Director of Retail Advertising and Marketing

Job Description

Job DescriptionDescription:

Director of Retail Advertising & Marketing – A High-Impact Leadership Role!

Location: Madison, WI | Company: Certco, Inc.

Are you a strategic marketing leader with a passion for retail, digital innovation, and team development? Certco Inc. is seeking an experienced and forward-thinking Director of Retail Advertising & Marketing to lead a talented team and drive our omnichannel strategy to new heights.

This is not just another marketing role—this is a high-impact, high-visibility opportunity to shape the voice, brand, and strategy of one of the Midwest’s leading grocery wholesale distributors. With eight direct reports and a growing scope, this is a prime chance to step into a career-defining leadership position.

What You’ll Do:

• Lead the planning, creation, and delivery of over 50 custom weekly ads and digital assets for our retailers.
• Shape and execute Certco’s omnichannel marketing strategy with a focus on digital transformation.
• Build strong partnerships across merchandising, executive leadership, and major CPGs.
• Coach and develop a high-performing team, while aligning marketing initiatives with business goals.
• Manage marketing and advertising budgets with strategic insight and financial discipline.
• Drive collaboration, innovation, and customer-focused marketing strategies that generate results.

Why This Role Matters:

This role sits at the intersection of strategy, innovation, and execution. As Certco evolves its digital presence and deepens relationships with its retail and vendor partners, this position is critical to driving revenue, elevating the customer experience, and enhancing our competitive edge.

What We’re Looking For:

• 15+ years in advertising/marketing, with proven leadership in omnichannel strategies
• Experience managing diverse marketing teams and large-scale budgets
• A strong understanding of the grocery/retail/CPG industry
• Ability to navigate complex relationships with clarity, empathy, and vision
• Strategic thinker who is data-driven, shopper-first, and passionate about results
• Bachelor’s degree required; MBA preferred

Why Certco?

We’re proud to be a Top Employer in 2024 and 2025, offering an outstanding culture, supportive leadership, and benefits that stand out in the industry. At Certco, your voice is heard, your impact is felt, and your growth is our priority.

Ready to lead bold marketing initiatives and make a difference? Apply now and help shape the future of retail with Certco.

Requirements:

Job Summary

The Director of Retail Advertising & Marketing is an experienced strategic manager who works cross-functionally with our external retailers and internal merchandising team to generate incremental marketing support through planning and strengthened relationships that drive top-line sales and bottom-line revenue for our retailers and for Certco. The Director utilizes and oversees a team of eight, including the graphic design team and marketing support team to execute on the above vision.

Essential Job Functions

• Retail Advertising: Leads team through successful planning, creation, customizing and proof of approximately 50 weekly ads for our retailers, and related digital assets.
• Functional Strategy Formation: Lead the development of omnichannel marketing strategies, with a focus on the digital marketing road map to maximize CPG investment and deliver omnichannel promotion to drive sales.
• Digital Marketing Plan Execution: Oversee execution of digital marketing plan by setting and managing all digital channel leads and sales objectives.
• Digital Marketing Strategy and Roadmap: Lead the development of omnichannel marketing strategy with a focus on digital marketing roadmap that will enable the best brand positioning and calendar promotional planning.
• Ambassador of Digital Marketing Capabilities: Effectively communicate the omnichannel roadmap with the internal executive team and senior leadership. Collaborate with the merchandising team to communicate omnichannel reach and breadth to senior leaders of the CPG community for active participation. Regularly educate merchandising team on topline sales and bottom-line results from omnichannel execution to drive investment flywheel and adoption of planning and execution.
• Joint Business Planning: Collaborate with internal merchandising team to gain alignment on annual business plans and key measurements of success. Joint CPG business planning to include accurate representation of touchpoints, packages and calendar buy in. KPI’s identified and outcomes shared rapidly. Evaluation and analysis of events resulting in prompt refinement to maximize future opportunities for all stakeholders.
• Leadership: Clearly communicate the omnichannel strategy and its integral relationship with Certco’s mission, vision and values. Coach and develop direct reports and emulate the mission to achieve the organization’s business objectives.
• Financial Objectives: Take responsibility for setting and managing omnichannel budgets to align with Certco’s strategy and fulfill obligations and deliver expected results. Properly budget and track all expenses in the advertising and marketing profit and loss statement to ensure appropriate spend control.
• Omnichannel Business Strategy: Provide authoritative expertise to the leadership team, retailers, small & nationally based CPG’s and Certco to guide the implementation of policy, design, and implementation of projects and critical change initiatives.
• Engagement with Stakeholders: Identify, maintain and manage key stakeholders within Certco, CPG community and Retail to uncover their needs/issues/concerns and addressing these by leading a coordinated effort to engage plans and support the communication of business information and outcome.
• Build Organizational Capability: Stay current on trends and innovation in the marketplace. Share information freely for the greater good of the organization. Identify gaps in current capabilities to deliver budgeted financial goals. Prioritize development and / or maximizing potential of given omnichannel outlets. Motivate the team to develop and fulfill their personal potential. Coach elsewhere in the organization to maximize knowledgebase and foster growth in others.
• Is regular in attendance and complies with the Company Attendance Policy

