Director of Marketing

cpm; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Chicago Public Media in Chicago seeks a Director of Marketing to lead strategy, planning, and execution of multi-channel campaigns across CPM brands, including WBEZ and digital properties.

The role partners with editorial, membership, and revenue teams to translate priorities into high-impact campaigns, grow audience, and strengthen brand storytelling while guiding a performance-driven marketing organization.

Qualifications

• 5-8+ years of experience in marketing, preferably in media, publishing, or mission-driven organizations.
• Strong creative strategy, brand storytelling, creative concepting, and copywriting skills, with a portfolio that shows it.
• Digitally savvy and fluent in social, content, and platform trends, including short-form video, creators, and emerging formats.
• Analytical mindset, with the ability to define KPIs, read performance data, and turn insights into sharper creative and channel decisions.
• Scrappy and resourceful, comfortable producing work with lean tools and knowing when to bring in agency, freelance, or production partners.
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and comfortable working in a fast-paced environment.

Responsibilities

• Campaign Development & Execution: Lead end-to-end development of integrated campaigns across CPM's portfolio, including brand, programming, product, and audience growth initiatives.
• Creative Strategy & Brand Evolution: Lead creative strategy and messaging across social media and content marketing, and help evolve how each of CPM's brands looks, sounds, and shows up in the world.
• Owned & Organic Channel Strategy: Own and evolve CPM's owned and organic channel strategy across email, organic social, and digital platforms.
• Performance & Paid Media Strategy: Bring a strong understanding of performance marketing to plan, optimize, and measure paid campaigns across search, social, and digital channels.
• Team Management & Development: Manage and mentor marketing team members, translating strategy into clear execution plans and ensuring high-quality output.

Skills

Marketing experience

Creative strategy

Brand storytelling

Copywriting

Digital marketing

Analytical mindset

Project management

Job description

About Chicago Public Media

Chicago Public Media is one of the nation's largest local nonprofit news organizations. Home to WBEZ 91.5FM, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Vocalo. Chicago Public Media reaches more than 3.3 million people weekly across broadcast, print, and digital platforms. As a mission-driven organization, we aspire to be the most trusted news source Chicagoans turn to for understanding the people, events, and ideas shaping our community.

Chicago Public Media is a 100% community-funded newsroom powered by nearly 97,000 members whose support makes our journalism possible. This sustained community investment helped drive nationally recognized work in 2025, including 29 awards from esteemed organizations, including the Public Media Journalists Association, the Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the National Association of Black Journalists.

We believe independent journalism is essential to a healthy democracy and that access to objective, fact-based news is a right for every citizen. We serve the public interest by creating diverse content that informs and enriches our community, supported by a dedicated staff of approximately 250 professionals.

For more information, please see the Chicago Public Media Annual Report .

The Opportunity

As Director of Marketing at Chicago Public Media (CPM), you will drive the strategy, planning, and execution of marketing campaigns across chicago.com , WBEZ, the Chicago Sun-Times and Vocalo. This role reports to the VP of Marketing & Communications and sits at the center of CPM's audience growth efforts, connecting brand, content and revenue through cohesive, multi-channel marketing.

Your primary objective is to translate organizational priorities into high-impact campaigns that grow audience reach, deepen engagement, and support membership and revenue goals. You will lead campaign development from concept through execution, drive brand storytelling, creative concepting, and copywriting that define how our brands show up in the world, and shape channel strategy that builds our brands and extends audience interaction across social, digital, paid and owned platforms.

In this role, you will serve as a key connector between Marketing, Circulation, Editorial and Membership, ensuring alignment across storytelling, audience engagement and conversion efforts. You will balance strategic thinking with operational execution, building systems and workflows that enable CPM to scale its marketing efforts across a multi-brand ecosystem.

Our ideal candidate is both a strategic marketer and creative strategist; someone who can manage complexity, lead cross-functional collaboration, bring bold ideas to brand storytelling and apply a deep understanding of audience behavior, digital channels, and mission-driven media.

Key Responsibilities

• Campaign Development & Execution: Lead end-to-end development of integrated campaigns across CPM's portfolio, including brand, programming, product, and audience growth initiatives.
• Creative Strategy & Brand Evolution: Lead creative strategy and messaging across social media and content marketing, and help evolve how each of CPM's brands looks, sounds, and shows up in the world. Work with VP to develop brand-specific voices, content frameworks, and creative concepts that keep our brands relevant, distinctive, and growing in reach and engagement.
• Owned & Organic Channel Strategy: Own and evolve CPM's owned and organic channel strategy across email, organic social, and digital platforms. Build engaged communities on social media, grow newsletter audiences, and partner with Editorial and Membership teams to optimize lifecycle journeys through segmentation, testing, and performance insights that drive engagement and revenue.
• Performance & Paid Media Strategy: Bring a strong understanding of performance marketing to plan, optimize, and measure paid campaigns across search, social, and digital channels.
• Team Management & Development: Manage and mentor marketing team members, translating strategy into clear execution plans and ensuring high-quality output.

Minimum Qualifications

• 5-8+ years of experience in marketing, preferably in media, publishing, or mission-driven organizations
• Strong creative strategy, brand storytelling, creative concepting, and copywriting skills, with a portfolio that shows it
• Digitally savvy and fluent in social, content, and platform trends, including short-form video, creators, and emerging formats
• Solid… etc
• Analytical mindset, with the ability to define KPIs, read performance data, and turn insights into sharper creative and channel decisions
• Scrappy and resourceful, comfortable producing work with lean tools and knowing when to bring in agency, freelance, or production partners
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and comfortable working in a fast-paced environment

Compensation

The expected pay r