Chief Marketing Officer - Money Management

Who are we?

We are The Motley Fool a purpose-driven financial information and services firm with nearly 30 years of experience focused on making the world smarter happier and richer. But what does that even mean?! It means we’re helping Fools (always with a capital “F”) demystify the world of finance beat the stock market and achieve personal wealth and happiness through our products and services.

The Motley Fool is firmly committed to diversity inclusion and equity. We are a motley group of aspiring overachievers that have built a culture of trust founded on Foolishness fun and a commitment to making the world smarter happier and richer.  However you identify or whatever winding road has led you to us please don't hesitate to apply if the description below leaves you thinking 'Hey! I could do that!'

What does the Money Management business at The Motley Fool do?

The Money Management Business Unit specifically operates a collection of managed investment solutions – from venture capital funds to hedge funds to ETFs and SMAs – to serve the retail and professional investor.

• Motley Fool Asset Management (MFAM): Six ETFs – three passive funds that track proprietary indexes created by our parent company The Motley Fool LLC and three active funds managed by our in-house team of Portfolio Managers serving both the retail investor and professional advisor.

• Motley Fool Wealth Management (Fool Wealth) – Discretionary investment management and comprehensive financial planning for retail investors focused on high net worth investors.

• 1623 Capital – High-conviction discretionary long-short equity strategy available to accredited investors and qualified purchasers.

• Motley Fool Ventures – Early-stage venture capital funds powered by The Motley Fool’s brand investing approach and communities.

With over $4B assets under management as of 4/30/24 we are looking to grow smartly and aggressively over the next 3-5 years. Although our parent company The Motley Fool LLC is a well-recognized finance brand our Money Management business unit is much younger and looking to gain significant traction in a short amount of time in what we believe is tremendous growth ahead of us. And we are looking for a proven experienced CMO in the world of ETFs and investment management solutions to join us in pursuit of this exciting next phase in our business growth.

What does this team do?

The Money Management Marketing Team partners with the business lines in the Money Management Business Unit to provide high-quality compliant and innovative marketing programs designed to drive the marketing funnel assist the sales efforts and support the retention efforts across the retail investor audience and the professional advisor audience. We work hand-in-hand with our Legal and Compliance teams Wealth Advisors team Portfolio Managers team Distribution team Client Experience team and Business Analytics team.

What will you do in this role?

As CMO you are responsible for creating growing and maintaining appropriate marketing programs – from brand awareness to lead gen to prospect nurture to conversion across all available and relevant channels and mediums – that drive the business’ goals of new clients new AUM inflows and all future marketing efforts for the business lines. Currently you will be focused on the two largest businesses – Motley Fool Asset Management (ETFs) and Motley Fool Wealth Management (SMAs) – and future plans include expanding marketing support for 1623 Capital and Motley Fool Ventures as well as client and shareholder retention efforts. You will partner with the Presidents of MFAM and Fool Wealth to understand their growth goals and objectives in order to support those with the appropriate marketing strategy plans and programs.

You are directly responsible for the management growth productivity efficacy and professional development of the Marketing Team which includes marketing managers media buyers content managers and creators copywriters designers and our external agency and freelance partners.

You will assess the future needs of the ETF/investment management businesses create the marketing strategic vision and roadmap to address those needs and build the roles on your team needed to be successful in your planning. You are held accountable for knowing what marketing capabilities are needed to achieve the growth plans of each business; demonstrating success at being able to identify build and grow those capabilities; and being an effective collaborator with the roles across partner teams that are critical to your success.

What do you need to be successful?

To be successful in this role you must be passionate about all aspects of marketing with demonstrated career success at creating building and growing marketing programs in the regulated ETF/investment industry that have achieved their business goals. You are committed to your team’s personal and professional success in our remote environment with proven leadership skills to serve support grow and lead a diversified team of marketing creative and content professionals to achieve their best work on behalf of the business goals.

You are an ambitious self-starter who has the experience and expertise to develop the business’ marketing strategy which will both inform and serve the goals set by Executive Leadership. You must demonstrate the ability to ruthlessly prioritize the most important efforts ensuring your team stays focused on the highest impact initiatives and defend your strategic decisions by leading your team to success.

Responsibilities

• Strategy : Create manage and evolve the marketing and content strategies that power the business lines we support – from conception to implementation to re-evaluation.

• Marketing Programs : Own the marketing ecosystems for each business line and each target audience; understand the most effective marketing tactics channels and mediums in our industry for our audiences and with our resources to build appropriate and successful content and marketing funnels to provide new prospects nurture existing leads and assist in converting new clients at goal-level AUM.

• ROI : Owner of the ROI on all marketing spend. You must have a thorough understanding of how the marketing budget is performing at each step of the funnel so that you can ensure the marketing execution is producing the greatest return on the invested capital. As the capital allocator it is your responsibility to decide where and how the money is best spent across the businesses; you are accountable to the Finance Team and the Head of Money Management for your decisions and execution.

• Prioritization : Determine and ruthlessly prioritize all initiatives across your team so that they are best positioned to direct their efforts and resources to the highest value initiatives. Provide transparent and accountable tracking of efforts to keep the team aligned and on pace to achieve highest value initiatives for the business.

