efficiency and visibility, and builds connections across the unit and enterprise to establish shared visibility, language, and planning rhythms that drive cohesion and reduce duplicative work. Salary range is $131,850.00 to $146,500.00 annually.

Responsibilities

• Advance marketing planning capabilities through disciplined process improvement and thoughtful adoption of enabling technologies to support scale, agility, and enterprise alignment.
• Identify and evaluate enabling technologies to support centralization, standardization, and redesign of fragmented marketing processes, improving efficiency, governance, and scalability.
• Manage current and future enterprise strategies, translating enterprise direction into marketing plans and prioritized, actionable tactics at the business unit level.
• Determine and drive appropriate adoption approaches to support evolving priorities through ongoing marketing transformations.
• Maintain a regular planning pulse with financial operations to assess shifting priorities, ensuring marketing plans and investments reflect current financial realities and constraints.
• Execute internal communications programs, including business unit updates, newsletters, board reports, and offsites.
• Drive rigorous prioritization of marketing initiatives, establishing clear criteria for investment decisions, managing trade-offs, and ensuring resources are allocated to the highest-impact work.
• Lead coordination with enterprise stakeholders and partners to identify, prioritize, and execute speaking engagements and thought leadership aligned to enterprise strategy, ensuring integrated planning and a consistent publication cadence.

Requirements

• A bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Communications, or a related field.
• At least 8 years of progressive experience in marketing operations, marketing strategy, planning, business operations, or a related discipline, including experience supporting large-scale, complex organizations.
• Demonstrated experience developing and optimizing marketing planning frameworks, operating models, governance processes, and cross-functional planning rhythms that drive accountability and execution.
• Proven ability to evaluate, implement, and optimize marketing technologies, workflow tools, and operational systems to improve efficiency, visibility, standardization, and scalability.
• Strong strategic planning skills with experience translating enterprise objectives into actionable marketing strategies, priorities, roadmaps, and measurable business outcomes.
• Experience leading teams through organizational change, marketing transformation initiatives, and adoption strategies that support evolving business priorities and operating models.
• Excellent business acumen with experience partnering closely with finance, executive leadership, and cross-functional stakeholders to align investments, resources, and priorities with organizational goals and financial constraints.
• Exceptional communication, stakeholder management, and executive presentation skills, with demonstrated success developing internal communications, executive reports, thought leadership programs, and enterprise-wide engagement strategies.
• Additional requirements include regular and reliable attendance, effective verbal and written communication, respect and understanding to maintain professional relationships, independent judgment in evaluation options, and the ability to work effectively in an in-office/open-office environment with moderate noise.
• Hybrid work environment with certain in-office expectations.