Executive Director, Digital Subscription Growth

Massachusetts Medical Society; Waltham (MA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

3 weeks of paid vacation

6 personal days

12 sick days

13 paid holidays

401(k) with company match

Job summary

The Massachusetts Medical Society is seeking an Executive Director of Digital Subscription Growth located in Waltham, Massachusetts. This role focuses on leading subscription growth initiatives across NEJM Group publications.

Candidates should have over 10 years of leadership experience in subscription growth and digital marketing, demonstrating the ability to drive data-informed decision-making and enhance subscriber engagement through innovative strategies. A flexible work model is offered, allowing employees to work remotely or onsite.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in subscription growth or related fields.
• Proven success in digital transformation and acquisition strategies.
• Strong analytical skills to drive testing and optimization.

Responsibilities

• Lead the strategy for subscription growth across NEJM Group publications.
• Develop lifecycle marketing strategies to enhance subscriber retention.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to improve user experience.

Skills

Strategic leadership in subscription growth

Data-driven decision making

Lifecycle marketing

Strong analytical mindset

Job description

Executive Director, Digital Subscription Growth

Category: Marketing / Audience Development

Job Location: Waltham, Massachusetts

Position Type: Full-Time/Regular

NEJM Group is seeking a strategic, data-driven leader to drive subscription growth across its portfolio of publications, including the New England Journal of Medicine, and to accelerate adoption of new subscription offerings and models. This role is the modern evolution of a traditional circulation leadership position, with a digital-first mandate spanning acquisition, conversion, lifecycle marketing, retention, and subscriber revenue growth.

The Executive Director, Digital Subscription Growth will lead the strategy and execution required to build a modern subscription growth engine, one that expands the reach of the NEJM Group portfolio, strengthens engagement with current subscribers, improves conversion across digital properties, and increases long-term customer value.

The MMS has adopted a flexible work model that allows most employees to choose where they work – at home, onsite in our Waltham office, or a combination – based on preferences and business needs. Because what matters is the work we do, not where we do it.

Key Responsibilities

• Own individual (B2C) paid subscription growth across the NEJM Group publications, with a primary focus on driving digital subscriptions.
• Develop and execute strategies to increase net new paid subscribers, improve subscriber retention, and grow circulation revenue.
• Set ambitious growth targets and define the roadmap to achieve them across acquisition, conversion, activation, retention, and long-term loyalty.

Acquisition and Funnel Optimization

• Lead full-funnel subscription growth across web properties, email, SEO, partnerships, paid media, social, and other relevant channels.
• Improve conversion of anonymous and registered users into paid subscribers through optimized landing pages, paywall messaging, offer strategy, and checkout experience.
• Identify and scale new acquisition channels, audience pathways, and professional ecosystem partnerships that can expand reach among clinicians and early-career medical professionals.
• Build segmented paths for subscription acquisition, upgrade, and cross-sell, including movement into new subscription offerings.

Lifecycle Marketing and Retention

• Develop and lead a lifecycle marketing strategy to improve activation, engagement, retention, churn prevention, save efforts, and win-back.
• Move the organization beyond batch direct-response email toward behavior-based, segmented, and personalized subscriber journeys.
• Build programs that increase first-year retention, deepen subscriber engagement.
• Partner with customer service and subscriber support teams to identify churn drivers and improve retention performance.

Subscription Strategy and Offer Development

• Help shape the positioning, pricing, packaging, and growth strategy for NEJM Group subscription offers and models.
• Test offers, trial structures, pricing approaches, and messaging to improve adoption and share of wallet while preserving premium brand value.

Testing, Personalization, and Insights

• Build a culture of rapid experimentation and continuous learning across the subscription business.
• Lead structured testing across pricing, packaging, promotional offers, messaging, creative, audience segmentation, channel mix, paywall experience, and commerce UX flows.
• Use analytics and customer insights to understand subscriber behavior, activation patterns, engagement signals, and churn risks.
• Define and track KPIs and translate findings into scalable growth strategies and clear executive recommendations.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Partner closely with Product Management, Digital Strategy, Engineering, Digital Analytics, Customer and Market Intelligence, and Customer Success to improve subscription UX, instrumentation, and growth performance.
• Collaborate on initiatives that strengthen content discovery, topic-based engagement, newsletter strategy, and conversion pathways from editorial experiences to paid subscription.
• Lead and develop a high-performing team and manage external partners or agencies as needed.
• Serve as a change agent who can challenge legacy assumptions and lead transformation in an established, mission-driven organization.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of leadership experience in subscription growth, digital marketing, lifecycle marketing, circulation, consumer revenue, or a related field.
• Proven success growing subscription businesses and leading digital transformation.
• Demonstrated experience improving acquisition, conversion, retention, and revenue through testing and optimization.
• Strong analytical mindset, with experience using data to drive segmentation, experimentation, and performance decisions.
• Track record of cross-functional leadership and influencing across product, marketing, analytics, and editorial organizations.

Preferred

• Experience in media, publishing, healthcare, medical information, professional education, or other high-trust subscription businesses.
• Familiarity with subscription packaging, bundled offers, and lifecycle strategy across digital properties.
• Experience leveraging and optimizing a sophisticated MarTech stack to drive subscription growth and modern marketing.
• Understanding of the needs and behaviors of clinicians, researchers, and medical trainees.
• Experience modernizing legacy acquisition models into digital-first growth systems.

What Success Looks Like

• Sustained growth in digital subscriptions and subscription revenue.
• Increased acquisition of new paid subscribers and stronger conversion performance across digital properties.
• Greater adoption of subscriptions and effective upgrade paths across the portfolio.
• Improved first-year retention and higher subscriber engagement.
• Clear evidence of growth driven by experimentation, segmentation, and digital optimization.
• Measurable progress in reaching a younger, more digitally engaged audience.

Compensation

The target base pay for this role is $200,000+. Salary is commensurate with skills, qualifications, and experience.

Benefits

Our generous benefits offerings include: 3 weeks of paid vacation, 6 personal days, 12 sick days, 13 paid holidays, medical and dental plans, 401(k) plans with company match, backup childcare assistance, tuition assistance, and more!

EEO Statement

The MMS is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to providing opportunities to veterans and people with disabilities and a welcoming work environment for all.