Vice President, Marketing & Branding

About the Role

Nursing education changes lives, and every learner starts with a first moment of connection. As our Vice President of Marketing & Branding, you'll lead the integrated marketing function that makes that connection happen, market by market. You'll make sure Nightingale shows up nationally with a consistent, trusted brand, and locally with messaging that feels like it belongs in each community we serve.

You'll turn the CGO's growth plan into day-to-day execution across Performance Marketing, Direct Marketing, and Creative & Brand. You'll own the path from marketing to lead, and you'll be accountable for strategies that grow enrollment and advance Nightingale's Impact in the communities we serve.

What You'll Do

• Lead integrated marketing. Build an operating model that aligns all three teams around shared enrollment goals. Run annual and semester planning tied to state-level targets.
• Own brand and recruitment marketing. You hold final decision-making authority over brand strategy, positioning, visual identity, and all recruitment messaging, including vendor-produced content.
• Build local brands. Develop evergreen messaging for each market, covering local tuition, fees, travel, enrollment processes, and healthcare-system context. Define primary and secondary markets and set brand investment by tier.
• Manage performance by market. Move reporting from national totals to market-level dashboards for CPL, CPS, and enrollment by state, region, and program. Build 2-year rolling enrollment plans for each market, with a path to reducing non-SOFE state enrollment below 60%.
• Run marketing operations and technology. Complete and optimize the Salesforce CRM implementation, maintain UTM tracking, and deploy real-time lead scoring.
• Manage vendors. Select, retain, and remove partners based on CPL and CPS benchmarks, and hold them to our quality standards.
• Lead across functions. Partner with enrollment leadership on conversion and the learner experience. Work with Communications & PR on brand voice, and with Business Development on alignment.

You'll lead three direct reports: the Director of Performance Marketing, the Director of Direct Marketing, and the Director of Creative & Brand.

What You Bring

Required

• 10+ years of progressive marketing leadership, including 5+ years at the VP or senior director level
• Experience building and executing brand strategy, including positioning, messaging architecture, and brand governance
• Experience marketing distance learning or online education to a national audience
• Experience with multi-state or national enrollment and lead generation programs
• A record of balancing performance marketing with long-term brand building, and of building local or regional presence within a national program
• Prior higher education experience (online or distance education strongly preferred; nursing or healthcare-adjacent education valued)
• Success implementing CRMs and overseeing UTM and attribution infrastructure
• A record of leading cross-functional marketing teams (performance, brand, direct, and market research)
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to turn market-level data into clear decisions
• Experience managing vendors with performance-based accountability (CPL/CPS)

Preferred

• Higher education marketing experience
• Familiarity with state regulatory environments, including Boards of Nursing and healthcare system partnerships
• Experience building enrollment or go-to-market plans across multiple geographic markets
• Proficiency with marketing analytics platforms and lead scoring technologies

Why Nightingale

At Nightingale, marketing isn't a support function — it's the front door to a high-impact community. Every campaign, every market plan, and every dashboard you build connects directly to real learners finding their way into nursing careers that change their lives and their communities. This role gives you the authority to build systems that work and the mission to make that work matter. You'll lead with data, lead with heart, and help scale something bigger than any single campaign — all while embodying Evolvitude™, our shared commitment to growth, transparency, and continuous improvement.