Key Competencies

• Demonstrates Resilience – quickly rebounds from setbacks and adversity when facing difficult situations and challenges.
• Embodies a Strategic Mindset – looks ahead to future possibilities and translates them into breakthrough strategies while leveraging strategic leadership and alignment with internal and external stakeholders.
• Drives Results – Consistently achieves results, even under tough circumstances.
• Manages Ambiguity – Operates effectively, even when things are uncertain and/or the path forward is unclear.
• Ensures Accountability – Holds self and others accountable to meet internal and external commitments.
• Optimizes Work Process – plans and prioritizes work to meet commitments that align with corporate goals. Knows the most effective and efficient process to get the job done but always looks to continuously improve. Provides room for risks and can quickly implement contingency plans to continue process to maximum outcome. Process is planned to work cross functionally and with ease through all stakeholders. Plans ahead for additional resources needs to achieve outcome.
• Embraces Complexity – can breakdown complex situations with multiple touchpoints, multiple stakeholders and possible conflicting potential outcomes to become win-win-win situations by finding common ground and address the uniqueness without jeopardizing the best outcome.
• Drives Vision, High Standards and Purpose-Tells the story and paints the vision in a way that motivates others and encourages buy in. Allow the team to take credit for their efforts and contributions that result in a positive outcome.
• Build Effective Teams - Support and promote an atmosphere of sharing and honest feedback to gain trust and increase positive outcomes. Recognizes that diverse skillsets and perspectives paint a well-rounded perspective to achieve common goals and objectives.
• Instills Trust – Gains the confidence and trust of others by being honest, having integrity and being authentic.
• Fosters Collaboration - Builds partnerships with all stakeholders and provides vision with each on how to meet shared objectives.
• Communicates Effectively – develops and delivers multi-mode communication that convey a clear understanding of the unique needs of different audiences.
• Customer focus – Builds strong customer relationships and delivers customer-centric solutions
• Financial Acumen – Interprets and applies understanding of key financial indicators to make better business decisions.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Must possess the ability to operate successfully within the organization, working effectively with multiple groups, internally and externally.
• Excellent management skills, negotiation skills, verbal and written communication skills, as well as solid quantitative and analytical skills required.
• Must effectively provide fact-based recommendations across a variety of management levels resulting in buy-in and improvement in category performance to achieve overall sales and revenue objectives.
• Must be self-directed and highly motivated, possessing a strong business acumen, sound interpersonal skills and excellent presentation skills, with the ability to efficiently communicate to multiple levels in the organization.
• Proven leadership and experience managing direct reports required.
• Marketing / Merchandising Commercialization – is the organizational authority on developing the best possible commercial proposition that fulfills all stakeholder needs (Certco, Member, Vendor) across all channels.
• Technical Acumen – ability to engage with technical teams to identify gaps and leverage synergies across platforms
• Project / Process Management – drives process change and project management through training to deliver a desired outcome while managing cost, time and quality measurement.
• Has very strong interpersonal skills, including the ability to lead with influence, patience and resilience
• Highly collaborative, but willing to make the decision
• Excellent analytical acumen, data driven – but shopper first mentality creating a win-win-win (Certco– Retailer – Vendor)
• Strategic thinking – solving wholesaler, retailer, shopper, and vendor partner problems by connecting the dots and touchpoints

Education and Experience:

• BS or BA degree, MBA preferred
• 15+ years of experience in relevant advertising and/or marketing roles

Certco is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.