Vice President Marketing & Professional Affairs

CooperVision, a division of CooperCompanies (NASDAQ:COO), is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of soft contact lenses. The Company produces a full array of daily disposable, two-week and monthly contact lenses, all featuring advanced materials and optics. CooperVision has a strong heritage of solving the toughest vision challenges such as astigmatism, presbyopia and childhood myopia; and offers the most complete collection of spherical, toric and multifocal products available. Through a combination of innovative products and focused practitioner support, the company brings a refreshing perspective to the marketplace, creating real advantages for customers and wearers. For more information, visit www.coopervision.com.

Job Summary

The Vice President of Marketing and Professional Affairs directly oversees the organization’s US Demand Generation activities, including Product Management, Customer marketing, Marketing communications, Consumer and Customer Insights/market research, Professional services, and academic affairs.  Establishes regional marketing plan to attain sales and profitability goals. Additionally, serves as America’s Center of Excellence for the above disciplines in Canada and Latin America. Drives the vision and mission of the above functions and develops a best-in-class Marketing/Professional Affairs organization. Evaluates the effectiveness of marketing programs and initiatives, making changes as needed.  Stays abreast of changes in marketing environment and strategies, to inform long-range strategic plan and annual marketing planning process.

The role will plan, direct and manage Brand Marketing, Customer Marketing and Professional Services strategy and execution to profitably grow the Americas region. 

• Responsible for the pricing, promotion, positioning, and portfolio placement of the brand and communication execution to the professional/consumer

• Responsible for the financial performance of the brand including sales analysis, trial productivity and placement of expenses

• In partnership with the Corporate Accounts Sales team, guide the team to deliver relevant insights, account plans and programs aligned to company and account commercial imperatives

• Develop, execute and measure holistic marketing communications, events and demand generation programs for the portfolio of branded and private label products and services 

Drive the development, alignment, and execution of the digital strategy as a core element of achieving business goals and commercial objectives, in alignment with marketing strategies across product brands, the master brand, and key initiatives

Leadership: Leading through role-model behavior, influencing and persuasion. The role has subordinate Directors and Managers. Also has highly experienced professional staff directly reporting in.

Network:

Internal

• President, Americas & EVP Commercial Functions
  • Functional North America leaders representing HR, IT, Finance, PMO, Distribution, Legal and Regulatory Affairs
  • Commercial Directors of country markets and their marketing teams
  • Senior representatives of Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Packaging and R&D
  • Global Marketing, Lifecycle Management & other Regional Marketing counterparts

External

• Trade Associations
  • Key Customers
  • Key Opinion Leaders
  • Marketing agencies for creative, PR, digital, research, consumer rebate and others, as required.

Specific skills required include excellent marketing and interpersonal skills, negotiation and influencing skills, team motivation ability, strong business acumen, and a bias for accountability to manage all aspects of a multi-country business, in-depth knowledge of marketing, financial, and legal principles.

• Experience in building a business and leading a high-performance team to achieve challenging market growth and profitability
• Experience in the medical products industry, ideally with products that have both consumer and professional target audiences

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Specific skills required include  excellent marketing, people management and interpersonal skills, negotiation and influencing skills, team motivation ability plus strong business acumen to manage all aspects of a multi-country business, in-depth knowledge of marketing, financial and legal principles

Work Environment:

• Office-based environment with periodic travel to customer locations, industry events and other CooperVision sites 
• On average 30% travel requirement, at times the intensity may increase
• Must be able to travel domestically and internationally

Experience:

• Requires 15+ total years in marketing and sales, including senior management experience
• Experience leading remote-based teams

Education:

• Undergraduate degree in business, economics, marketing, or any technical/optical or related field required
• Advanced degree preferred, ideally an MBA

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, or veteran status. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.

For U.S. locations that require disclosure of compensation, the starting base pay for this role is between $181,033.00 and $301,721.00 per year and may include cost of living adjustments.  The actual base pay includes many factors and is subject to change and modification in the future.  This position may also be eligible for other types of compensation and benefits.

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Leads Brand and Customer Marketing strategy development and management across the following areas:

• Propose and gain agreement in overall regional marketing strategy. Take the lead in developing a fully comprehensive business strategy rooted in the delivery of CooperVision’s commercial objectives
  • Strategic, Financial and Functional
• Conceive and orchestrate launches, promotions and demand-creating initiatives.
• Ensure effective communication to American markets and customers regarding our brand image, product offering and pricing policy.
• Develop new routes to market and geographical markets.
• Ensure marketing plans are proactive and can be adapted to react to circumstances. Oversee the development and execution of a Sales & Marketing plan with clearly defined objectives and routing performance update (POA)
• Devise and execute regional and promotion and customer communication programs.
• Ensure the best positioning of the CooperVision brands in accordance with global guidelines.
• Recommend pricing strategies and tactics, to optimize revenue.
• Develop annual revenue budgets for all managed products, and annual advertising and promotional budgets for promoted products, updating via the demand forecast process.
• Develop and execute market plans for a family of promoted products as defined by customer segments.
• Participate in unplanned re-forecasting as necessary.
• Communicate to sales force all issues that affect sales of managed brands.
• Develop, agree and implement business plans with focus on sales and marketing, business development, planning and forecasting.

• Define key market and customer segments and partner with corporate and strategic accounts to build high level account strategies that create an emphasis for key accounts marketing partnerships.

Market Data Analysis & Market Research

• Gather and interpret market, customer and competitor insights.
• Evaluate competitive trends, market dynamics, sales trends, and sales forecasting for specified product lines.
• Analyze market trends and competitor initiatives and makes necessary recommendations to management.
• Responsible for performance reporting, management and analysis of syndicated market research including the development of reporting period performance charts.
• Oversee the development, execution, analysis, socialization and integration of necessary qualitative and quantitative research in support of new product launches, brand equity tracking and other ad-hoc studies.

Responsible for developing long and short-range forecasts for product lines and obtains, preparing and analyzing market data and preparing reports for presentations. 

• Responsible for the pricing, promotion, positioning, packaging and portfolio placement of the brand and communication executions to the professional/consumer.
• Responsible for the financial performance of the brand including sales analysis, trial productivity and placement of expenses.
• Identify market opportunities for new products and develops recommendations to senior management for the acceptance and inclusion into the company’s new product development pipeline. 
• Responsible for developing the marketing plan for the brand and strategic products including sales expectations, brand support requirements and brand objectives.

• Participate in new product development teams as needed.

Oversees digital marketing strategy and the North American marketing technology roadmap

• Ensures the effective employment of marketing automation activity using Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
• Oversees CooperVision’s presence on web and social media platforms, both CVI’s and third-party.
• Champions CooperVision’s adoption and usage of relevant marketing and sales-facing marketing technologies.

Leads Professional Services and Academic Affairs organization that is aligned with Marketing strategy:

• Plans, develops and directs professional programs for the America Region. 
• Maintains ongoing contact with key individuals and optometric organizations to gain firsthand knowledge of changing scientific, business, and political and competitive activities.
• Establish and moderate advisory panels of practitioners to ensure the appropriate scientific and marketing feedback from the field.
• Enhance CVI’s credibility and image externally and product quality, ethical standing and clinical knowledge internally.
• Leads advocacy activities, engaging with governmental and non-governmental entities as required, in order to advocate for positions on behalf of the optometric industry deemed of importance by CooperVision.