Director of Marketing and Communications
The Opportunity
Franklin Switzerland is seeking an accomplished, hands-on marketing and communications leader for an exceptional opportunity to define and drive Franklin's brand and growth at a pivotal moment. Reporting directly to the President, the Director will work in close partnership with the Vice President of Enrollment Management and the Director of Advancement and Alumni to build an integrated marketing function and advance Franklin’s Strategic Plan.
This is both a strategic and a building role. The successful candidate will own the full marketing funnel, from brand awareness through consideration and decision to enrollment, and onward to alumni and donor engagement, and will lead by example, building and developing a lean internal team while shaping and managing the external agencies and specialist vendors that extend its reach.
About Franklin Switzerland
Franklin Switzerland, founded in 1969, is one of the first institutions to bring liberal arts education to Europe and to be recognized by both U.S. and Swiss accreditation agencies. A leader in international education, Franklin provides an experiential and multinational learning environment through small classes, strong student and faculty relationships, a residential campus, and hands-on Academic Travel experiences.
With roughly 300 students from more than 60 countries, set in the safe and striking landscape of Lugano, Franklin is distinctive: an intimate residential community, a uniquely dual U.S.–Swiss accreditation, and an Academic Travel program that turns the world into a classroom. Franklin promotes intellectual curiosity and critical thinking, strives for academic excellence, and fosters interdisciplinary opportunities for its students, faculty, and staff. Franklin acknowledges the accomplishments and global impact of our community through a culture of trust that respects diversity, equity, inclusion, and continuous improvement.
The Full-Funnel Mandate
Franklin is looking for a leader who is genuinely fluent across the whole funnel, from brand to conversion, and who can hold two equally important pillars in balance rather than favoring one over the other:
- Brand marketing — defining, documenting, and protecting a distinctive Franklin voice, and building awareness, reputation, and trust among prospective students, families, alumni, and partners. Success is measured in awareness, sentiment, content engagement, and share of voice.
- Performance marketing — building the demand-generation infrastructure — CRM and marketing automation, paid acquisition, lead nurturing, and conversion-optimized web experiences — that turns awareness into inquiries, applications, enrolled students, and engaged donors. Success is measured in cost per inquiry, application conversion, yield, and return on ad spend.
The ideal candidate has run integrated campaigns where brand storytelling feeds the acquisition funnel and performance data informs the editorial calendar. A university education is a high-consideration, long-decision-cycle choice: families spend many months in research before they apply. Strong brand pre-sells Franklin so that paid acquisition works harder, while disciplined performance marketing ensures that interest converts. The Director is expected to protect both sets of metrics with equal rigor.
Key Responsibilities
Strategy & Leadership
- Lead and implement an integrated, full-funnel marketing and communications strategy spanning brand and performance in service of student recruitment, institutional reputation, and alumni and donor engagement.
- Build, lead, develop, and inspire the marketing team, establishing an operating model that blends focused internal staff with well-managed external agencies and specialist vendors.
Brand & Communications
- Champion Franklin Switzerland as the primary brand ambassador; define, document, and protect a clear and distinctive brand voice and positioning, applied consistently across every audience and channel.
- Provide editorial direction and oversee the design, production, and distribution of all marketing and communications materials, working in close collaboration with relevant colleagues, and ensure the highest level of professionalism in all written communication that represents Franklin’s voice.
- Stimulate and coordinate media interest in Franklin through press releases, media responses, and targeted media contacts, and provide expertise and advice to campus leadership on internal and external public-relations matters.
- Ensure stories featuring students, alumni, faculty, and staff are routinely shared internally and externally, and establish and maintain an up-to-date campus events calendar that uses the website homepage and social media to promote Franklin’s vibrant campus life.
Performance & Growth
- Build and own Franklin’s performance-marketing infrastructure: the CRM and marketing-automation platform, paid acquisition, lead nurturing, conversion-optimized landing pages, and the prospective-student journey from first touch to enrolled student.
- Oversee Franklin’s digital marketing efforts, including website strategy and design, brand alignment, maintenance, accessibility, search engine optimization, and overall efficacy.
- Partner closely with Enrollment Management to optimize the recruitment funnel, and with Advancement and Alumni to deepen alumni engagement and donor relationships, creating loyalty, advocacy, and lifelong connection to Franklin.
- Define and own a measurement framework with distinct KPIs for each pillar — brand health and engagement on one side; cost per inquiry, conversion, yield, and return on ad spend on the other — and report on both with equal discipline. Oversee market research, working with outside vendors as needed.
Operations & Stewardship
- In collaboration with the President, the Vice President for Finance and Administration, and the Vice President of Enrollment Management, and the Director of Advancement and Alumni, create annual budget priorities; plan and monitor expenditures and provide budget reports alongside effectiveness reports.
- Ensure efficient, clear project-management processes for the department, creating broadly shared expectations for service to internal campus constituents.
- Actively participate in campus life to maintain a deep awareness of the Franklin story as it continues to evolve, and represent Franklin through participation in regular meetings of system-wide communicators.
Experience and Qualifications
- Experience — a minimum of 10 years of progressive professional experience in marketing, communications, or advertising, including at least three to five years in a leadership or team-management capacity.
- Full-funnel track record — demonstrated experience designing and running integrated campaigns that span brand building and performance / demand generation, with evidence of moving audiences from awareness through to conversion.
- Modern marketing stack — hands-on fluency with CRM and marketing-automation tools (e.g., HubSpot or equivalent), paid media, Google Analytics, SEO, content-management systems, and conversion optimization. Knowledge of Slate and Drupal helpful.
- Agency and vendor leadership — proven experience building and managing external agencies and specialist vendors while operating effectively with a lean internal team.
- Languages — excellent written and oral communication skills in English (C1 required) and Italian (C1 preferred).
- Digital fundamentals — demonstrated experience with social media, web accessibility best practices, web content management, and web application testing.
- Higher education — A background in higher education marketing is a strong advantage — particularly experience promoting high-consideration offerings where thoughtful, long-cycle decision-making is the norm.
- Disposition — a demonstrated appetite for innovation and eagerness to keep learning as new media emerge; professionalism appropriate to represent the campus with internal and external audiences, including major partners; and the interpersonal competence, initiative, listening, and emotional intelligence required to thrive in a highly collegial, international environment.
- Familiarity with both the Swiss and U.S. media environments, including experience developing media relationships and navigating communications strategies across both markets (preferred).
Key Competencies for Franklin Leaders
- Strategic vision
- Leading and inspiring
- Self-awareness
- Fostering uniqueness
- Effectiveness
- Continuously evolving
Position Type
Full-time, on-campus position based in Lugano, Switzerland. Applicants can expect a welcoming, international, and intercultural working and academic environment, filled with a strong sense of companionship and belonging.
How to Apply
For consideration by the search committee, candidates are asked to submit the following documents in PDF format at MarketingSearch@fus.edu:
- A current CV detailing relevant experience and publications;
- A letter of interest that addresses the key areas of this job description;
- Contact information for three references, two of which must be former direct supervisors.
- A PowerPoint with 2-3 examples of full-funnel campaigns the candidate has led
Please note that, due to Swiss visa and work-permit regulations, applications from Swiss or EU nationals will be given priority in the evaluation process.
Franklin Switzerland is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
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