• Budgets: Determine resource needs on annual basis and re-forecast quarterly to account for full-time headcount as well as freelance and outsourced resources for key leverage points. Determine marketing budgets across all businesses to account for media spend agency fees direct ad package buys and partner platforms/agencies (such as outsourced social media distribution partners etc.) Determine technology and software needs for team as well as programs to accomplish strategic initiatives planned for the year (such as Sunday Sky video platform designer suites etc.) Determine relevant growth and professional development opportunities for team to include training/classes conferences meet-ups etc.

• Reporting: Establish the KPIs and core metrics within the marketing programs and funnels that the team is focused on driving. Create track and report on KPIs using Hubspot Tableau and Google Analytics. Be an outstanding communicator in sharing testing results to include raw data with meaningful analysis key insights and conclusions to continue building team and business unit’s collective knowledge of the marketing drivers. Understand the difference in approach when communicating to the team vs the partner teams across the business vs Executive Leadership. Drawing on vast experience of business and marketing analytics initiate and manage data with BI Analyst to surface pose and answer the questions and drivers of our marketing ecosystem to inform all decision making.

• Organizational Growth Plan : Own and pro-actively pursue the organizational growth plan of your team for the purpose of achieving the business goals. Know what roles are most important first and why; be adept at analyzing and determining the impact and feasibility of your resourcing options (full-time in-house vs outsourced vs freelance) to maximize your efficacy and impact while managing your costs. Set the strategic vision for team growth to support your strategic vision for the marketing program growth; ensure your team understands is aligned and can see their own future in your growth plans.

• Team Culture : Intentionally cultivate and evolve the special culture and DNA of this team. Continue to assemble and maintain complementary personalities work processes thought processes and skill sets that work in coordination with each other to create a combination that is stronger together. Model and foster trust open communication absolute transparency collaboration motivation ambition for growth and development mutual appreciation for each other’s uniqueness and hold all members to the highest standard of accountability for doing our jobs well.

• Compensation : Be passionate about your team’s compensation. Actively participate in every comp cycle with clear compelling cases for salary increases cash bonuses and available equity rewards based on data and empirical evidence of outstanding impact and contributions to the business’ outcomes. Be your team’s champion with the People Team and executive leadership in establishing and evolving career progression in roles and levels so that your team knows where they stand and what they need to do to advance. Always have a perspective on compensation decisions at all levels – individual team business unit and corporate-wide – to share with the team; stay transparent and trusting about compensation.

• Partnerships - internal and external : Cultivate and nurture successful mutually beneficial relationships with internal counterparts heading up partner teams we must collaborate with as integral parts of a prospect and client’s entire firm-level marketing and sales experience. Explore and build new relationships with external partners who can further your marketing growth plans (content creation and distribution partners CPL lead partners new channels like podcasts and webinars etc.) You are responsible for identifying prioritizing initiating and launching new partnerships and then determining what you need from your team and your internal partner teams to manage and grow these new avenues.

• Expert Knowledge : Know the target markets our USPs and key differentiators and the industries in which we operate in order to guide the team’s ideas and efforts for the highest likelihood of success. Master thorough understanding of each business we support; from knowing the products the investment process and teams behind the products the sales and service processes of our partner teams and the needs and mindset of the target audiences to include retail professional/advisor and institutional investors.

• Regulations : Have an absolute commitment thorough understanding and advocacy of legal and compliance regulations processes and systems across all regulated businesses we serve.

Qualifications or Equivalent Experience

• Bachelor's degree in marketing business or related field and MBA is a plus

• 10 years+ of well-rounded marketing experience in the regulated ETF/investment industry with positions of increasing responsibility for marketing expansion

• Three to five years of experience in a leadership role in the regulated ETF/investment industry with at least 8 marketing employees across variety of functions (marketing managers copywriters designers content writers etc) reporting to executive leadership

• Understands the ETF industry separately from the investment management industry and has experience in the differences in tactics channels and target audiences required for each

• Commitment to developing core skill sets across marketing functions; experience leading copywriter and art/design teams as well as the marketing business and operations teams of marketing managers media buyers and content creators.

• Thorough knowledge of marketing principles creative fundamentals brand content product and service models prospecting and sales process; able to communicate and build strategy to connect it all to achieve the business goals

• Demonstrated ability to lead and inspire a team serving as role model mentor decision maker and strategist

• Superb analytical skills from data analytics to financial analysis and budgeting able to distill and communicate key insights and conclusions to variety of audience levels

• Outstanding communication and interpersonal skills with commitment to transparency at all levels and across all partner teams critical to our success

• Patient flexibility to give both business and marketing strategy the leeway it requires to prove out but embrace and serve the pivot when it’s required

• Passionate prospect and client advocacy through marketing strategy that is relevant and meaningful to the customers who interact with every experience we are creating on behalf of our firms

• Proven test and learn culture and capabilities devising impactful tests at critical points in customer journey that drive business outcomes

• Deep understanding of stock markets economic fundamentals ETFs/investment products and solutions in our competitive space and the perspective needs and habits of the prospect audiences we are trying to attract

• Genuine optimism for growth change and progress in our business our marketing approach and tactics and our ideas and abilities to address the needs of our prospects and clients

Please note no sponsorship is available for this position. You must reside in or be willing to relocate to one of these states for employment: California Colorado Florida Louisiana Maryland Massachusetts New Jersey New York North Carolina Oregon Pennsylvania South Carolina Tennessee Texas Virginia Washington DC and Wisconsin.