About Stanford Seed
Stanford Seed is a Stanford Graduate School of Business-led initiative working to end the cycle of global poverty. We partner with entrepreneurs across Africa, Indonesia, and South Asia to build thriving enterprises that transform lives, delivering world-class business training and resources to founders and CEOs. To date, Seed has partnered with more than 3,000 entrepreneurs across 43 countries, whose companies have added $2.1 billion in revenues to local economies and impacted 2 million livelihoods.
Seed runs a continuum of programs across company stages, from the flagship Seed Transformation Program to Aspire and Seed Spark, supported by a global network of program participants, coaches, consultants, and student interns. A small central Marketing & Communications team at Stanford functions as an in-house agency for Seed’s initiatives, leading participant recruitment across 40+ countries and supporting five international offices and satellite locations.
About the Position
Seed's marketing and communications work has grown dramatically in scope, and we are adding a senior team member to lead the systems, platforms, and automation behind it. Reporting to the Director of Marketing & Communications, the Associate Director of Marketing Systems makes sure our technology runs reliably today, while shaping how our team will work, even better, tomorrow.
The most exciting opportunity within this role is the forward-looking aspects. As our core systems stabilize, this role increasingly becomes the person who finds and brings in new tools, leveraging AI, that let our small team do far more than our size suggests. You are naturally curious about what's next, use data and evidence to decide what's worth adopting, train our team on new tools, and enjoy bringing a good idea all the way through to something our team actually uses.
Preparation for our annual recruitment cycle is when this role is at its busiest, when landing pages, tracking, forms, and email and WhatsApp journeys all have to work across the many countries we recruit in, where connectivity and devices vary widely. You will take ownership of outcomes and bring strong technical judgment, sharing your recommendations as proposals open to input rather than final answers. You'll work comfortably with a small, fast-moving team and be ready to pitch in across our broader work when needed.
Your Primary Responsibilities
Recruitment campaign systems and project management. Serve as project manager for the annual recruitment campaign, turning requirements into a plan with clear owners and deadlines across every workstream (ads, landing pages, tracking, forms, and journeys), and keeping each phase on schedule ahead of the fixed campaign window. Working with the directors of both IT and communications, as well as external contractors, you will oversee the technical foundation of the campaign, including landing page performance for mobile-first, lower-bandwidth audiences, and coordinate accurate tracking and attribution (Google Tag Manager, analytics, UTMs). You'll lead the development/refinement/maintenance of campaign dashboards for monitoring and year-on-year comparison, giving us the visibility to make real-time decisions.
Marketing automation and journeys. In partnership with Seed's IT team who share responsibility for platform administration and data infrastructure, you will manage our marketing automation platforms (Pardot, GupShup, and related tools). Design and maintain automated email and WhatsApp journeys across the recruitment funnel and program communications, keep our data and list segmentation clean, and provide the metrics required for decision-making.
Vendor and contractor management. Manage day-to-day relationships with technical contractors, from web developers to paid media and tracking specialists. Set clear briefs and standards, verify their work and on-time delivery, and ensure Seed retains ownership of its critical accounts and platforms.
Systems that help us scale. In collaboration with our Assistant Director, Communications, build the systems that let our small team serve as a global one, including a request intake process for regional teams, template library and collaborator guidelines, and shared content calendars.
Innovation and AI integration. Leveraging AI advancements and integrations, evaluate, pilot, and implement new tools that improve our team's efficiency, personalization, and reach. Lead the integration of our chosen platforms (currently Claude, Google Workspace, and Slack), connecting them to team workflows and knowledge, setting standards for their use, and training our GSB-based communications team, as well as our new internationally-based communications coordinators so our whole team benefits.
Core Duties
- Lead the planning and operations for programs or functions that have significant business, regulatory and/or technical challenges requiring subject matter expertise.
- Evaluate programs or functions, policies and procedures. Identify issues, and develop alternative solutions which may include changes to programs, policies and procedures.
- Review and analyze trends to advise and develop recommendations to achieve or modify the goals of the program or function.
- Represent the program or function within the department, unit or school. Commit resources and provide information and/or training. Represent the program or function at the university level and/or to external/internal stakeholders and constituencies.
- Manage and contribute to the development of outreach strategy that may include relationship development, communications and compliance.
- May develop and/or oversee budgets; manage finances including monitoring, analyzing, forecasting, and reporting.
- Assess training needs and may develop associated training.
- May direct and/or supervise staff.
Minimum Education and Experience
Bachelor’s degree and five years of relevant experience, or combination of education and relevant experience.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
- Demonstrated ability to establish priorities, manage shifting priorities, and handle numerous time-sensitive projects with multiple deadlines.
- Ability to accomplish goals working through formal and informal channels, with diplomacy and tactfulness.
- Demonstrated creativity, problem solving, critical analysis, initiative, judgment and, decision-making skills.
- Demonstrated ability to develop and meet budget goals.
- Demonstrated solid planning and organizational skills.
- Demonstrated experience working independently and as part of a team.
- Excellent interpersonal, written and oral communication skills.
- Strong relevant subject matter knowledge.
- Ability to direct the work of others, for jobs requiring supervision.