Director of Marketing

Position Summary

The Director of Marketing is a strategic, commercially focused leader responsible for driving profitable growth across Pixelle's portfolio of printing and writing papers, packaging, labels and liners, food barrier products, and specialty grades. The role provides strategic leadership across Product Management, Category Strategy, Portfolio Management, Brand Management, Market Intelligence, and Demand Generation. Core responsibilities include developing and executing 3-5 year category strategies, including market opportunity identification, product positioning, pricing, portfolio optimization, SKU rationalization, new product development, demand-generation programs, and commercialization plans. This role will also work collaboratively with R&D to manage the Stage-Gate process that identifies, evaluates, prioritizes, develops, and commercializes new growth opportunities across products, customers, and adjacent markets. In addition, this role leads all development of the annual integrated marking plan and implementing demand generation initiatives through an external agency team. The successful candidate is an experienced B2B manufacturing marketer and commercial leader who is equally comfortable setting strategy, analyzing markets and portfolios, managing direct reports, leading cross-functional teams, managing external partners, building collaborative relationships with peers across Sales, Operations, R&D, Finance, Legal, HR, and Mill leadership teams.

Key Responsibilities

Category, Product & Portfolio Strategy

• Develop and own 3-5-year category strategies for Pixelle's major product platforms and market segments.
• Establish strategic direction for the product portfolio based on market growth, customer needs, competitive dynamics, profitability, manufacturing capabilities, and long-term company objectives.
• Build and manage a disciplined growth funnel that identifies, evaluates, prioritizes, and advances opportunities across new products, new applications, new customers, adjacent markets, and portfolio extensions.
• Collaborate with R&D on Stage-Gate governance for new product development and portfolio growth initiatives, ensuring opportunities progress through clearly defined stages with appropriate market validation, business cases, financial analysis, technical feasibility, and executive approval.
• Lead strategic Product Management, including product positioning, product lifecycle management, portfolio architecture, new product opportunities, line extensions, and commercialization.
• Lead SKU rationalization and portfolio optimization to improve profitability, simplify the portfolio, reduce complexity, and focus resources on the highest-value opportunities.
• Partner with Finance to develop business cases, investment requirements, revenue forecasts, margin expectations, and return-on-investment assessments.
• Lead go-to-market planning and launch execution for new products, line extensions, and strategic growth initiatives.

Pricing & Commercial Strategy

• Develop and support strategic pricing approaches across the product portfolio and market segments.
• Partner with Sales and Finance to evaluate pricing, margin performance, competitive positioning, customer value, product mix, and price realization.
• Ensure pricing, product positioning, channel strategy, and marketing programs are aligned to maximize profitable growth.

Market Intelligence & Competitive Insights

• Own the company's market intelligence framework and ensure commercial decisions are informed by reliable market, customer, and competitive data.
• Manage relationships with external research organizations, industry data providers, subscriptions, and analytical resources.
• Deliver monthly, quarterly, and ad hoc analysis of market conditions, demand trends, capacity changes, pricing movements, competitive activity, and forecast outlooks.
• Identify emerging trends, technologies, applications, and customer needs that could create future growth opportunities.
• Use market intelligence to identify risks, opportunities, and potential shifts in customer and category demand.

Brand & Marketing Communications

• Serve as the owner and steward of the Pixelle brand, including brand strategy, positioning, identity, voice, and visual standards.
• Translate category and product strategies into differentiated positioning, messaging, campaigns, and customer communications.
• Own the website strategy, content, structure, accuracy, and ongoing development in partnership with the agency team and IT.
• Develop and maintain demand-generation tools and content across online and offline channels.
• Oversee digital and social channels, including LinkedIn and Facebook, with responsibility for content strategy, editorial calendars, engagement, and channel growth.
• Partner with HR and other internal stakeholders on employee communications that connect mill and corporate audiences to company strategy, performance, products, and priorities.
• Manage public relations and external communications in partnership with agency resources.
• Develop integrated demand-generation strategies aligned with category priorities, target customers, channels, and growth objectives.
• Partner with Sales to develop customer-specific campaigns, sales tools, presentations, product materials, competitive briefs, and other enablement resources.
• Develop channel marketing strategies that support growth, customer retention, cross-selling, and market expansion.
• Plan and execute tradeshows, merchant events, customer-facing programs, and other industry activities
• Deliver market research summaries and competitive briefs specifically designed to support customer conversations and sales opportunities.

Marketing Technology & Commercial Systems

• Provide strategic ownership and day-to-day oversight of marketing technology platforms that support the commercial organization.
• Provide business ownership and governance of the HubSpot CRM environment, including commercial process design, data quality standards, dashboard reporting, user training, and adoption.
• Oversee the effective use of CMS, digital asset management, PIM, marketing automation, and other platforms supporting the commercial organization.

People, Agency & Cross-Functional Leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop the Product Management organization to create a high-performing, commercially focused organization.
• Establish clear priorities, objectives, accountability, and performance measures across the function.
• Direct the outsourced agency team as an extension of the internal organization, setting priorities, scopes, timelines, approvals, budgets, and quality standards.
• Build and manage relationships with external partners across research, public relations, creative, digital, technology, legal, print, fulfillment, and other specialized services.
• Build a culture of accountability, collaboration, innovation, and commercial focus.
• Operate effectively within a lean organization by combining strategic leadership with hands-on execution.

Budget & Performance Management

• Own and govern the annual marketing budget, including planning, resource allocation, forecasting, and variance reporting.
• Allocate marketing investments across categories, segments, products, channels, and programs based on strategic priorities and expected return.
• Establish KPIs and performance reporting for marketing, product management, category growth, demand generation, portfolio productivity, and commercial effectiveness.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Communications, or a related field required
• 10+ years of progressive B2B marketing, product management, and/or commercial strategy experience, including at least 5 years in a leadership capacity, with significant experience in manufacturing, industrial materials, paper, packaging, or a comparable process industry.
• Demonstrated experience leading product and portfolio management across the full product lifecycle, including positioning, pricing, portfolio optimization, and commercialization.
• Experience developing and executing annual integrated marketing plans that generate measurable commercial demand.
• Demonstrated financial and commercial acumen, including margin analysis, pricing strategy, business-case development, and ROI evaluation.
• Hands-on CRM experience - preferably HubSpot - including administration, process design, reporting, user training, and adoption.
• Experience with market research methods, industry data sources, competitive intelligence, and translating analysis into commercial recommendations.
• Proven ability to manage external agencies, vendors, and significant marketing budgets.
• Strong executive-level written, verbal, and presentation skills.
• Collaborative, hands-on leader who is comfortable operating as both a strategic leader and a "player-coach" in a lean organization.