Vice President, Brands in Culture

Title:     VP, Brands in Culture, NAM

Type of Role:     Permanent

Proposed Level:             L3

Reports To:        SVP, Marketing Operations and MarTech, NAM

Context/Scope:             

Diageo is a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands including Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, Bulleit and Buchanan's whiskies, Smirnoff, Cîroc and Ketel One vodkas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray and Guinness.

Our performance ambition is to be one of the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer products companies in the world. We are proud of the brands we make and the enjoyment they give to millions. We are passionate about alcohol playing a positive role in society as part of a balanced lifestyle. It is central to our purpose to celebrate life, every day, everywhere.

Diageo is listed on both the New York Stock Exchange (DEO) and the London Stock Exchange (DGE) and our products are sold in more than 180 countries around the world. For more information about Diageo, our people, our brands, and performance, visit us at www.diageo.com. Visit Diageo's global responsible drinking resource, www.DRINKiQ.com, for information, initiatives, and ways to share best practice.

Financial Accountabilities:    The VP will have accountability for:

• Strategic overview of Brands in Culture direction
• Brands In Culture team operating budget
• Effective and productive agency and partner spend
• Resource allocation across Brands in Culture programs
• Marketing effectiveness and efficiency targets
• Marketing operations value delivery
• Technology adoption and optimization outcomes

Leadership Accountabilities:   

The Vice President, Cultural Marketing & Scaled Influence is responsible for making our brands relevant in culture and ensuring cultural programs reach consumers at scale. This role leads the regional strategy, planning, execution, and performance of Social & Influencer Marketing, Branded Entertainment & Integration, Public Relations, Sponsorships & Partnerships, and Experiential Events.

The VP will build and execute a connected cultural marketing ecosystem that turns brand strategy into culturally resonant programs, leveraging creators, experiences, partnerships, earned media moments, and scaled amplification. The role serves as the primary architect of how our brands show up in culture and how those cultural moments are amplified through paid, earned, shared, and owned channels to drive brand growth.

Working closely with NAM Brand Teams, Global Marketing Leaders, Media, Content, and Effectiveness, this leader will ensure the region consistently delivers culturally impactful programs that increase brand salience, talkability, consumer engagement, and business performance.

Key accountabilities include:

• Stronger market business outcomes
• Improved marketing effectiveness of programs
• Lower operating costs
• Faster execution
• Higher quality and consistency
• Better governance and compliance, consistent with Diageo’s Marketing Code

Complexity of the Role:             

The ideal leader combines the instincts of a cultural strategist, the creativity of a brand builder, the discipline of an operator, and the commercial mindset of a growth leader. They consistently create programs that make brands matter in culture and ensure those programs are experienced by consumers at meaningful scale.

Cultural Relevance Strategy

• Develop and lead the regional cultural marketing strategy across the brand portfolio.
• Translate brand positioning and category strategies into culturally relevant activation plans.
• Identify emerging cultural trends, passion points, communities, creators, entertainment properties, and partnership opportunities.
• Develop annual cultural calendars aligned to category growth priorities.
• Build a portfolio of scalable cultural platforms (fewer, bigger, better).
• Ensure brands participate in culture authentically and credibly.
• Drive consistency between brand purpose, consumer insight, and cultural activation.

Social & Influencer Marketing Leadership

• Support the team in leading the regional social and influencer ecosystem to maximize cultural relevance, engagement, and reach, efficiently.
• Establish regional social and creator strategies.
• Lead influencer and creator investment priorities.
• Build scalable creator programs that generate both authenticity and reach.
• Oversee brand social ecosystems.
• Drive best practices in community engagement and social content performance.
• Ensure influencer content is amplified through paid media to maximize effectiveness.
• Partner with Media teams to integrate creators into broader communications plans.
• Ensure compliance, governance, and responsible marketing standards are always met.
• Reduce the influencer footprint to focus on the most effective activations and deliver scaled efficiency.
• Reduce the social agency ecosystem to follow a more consistent operating model.

Branded Entertainment & Integration

• Build meaningful connections between brands and entertainment properties that create cultural impact.
• Partner with team to evolve the branded entertainment strategy.
• Support negotiations and partnerships with entertainment properties and rights holders.
• Drive integration opportunities that deliver both earned attention and consumer engagement.
• Ensure entertainment investments contribute to measurable business outcomes.

