Senior Director, Customer Marketing (Sales)

At F5, we strive to bring a better digital world to life. Our teams empower organizations across the globe to create, secure, and run applications that enhance how we experience our evolving digital world. We are passionate about cybersecurity, from protecting consumers from fraud to enabling companies to focus on innovation. 
 

Everything we do centers around people. That means we obsess over how to make the lives of our customers, and their customers, better. And it means we prioritize a diverse F5 community where each individual can thrive.

F5's Customer Marketing team plays a critical role in showing the world what's possible when our customers bet on F5.  This leader will bring together our Advocacy, Retention, and Experiential functions. Through innovative industry and customer events, our flagship AppWorld franchise, communities, and forums, Customer Marketing ensures our customers are celebrated as partners in driving F5 priorities, products, and solutions. The team is rigorous at using every touch point to gather customer insights which inform our company-wide, customer centric approach to the market.

Job Description

We are seeking an experienced Customer Marketing leader with a strong background in experiential marketing to oversee our global advocacy, events, and executive engagement programs. As F5's Customer Marketing Lead, you will drive the strategy for how we wholistically engage our customers globally across the customer lifecycle.  You will be responsible for developing and implementing engagement strategies with customers through events, case studies, customer videos, customer advisory boards, F5's Customer Engagement Centers (CEC) in the F5 Tower and around the world, and references for sales and PR. In collaboration with your team, you will work to build a strong rapport with customers to deepen loyalty and engagement with us to turn them into raving F5 fans and advocates.

The right candidate will balance strategic thinking with tactical execution – understanding what the F5 customer journey is and where it should be headed. This role is incredibly cross-functional, requiring regular communication across field marketing, product and corporate marketing, sales and sales enablement, customer success teams, and our executive team. Successful candidates will have a proven track record of evolving and scaling Customer Marketing programs, developing customer champions, and defining and implementing global event strategies.

As a member of the Marketing Leadership Team, reporting directly to the SVP, Worldwide Marketing, you will be instrumental in developing and driving comprehensive marketing plans which support the needs of our customers and F5. This role requires an exceptional ability to lead both horizontally and vertically, a robust executive presence, and strong story telling skills to unite internal partners in your cause.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the global Customer Marketing team – define what success looks like, the programs and events that will get us there, and develop wholistic strategies to unite our Advocacy, Retention, and Experiential functions to engage our customers with globally consistent but locally relevant programs and experiences.
• Shape and lead the global experiential marketing strategy, including F5's flagship customer event (AppWorld), regional hosted events, sponsored events, customer forums, and other high-impact customer experiences.
• Coach, energize, and empower your team, at all levels. You will engage with empathy, listen, and ask powerful questions to help others grow and raise the bar on team performance. You will communicate our vision with passion to inspire others and encourage team members to seek and embrace feedback and help them move nimbly.
• Drive strategic decision-making for where and how we show up, ensuring efforts are aligned with both brand objectives and business outcomes such as demand generation, and customer loyalty.
• Drive growth of Advocacy and Retention efforts, working closely with your team on customer testimonials (video and written), customer quotes, customer review platform strategies, executive engagement programs, and customer advisory boards (CAB).
• Develop and nurture strong working relationships with executive customers, leading by example for the rest of your team to demonstrate what it takes to develop long-standing, mutually beneficial relationships with key customers.
• Align with Customer Success leadership to execute customer-centric strategies that increase net retention, net promoter scores, and customer lifetime value.
   

Qualifications & Background:
 

• Demonstrated ability to lead a customer marketing teams – strategy balanced with tactical execution is critical here.
• Extensive experience in global experiential marketing, including developing and executing large-scale sponsored and hosted events that deliver meaningful engagements with measurable business results.
• Strong leadership skills and executive presence with a proven ability to act as a role model across functions. Experience managing multiple stakeholders and senior executives, both internally and externally, to develop and execute marketing programs.
• Experience serving on a cross functional leadership team, representing one or more functions while also engaging as a leader in the wholistic management and development of a broader organization comprised of multiple functions.

• Strong communication, writing, and storytelling skills with the ability to distill complex information into clear, concise messaging; ability to write in a simple, direct, and human-first tone.
• Strong affinity for working in deep collaboration with customers to understand their unique challenges and goals, and to partner closely to make them successful.
• Ability to quickly learn and navigate internal teams to find efficient and effective solutions cross-functionally.

• Data-driven and results-oriented to dramatically grow business results.
• Strong project management and organizational skills with an ability to create, execute, and adjust plans as needed.
• Innovative – is creative and enjoys generating new ideas to push the bounds of marketing.
• 15+ years of experience in Marketing, with at least 5 years' experience in a Customer Marketing role, and at least 5 years management experience, with ability to lead through influence and build followership within teams and stakeholders.   Experience in Enterprise application security and SaaS or related industries is a plus.

The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.

The annual base pay for this position is: $253,339.00 - $380,009.00

F5 maintains broad salary ranges for its roles in order to account for variations in knowledge, skills, experience, geographic locations, and market conditions, as well as to reflect F5's differing products, industries, and lines of business. The pay range referenced is as of the time of the job posting and is subject to change.

You may also be offered incentive compensation, bonus, restricted stock units, and benefits. More details about F5's benefits can be found at the following link: https://www.f5.com/company/careers/benefits. F5 reserves the right to change or terminate any benefit plan without notice. 

Please note that F5 only contacts candidates through F5 email address (ending with @f5.com) or auto email notification from Workday (ending with f5.com or @myworkday.com).

Equal Employment Opportunity

It is the policy of F5 to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants without regard to unlawful considerations of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, sensory, physical, or mental disability, marital status, veteran or military status, genetic information, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state, or federal laws. This policy applies to all aspects of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, discipline, and termination.  F5 offers a variety of reasonable accommodations for candidates. Requesting an accommodation is completely voluntary. F5 will assess the need for accommodations in the application process separately from those that may be needed to perform the job. Request by contacting accommodations@f5.com.