Senior Exams Marketing Manager at British Council

Role Purpose

To lead the development and execution of the cluster/country marketing strategy and plans, ensuring alignment to the regional and global marketing strategy and brand, and to work in partnership with SBUs to ensure that country marketing activities enable required business targets. This role will be accountable for the planning, management, execution, and evaluation of plans for the cluster, overseen by the Regional Head of Marketing, Exams. They will also provide professional marketing expertise to the Exams SBU within the cluster and play a proactive role in the development of Exams within the region, including business planning.

Main accountabilities but not limited to the following:

Strategy and Planning

• Leads the development and execution of Exams marketing strategy and plans in the cluster/country ensuring alignment to the regional and global marketing strategy.
• Leads the planning & execution of product go-to-market plans and annual plans for Exams in the cluster/country, agreeing on the programmes, their delivery mechanisms, budgets, and resources with regional marketing and Exams leads.
• Leads the development and execution of Exams campaign strategies to support a variety of routes to market and maximize impact and share of voice while making sure they achieve the regional marketing strategy objectives.
• Leads the deployment of the British Council brand architecture in line with brand management standards across the cluster.
• Ensures that clear and consistent marketing processes are deployed across the cluster/country aligned to agreed global marketing processes.
• Monitors and reports on agreed marketing KPIs for the cluster.
• Works with the Regional Head of Insights to commission and gather insight that supports the identification of opportunities for new product development and proactively shares results with region and SBU colleagues and the Marketing Community of Practice.

Consultancy, analysis, and problem-solving

• Applies advanced marketing expertise to develop and enhance marketing strategies, plans, and approaches for the cluster/country.
• Applies core technical and professional knowledge to identify and assess current state of marketing, define opportunities for improvement and design and develop new or improved practice to drive business growth and reduce duplication of activities and expenditure.
• Builds an in-depth understanding of the cluster operational context and the opportunities and challenges for marketing.
• Makes appropriate linkages to broader issues, strategic business units and region, to ensure that the development of marketing strategies and plans is based on informed business insight and joined-up thinking.
• Proactively seeks internal customer and other stakeholder feedback to monitor satisfaction with the provision of marketing services across the cluster and specialist advice & support, enabling improvements to be made where issues are identified.

Business Development

• Identifies and implements new marketing approaches and/or techniques that enhance efficiency and wider business impact, ensuring alignment across the cluster/country and to the regional marketing strategy.
• Makes sure that all plans are insights and evidence-led and use the existing tools to evaluate their performance, impact, and return on investment (ROI).
• Leads on emerging trends analysis and monitors opportunities for growth.
• Leads and drives a clear focus on audiences and market segmentation.
• Communicates to colleagues the need for compliance with agreed marketing policies and processes and produces reports to demonstrate compliance as needed.
• Champions the deployment of the British Council brand architecture, monitors compliance and manages interventions to address and resolve reasons for non-compliance.
• Participates as part of the regional marketing team to support implementation and review new processes and operating models.

Subject/Sector Expertise

• Provides proactive professional advice and support to internal customers to ensure local and Exams specific requirements are high quality, effective and compliant with marketing policy, process and governance.
• Ensures the development of high quality and effective marketing plans and solutions using and sharing marketing expertise.
• Proactively pursues an annual cycle of formally recognised Continuing Professional Development to maintain and deepen their professional expertise.

Commercial and financial management

• Using agreed corporate systems and processes, plans and manages the budget for the cluster/country with regards to marketing plans and programmes.
• Conducts quarterly and year-end reporting on progress against plan and deliverables, budget, and management of issues and risks.
• Shows an understanding of value for money and cost effectiveness in the advice, recommendations and service support they provide to colleagues in the business teams supporting them to achieve return on investment (ROI) for the marketing budget.

Relationship and stakeholder management

• Proactively participates in the Marketing Community of Practice developing good working relationships with marketing colleagues across the organisation and the business.
• Develops peer/personal networks within and outside Marketing to enhance own knowledge and expertise.
• Proactively builds and maintains excellent relationships with internal partners and stakeholders to ensure integrated, joined up and future-proofed approaches and solutions.

Leadership and management

• Plans and prioritises work activities to ensure effective delivery of marketing activities over a quarterly to annual time horizon.
• Shares intelligence, experience and ideas to support global marketing in identifying/developing new ways in which marketing could positively impact upon the British Council’s operational efficiency and effectiveness.

Role specific knowledge and experience:

Essential requirements:

• University Degree qualification in marketing or business
• Significant experience in a marketing position at a national level within a large and complex organization
• Demonstrable experience in developing marketing strategies and plans
• Demonstrable experience in managing supplier relationships

Desirable:

• Relevant professional accreditations e.g. CIM, Melcrum, GCN, CIPR, WOMMA etc.
• Experience in a global organisation
• Evidence of successful line management of a small team remotely
• Experience in Exams market