Director Brand, Content & Fandom

Paylocity; Colorado Springs (CO); Hybrid; USD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

USA Triathlon is seeking a senior leader to own and unify the brand story across USA Triathlon, USA TRI, and the Foundation. You will design and scale a content engine, build an athlete storytelling pipeline, and grow a national audience that turns into fans, members, donors, and partners.

The role leads a small team, coaches three roles, and collaborates across Growth, Philanthropy, Partnerships, Communications, and Events to drive engagement and revenue for LA 2028 and beyond.

Qualifications

• Ability to identify the story inside a life, a result, or a community and translate it into narrative that builds awareness and engagement.
• Demonstrated ability to lead teams by setting standards, giving feedback, developing capability and accountability.
• Deep knowledge of brand development, positioning, and messaging across multiple brands.
• Understanding of growing owned audiences organically and converting interest into fandom.
• Proven ability to produce high‑quality work with a small team and limited budget.
• Strong collaboration across growth, philanthropy, partnerships, communications, and events.
• Ability to use audience insight and data to prioritize content and refine strategy.
• Ability to build genuine relationships with athletes and tell personal stories with care.

Responsibilities

• Own our brands: positioning, voice, and expression for USA TRI, USA Triathlon, and Foundation.
• Design and stand up the content engine: strategy, calendar, workflow for social to editorial channels.
• Identify and develop a pipeline of athlete narratives across elite, development, junior, and age group.
• Grow fandom: expand owned audiences and engagement, convert to membership and participation.
• Create storytelling that supports foundation fundraising and corporate partnerships.
• Lead a team of three, manage budget, agencies, and freelancers.
• Navigate USOPC, IOC, and IPC brand and athlete guidelines (Rule 40).

Skills

Story instinct

Team leadership

Brand architecture

Audience building

Resourcefulness

Cross-functional influence

Analytical judgment

Athlete trust

Job description

Description

USA Triathlon is hiring a builder to lead brand, storytelling, and fandom across our brands: USA Triathlon, USA TRI, and our USA Triathlon Foundation brand, heading into the LA 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. For USA Triathlon, you'll celebrate the age group athletes, clubs, coaches, race directors, and youth who make up the sport. For USA TRI, our elite and development pipeline, you'll make our Olympic, Paralympic, and emerging athletes known and followed by a national audience. For our Foundation brand, it is meaningfully telling our stories to connect with donors - enabling philanthropy to support our organizational mission and our athletes.

Most importantly, you'll connect the brands: turning elite inspiration into grassroots participation, and turning audiences into fans, members, donors, and partners.

This is a build role. The content engine this job requires doesn't exist yet, and the window to create it to fully leverage and amplify a home Games is finite. LA 2028 is a once-in-a-generation moment to put American triathlon in front of a domestic audience, and the audience we will have at the Games is the one we build starting now. The work we do today will benefit our sport, our athletes, and our organization long past LA. We're looking for someone who sets a high bar, raises a small team to meet it, and moves fast with modest resources.

Essential Job Functions

• Own our brands. Lead positioning, voice, and expression for how USA TRI, USA Triathlon and USA Triathlon Foundation brands are represented, how they communicate and how they work together to connect elite athletes to grassroots participation, and enable philanthropic giving across our programs.
• Build the content engine. Design and stand up the strategy, editorial calendar, production workflow, and standards needed to publish consistently and at volume across social, video, digital, and editorial channels.
• Run the athlete story pipeline. Identify, prioritize, and develop a continuously replenished pipeline of athlete narratives: elite, development, junior, and age group, with enough runway that no major moments arrive unprepared.
• Grow fandom and audience. Drive organic growth of owned audiences and engagement that lasts between Games, working with Growth Marketing to convert attention into membership and participation.
• Fuel revenue. Create storytelling that supports the USA Triathlon Foundation and Elevate28 campaign, content programs that deliver value for corporate partners, and stories that inspire connection to and engagement with our organizational products and programs.
• Raise the team's performance. Lead and coach a team of three, set clear expectations and a higher standard for quality and velocity, and manage the budget, agencies, and freelancers that extend capacity.
• Navigate the rules. Work within USOPC, IOC, and IPC brand and athlete marketing guidelines, including Rule 40.

Supervisory Responsibilities

• Content Manager
• Multimedia Content Producer
• Social Media/Graphic Designer

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Story instinct. Ability to identify the story inside a life, a result, or a community and translate it into narrative that builds awareness, emotional connection, and lasting engagement.
• Team leadership and coaching. Demonstrated ability to lead teams to success by setting standards, giving candid feedback, developing individual capability, and holding people accountable with both clarity and care.
• Brand architecture expertise. Deep knowledge of brand development, positioning, and messaging, including experience managing multiple differentiated but connected brands within one organization.
• Audience building. Practical understanding of how to grow owned audiences organically, deepen engagement, and convert casual interest into durable fandom and advocacy.
• Resourcefulness. Proven ability to produce high-quality, high-volume work with a small team and a constrained budget, and to make disciplined choices about what not to do.
• Cross-functional influence. Strong collaboration and relationship-building skills, with the ability to align creative and storytelling efforts across growth, philanthropy, corporate partnerships, communications, high performance, and events.
• Analytical judgment. Ability to use audience insight, performance data, and market trends to prioritize content and refine strategy.
• Athlete trust. Ability to build genuine, respectful relationships with athletes and to tell personal stories with care and integrity.

Requirements

Qualifications

• 8-10+ years in brand, content, marketing, or communications, with significant leadership experience.
• A track record of leading teams to success, and upskilling existing teams.
• Proven success building a content operation that published consistently and grew audience and engagement.
• Strong story instincts and creative direction across social, video, digital, editorial, and experiential channels.
• Comfort using data to prioritize, and the discipline to deliver high-quality work with limited resources.
• Experience in sports, entertainment, nonprofit, or a mission-driven consumer brand.

Preferred

• Experience with the Olympic and Paralympic movement or a professional sports property.
• Content experience supporting fundraising or sponsorship revenue.
• Familiarity with endurance or participation-based sport.

Working Conditions and Physical Requirements

• USA Triathlon offers a hybrid work schedule and requires this position to be on site at USAT headquarters in Colorado Springs, CO at least two days per week
• While performing the duties of this job, the employee may be regularly required to stand, sit, talk, hear, reach, stoop, kneel, and use hands and fingers to operate a computer, telephone, and keyboard. The employee may be required to exert force to manipulate or move items weighing up to 50 pounds.
• This position may require limited non-traditional work hours including evenings, weekends, and some holidays related to USA Triathlon event attendance and support. Event attendance and support may entail travel, including outside of traditional office hours, to USA Triathlon events and/or international events

EEO Statement

USA Triathlon is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.

Disclaimer

This job description is intended to describe the general nature and level of work performed. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required. Duties and responsibilities may change as business needs evolve.