Sponsorships & Strategic Partnerships

• Lead NAM sponsorship and partnership strategy to maximize brand relevance and business impact.
• Define sponsorship strategy aligned to brand growth priorities.
• Identify, negotiate, and manage strategic partnerships.
• Establish measurement frameworks for sponsorship effectiveness.
• Drive integration between sponsorships, content, PR, social, influencer, and media teams.
• Ensure sponsorship investments deliver incremental brand value.
• Create a connected sponsorship ecosystem to drive value across the portfolio vs. brand by brand.
• Reduce footprint of sponsorships that may not be driving value.

Public Relations & Earned Influence

• Support team in the NAM PR strategy to generate earned attention, strengthen reputation, and amplify cultural programs.
• Develop integrated earned media strategies.
• Ensure PR programs support brand growth objectives.
• Drive proactive storytelling and thought leadership.
• Integrate PR into all major cultural activations and campaigns.

Experiential Events

• Support the team in the development of experiences that bring brands to life and create memorable consumer connections.
• Establish event and experience standards.
• Ensure events are connected to broader cultural and communications ecosystems.
• Build measurement and learning frameworks for experiential investments.

Build a High-Performing Organization

• Lead and develop a team of specialists across social, influencer, PR, partnerships, entertainment, and experiential marketing.
• Create a culture of creativity, accountability, collaboration, compliance, and innovation.
• Build future-ready capabilities in creator marketing, cultural intelligence, and AI-enabled activation.

Drive Cross-Functional Integration

• Ensure seamless integration with Content, Media, Consumer Planning, Commercial, and Global Brand Teams.
• Eliminate siloed planning and execution.
• Create unified cultural activation plans across channels and where appropriate, across brands.

Agency & Partner Leadership

• Lead agency ecosystem strategy across PR, influencer, experiential, and partnership agencies.
• Drive performance accountability and efficiency.
• Ensure agency partners deliver against agreed business outcomes.

Governance & Compliance

• Ensure all activations meet responsible marketing standards.
• Maintain compliance with legal, regulatory, and brand governance requirements.
• Drive consistent use of approved tools, processes, and measurement methodologies.

Key Outputs & Deliverables:    

KPIs for this function will include:

Brand Impact

• Brand Salience
• Talkability (cultural relevance measure)
• Share of Voice
• Earned Media Value

Consumer Impact

• Reach
• Engagement
• Community scale
• Creator Content Performance

Business Impact

• Incremental reach delivered
• Efficiency improvements on investment
• Return On Investment
• Commercial growth

Operational Excellence

• On-time delivery of programs
• Budget management
• Agency performance
• Measurement compliance
• Execution compliance
• Adoption of best-practice frameworks

Professional Experience & Qualifications:               

• 15-20+ years in marketing leadership roles.
• Deep expertise across social, influencer, PR, partnerships, entertainment, sponsorship, and experiential marketing.
• Experience leading regional or global cultural marketing programs.
• Strong commercial and brand-building acumen.
• Proven track record negotiating and managing high-profile partnerships and cultural properties.
• Experience managing large agency ecosystems and investment portfolios.
• Experience with AI solutions and an understanding of the role AI can play in improving outcomes
• Demonstrated success in driving marketing transformation
• Track record of using data and analysis to monitor and improve performance
• Experience leading agency ecosystems and out-sourced delivery models
• Strong financial and operational management capabilities
• Excellent written, oral, presentation and communication skills.

Salary Range: $195,000.00 - $325,000.00

Flexibility is key to our success. Talk to us about what flexibility means to you, so that you’re supported to manage your wellbeing and balance your priorities from day one.

We recognize and value performance, offering our people a highly competitive Rewards and Benefits package including:

Our purpose is to celebrate life, every day, everywhere. And creating an inclusive culture, where everyone feels valued and that they can belong, is a crucial part of this.

We embrace diversity in the broadest possible sense. This means that you’ll be welcomed and celebrated for who you are just by being you. You’ll be part of and help build and champion an inclusive culture that celebrates people of different gender, ethnicity, ability, age, sexual orientation, social class, educational backgrounds, experiences, mindsets, and more.

Our ambition is to create the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer products companies in the world. Join us and help transform our business as we take our brands to new heights and build new ones as part of shaping the next generation of celebrations for consumers around the world.

Feel inspired? Then this may be the opportunity for you.

If you require a reasonable adjustment, please ensure that you capture this information when you submit your application.