Vice President of Growth and Media
No salary listed
Expert
Bachelor's, Master's
United States
In Person
Growth & MarketingPerformance & Paid Marketing
About the job
Requirements
- A bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Communications, Economics, Analytics, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.
- Twelve or more years of progressive marketing experience, including significant leadership of integrated media, performance marketing, or enterprise growth strategy for a complex, multi-location consumer business.
- Seven or more years of people leadership experience, with success building teams, developing talent, and leading through influence in a matrixed organization.
- Demonstrated ownership of large, multi-channel media investments spanning brand and performance channels, including paid search, paid and organic social, video, audio, display, programmatic, and third-party media.
- Proven ability to translate enterprise and line-of-business objectives into integrated plans that deliver measurable demand, revenue, market-share, efficiency, and customer outcomes.
- Strong command of marketing measurement, financial stewardship, incrementality, attribution, experimentation, forecasting, and executive performance reporting.
- Experience leading agencies, platforms, publishers, marketplaces, and complex commercial partnerships.
- Must meet company requirements for employment.
- A valid in-state driver’s license and an acceptable, safe driving record maintained throughout employment.
Responsibilities
- Set enterprise growth and full-funnel media strategy to generate qualified demand, improve market share, support profitable sales, and strengthen customer retention.
- Lead annual, quarterly, and monthly media planning across national, regional, market, and store levels, balancing enterprise scale with local relevance and original equipment manufacturer requirements.
- Allocate investment across brand and performance channels using business objectives, market opportunity, inventory, customer demand, and marginal-return insights.
- Create decision frameworks for channel mix, audience strategy, geographic prioritization, pacing, optimization, and test-and-learn activity.
- Own the enterprise plan for paid demand and communicate expected opportunity volume, efficiency, and sales contribution by line of business.
- Lead growth and media plans for New, Used, We Buy Your Car, and After-Sales, translating revenue, share, inventory, margin, and customer objectives into actionable demand plans.
- Partner with each line of business to define target audiences, offers, messaging, media roles, customer journeys, and performance expectations.
- Identify enterprise and cross-line-of-business opportunities that increase customer lifetime value and position AutoNation as the preferred partner across the full automotive ownership journey.
- Bring competitive, customer, market, and performance insights forward to shape business decisions and near-term actions.
- Lead performance marketing across paid search, paid social, video, display, programmatic, audio, and other demand channels, ensuring investment is aligned to the highest-value opportunities.
- Establish performance goals, measurement standards, reporting cadences, and clear accountability across channels and lines of business.
- Own marketing performance against committed opportunity volume and cost per sale, and initiate corrective action when performance is off plan.
- Evaluate opportunity quality, conversion, sales, market share, cost per opportunity, cost per sale, incremental lift, and return on investment to determine where action is required.
- Partner with Analytics and Finance to advance attribution, incrementality testing, forecasting, audience measurement, and investment governance.
- Lead regular performance reviews and translate insights into specific actions while managing major platform and budget changes with appropriate testing discipline.
- Own the framework for allocating and recalibrating media investment across regions, markets, and stores based on demand, competitive position, inventory, performance, and growth opportunity.
- Partner with Field Marketing, regional and market leaders, and stores to connect enterprise strategy with local business conditions and sales priorities.
- Develop a scalable enterprise, regional, market, and store media model that improves efficiency while maintaining meaningful local support.
- Create transparent market- and store-level investment views, performance diagnostics, and recalibration processes that distinguish marketing opportunity from operational conversion needs.
- Ensure plans reflect inventory availability, competitive conditions, merchandising, close-rate performance, and local market opportunity.
- Own the enterprise social media strategy across paid, organic, platform, content distribution, community, and reputation considerations in partnership with Brand and Corporate Communications.
- Lead the strategy and governance for third-party marketplaces, lead providers, publishers, and media partnerships, including investment, quality standards, testing, and performance accountability.
- Develop first-party data, audience, personalization, and retargeting strategies that strengthen acquisition and retention across channels.
- Evaluate emerging platforms, partners, and capabilities and scale those that demonstrate measurable business value.
- Lead agency-of-record and key partner relationships, setting strategic direction, operating expectations, scopes of work, performance standards, and executive governance.
- Hold agencies accountable for opportunity delivery, cost-per-sale improvement, media quality, optimization speed, innovation, and transparent reporting.
- Partner with Procurement, Finance, and Legal to negotiate agreements and ensure investments, fees, incentives, data rights, and deliverables are transparent and competitive.
- Build productive partnerships with original equipment manufacturers and certified providers to maximize co-op eligibility, data access, and shared learning while protecting AutoNation’s enterprise strategy.
- Hold internal and external teams accountable for high-quality planning, execution, optimization, reporting, and innovation.
- Build, lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team with clear roles, priorities, performance expectations, and career development plans.
- Influence senior leaders across Marketing, Sales, Operations, Finance, Technology, and the Field through concise, data-led recommendations and clear tradeoffs.
- Create an operating culture of urgency, curiosity, collaboration, disciplined experimentation, and accountability for business outcomes.
- Demonstrate behaviors consistent with the Company’s Vision, Mission, and Values in all interactions with customers, co-workers, and suppliers.
- Adhere to all company policies, procedures, and safety standards.
Desired Qualifications
- A master's degree is preferred.
- Automotive, retail, franchise, dealer, or other distributed-location experience is preferred.
About the company
AutoNation runs car dealerships across the United States, selling and servicing vehicles from brands such as Toyota, Honda, Ford and Chevrolet. Alongside its franchised stores, it operates AutoNation USA stores that sell only used vehicles, plus collision repair centers and mobile mechanics who service cars at customers' homes. Shoppers can browse, buy and arrange financing in a store or online, and the company earns money on each vehicle sold, on parts and repair work, and on the financing, warranties and service contracts sold with each car. AutoNation was founded in 1996 by Wayne Huizenga, the entrepreneur behind Waste Management and Blockbuster, and is based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Company Size
10,001+
Company Stage
IPO
Headquarters
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Founded
1996
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Repair work steadies earnings: parts and service gross profit hit a record $607 million in Q2 2026.
- AI work has executive backing: Avis Budget's former digital chief became AutoNation's technology and AI chief in October 2026.
- The store base keeps growing: June 2026 purchases added an Atlanta Toyota store and three Bay Area luxury stores.
What critics are saying
- Fewer cars are selling: same-store used-vehicle retail units fell 8% in the quarter ending June 2026.
- Pricing faces federal scrutiny: the FTC warned AutoNation in March 2026 that advertised prices must include mandatory fees.
- Carmakers hold power over stores and staff: some agreements let manufacturers force sales of underperforming AutoNation dealerships.
What makes AutoNation unique
- Luxury cars carry the business: Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Lexus and other luxury stores produced 37% of 2025 revenue.
- It lends to its own buyers: in-house lender AutoNation Finance held a $2.7 billion loan portfolio by June 2026.
- Cancer fundraising is part of its brand: its pink-themed DRV PNK campaign raised over $50 million in a decade.
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Benefits
- Health Insurance
- Dental Insurance
- Vision Insurance
- 401(k) Company Match
- 401(k) Retirement Plan