VP of Marketing

Our team is passionate about using employee ownership to build the kinds of communities we want to call home. Join us in our mission to advance employee ownership.

Project Equity

Project Equity grows community wealth by retaining successful local businesses through employee ownership transitions. Do you want to see a world where the average employee has economic security and businesses build resilient communities? We do too! Project Equity helps employees become owners of the businesses where they work. We raise awareness of employee ownership as a business succession strategy, support businesses’ transition to employee ownership and work in multiple regions throughout the country to create generative ecosystems in support of such work on an ongoing basis. Our early success and significant attention from media outlets such as Forbes, NPR and the Washington Post have positioned us as a national leader in the movement to harness employee ownership to maintain thriving local business communities, create quality jobs and address income and wealth inequality.

What You Will Do

As the VP of Marketing, you will serve as the organization’s senior marketing strategist and storyteller, responsible for shaping, elevating, and scaling the national narrative of employee ownership. You will set the overarching marketing vision, steward the brand, and ensure that our work advances awareness, engagement, and demand across business owners, business advisors, policymakers, economic development leaders, philanthropic partners, and the broader public. You will lead a modern, data-savvy marketing function that leverages full-funnel strategies, including marketing mix attribution, CRM and marketing automation, social media (owned, earned, and paid), targeted digital campaigns, content, and events, to drive website traffic, engagement, email acquisition, educational course sales, consultations, and high-quality leads. The VP of Marketing manages a small marketing staff and freelance team and works in close partnership with Development, Learning Products, Regional Engagement, Client Services and Executive Leadership to align messaging, accelerate growth, and strengthen Project Equity’s national leadership position.

Brand, Messaging, and Strategic Leadership:

• Serve as the chief steward of Project Equity’s brand, vision, and voice—elevating employee ownership as the preferred succession strategy for business owners and a powerful pathway to community wealth.
• Develop and continually refine enterprise-wide messaging architecture for all audiences and stages of the funnel and integrate into a cohesive national campaign that influences perceptions of employee ownership.
• Partner with executive leadership to align marketing strategies with organizational goals, growth targets, and long-term positioning.
• Lead the organization’s national and regional PR strategy to ensure employee ownership—and Project Equity ’s work—remain present in high-impact media conversations via proactive thought leadership, press outreach and storytelling.
• Work closely with Development to ensure integrated messaging, materials, and donor-facing campaigns, including supporting nonprofit fundraising initiatives.

Data-Driven, Full-Funnel Marketing Strategy:

• Build and oversee a marketing mix attribution framework to understand and optimize the drivers of website traffic, engagement, lead generation, learning product course sales, and consultation sign-ups.
• Lead CRM and marketing automation strategy, ensuring effective segmentation, customer journeys, lead scoring, and nurture campaigns.
• Oversee a scalable social media strategy across owned, earned, and paid channels to drive website traffic, audience growth, and conversion.
• Ensure strategic use of the website, SEO, SEM, data visualization, case studies, video, webinars, and other content to engage target audience and inspire action.
• Use AI tools as partners for ideation, optimization, and time-saving workflow efficiencies.

Regional Engagement & Field Impact:

• Oversee local, regional, and industry-specific campaigns that generate high-quality SMB and business advisor leads.
• Sponsor and guide high-impact events—virtual and in-person—to elevate the profile of employee ownership and Project Equity and mobilize stakeholder engagement.
• Expand and refine a toolkit of marketing resources for use by regional and ecosystem partners.

Leadership, Team, and Contractor Management:

• Lead, mentor, and inspire a high-performing marketing team.
• Manage and strengthen relationships with key external partners, including creative agencies, designers, writers, PR firms, and digital marketing contractors.
• Oversee and own budgets, contracts, timelines, and performance metrics for all marketing initiatives.

Who You Are

You are passionate about advancing employee ownership and believe deeply in the transformational power of shared prosperity. You pair visionary thinking with executional excellence, bringing urgency, creativity, and follow-through to everything you do. You thrive in highly collaborative environments, working seamlessly across internal teams and external partners, and you bring rigor, curiosity, and discipline to planning, tracking, testing, and optimizing. Adept at balancing long-term strategy with real-time opportunities, you use data, insight, and intuition together to make strong, confident decisions.

Qualifications:

• Proven track record of building and scaling brands, and leading standout marketing and PR initiatives.
• Deeply experienced in marketing mix attribution, CRM and marketing automation, and digital analytics—and you love connecting data to strategy.
• Adept in leveraging social media across owned, earned, and paid channels to meaningfully grow engagement and drive action.
• Understanding of how to persuade, inspire, and mobilize audiences through compelling storytelling.
• Strong written, verbal, and visual communication skills. You take pride in the craft of communication.
• Leadership skills that motivate teams and create a high-trust, high-performance environment.
• Passion for giving back and understanding the necessity of aligning mission driven work with professional operational excellence.
• Experience managing complex projects, budgets, partners, and timelines with ease.
• Deep familiarity in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment and are capable of implementing structure, process discipline and financial accountability in a growth focused setting.

Benefits

• Medical (PPO, HSA, or HMO options where available), dental and vision coverage: employer covers 100% of employee premium and 30% for dependents
• Dependent Care FSA
• Basic Term Life, additional voluntary life for employee, spouse, and dependent children available
• Short and long term disability
• Voluntary Critical Illness, Accident, and Hospital Indemnity Insurance
• Retirement 401(k): A dollar for dollar employer match of the employee's contribution, up to 3% of gross wages and 50 cents on the dollar match for the next 1% (3.5% total match)
• Employee Assistance Program
• 15 holidays annually, which includes 2 floating holidays
• 15 vacation days (years 1 - 4) & 20 days (year 5+)
• 10 sick days annually

We are committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace and encourage all qualified applicants to apply, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status. While our job descriptions outline ideal qualifications, we recognize potential comes in many forms. If you believe in our work and have the foundational skills and experience that would contribute to our company culture and mission, we encourage you to apply.