VP, NA Marketing, Kate Spade

Since its launch in 1993 with a collection of six essential handbags, Kate Spade New York has always been colorful, bold, and optimistic. Today, it is a global lifestyle brand that designs extraordinary things for the everyday, delivering seasonal collections of handbags, ready-to-wear, jewelry, footwear, home décor, and more. Known for its rich heritage and unique brand DNA, Kate Spade New York offers a distinctive point of view and celebrates communities of women around the globe who live their perfectly imperfect lifestyles. 

Kate Spade New York is part of the Tapestry portfolio – a global house of brands committed to stretching what’s possible.

A member of the Tapestry family, we are part of a global house of brands that has unwavering optimism and is committed to being innovative and wholly inclusive. Visit Our People page to learn more about Tapestry's commitment to equity, inclusion, and diversity.

Primary Purpose:

The Vice President, North America (NA) Marketing will help create and execute Kate Spade NA retail, outlet and wholesale strategic marketing initiatives in support of the global marketing strategy and with a key focus on consumers. They must put strong focus on preparing the organization for the future from a marketing perspective, helping build a consumer-centric, digital first NA Marketing team. They will build innovative marketing and consumer strategies that elevate brand positioning, communications strategies, and personalization across all touch points – ultimately driving customer acquisition, retention and engagement. 

As a senior member of the Marketing and North America leadership teams, the VP will be responsible for developing the strategic direction of the Marketing function and supporting the overall growth strategy for Kate Spade NA. They will help elevate the brand and drive customer engagement. This person will play a crucial role in driving a consistent brand proposition, defining the marketing strategy for the future and making sure the organization is digitally ready for the next phase of growth, with a strong focus on a consumer-centric approach. They will contribute thought leadership to the organization, demonstrating a strong sense of brand, product, and unwavering customer focus – fostering a progressive spirit of innovation in the team.

This position requires building critical partnerships with Kate Spade Global Marketing, NA E-Commerce, Global Customer Experience, Visual Experience, Channel (Retail, Outlet and Wholesale) Leadership and the Tapestry Digital Center of Excellence. Close collaboration, alignment and communication with international marketing peers will also be expected.

The successful individual will possess:

• The ideal candidate is a proven innovator in marketing with an ability to strategize and execute compelling brand marketing initiatives.  They must have a deep understanding of customer profile and segmentation, and the ability to develop brand elevating contact strategy/marketing programs that focus investment against high-impact segments and acquisition. 

• This leader has had experience setting and implementing marketing strategies that incorporate a holistic, cross-channel (Retail, Outlet, Wholesale) marketing view across all touch points with an ability to leverage customer insight and business intelligence to drive results in a brand enhancing way and empirically measure effectiveness. 

• The role requires demonstrated strategy development, leadership, ability to establish positive relationships, influencing, strong analytical skills, and communication skills, along with a passion for results.

The accomplished individual will possess...

• Envision and activate an omni-channel marketing strategy while utilizing customer segmentation capabilities
• Oversee media planning across all channels, have a deep understanding of brand and customer, and develop targeted marketing initiatives to address various profiles while achieving key targets
• Link multiple sources of data and consumer insights to create a cohesive consumer story across multiple regions and channels
• Closely partner with the internal business teams and agencies, ensuring marketing strategies are fully aligned with business priorities and demands, including:
  • Development and execution of seasonal marketing strategies, partnering with cross-functional teams Creative, Marketing Operations, PR, Visual Merchandising and Buying
• Create and leverage personalized and strategic customer communications to strengthen brand story telling
• Collaborate closely with the Tapestry Digital Center of Excellence to maximize marketing channel execution, effectiveness/ROI and capability development
• Develop and lead a diverse team that rewards independent thinkers who drive the brand vision forward and are accountable for business results
• Develop regional marketing strategies to build local business through relevant local partnerships and targeted customer-focused initiatives
• Develop strategies to increase acquisition and retention of profitable customers
• Develop and execute marketing plans to support market level strategies
• Develop, monitor, and demonstrate an ROI of the marketing budget, including accountability of performance-driven marketing
• Lead the Wholesale Marketing team, supporting the growing business needs for all product categories.

  Experience Profile:

• 15+ years in marketing roles, preferably with lifestyle brands
• Strong leadership experience managing a broad range of teams
• Experience with the range of marketing/media vehicles, including digital and social media, event marketing, and CRM programs including direct mail and email
• Event and experiential marketing background, with oversight or close partnership with PR and Brand events teams 
• Exceptional quantitative skills and a track record of driving and measuring results across channels
• Proven ability to assess talent, build talent capabilities, and coach/mentor and motivate/inspire a high-performing team
• Exposure to a global brand and matrixed environment

Character and Personal Attributes:

• Adept at building and nurturing relationships at multiple levels across the organization
• Proactive in identifying and chasing growth opportunities
• Trend focused and culturally curious
• Comfortable with ambiguity
• Action oriented, scrappy self-starter with an obsessive attention to detail
• Believes in risk-taking and testing ideas, iterating & learning – both from successes and failures
• Takes ownership and drives accountability across the organization
• Passionate about customer experience

Our Competencies for All Employees

• Courage: Doesn’t hold back anything that needs to be said; provides current, direct, complete, and “actionable” positive and corrective feedback to others; lets people know where they stand; faces up to people problems on any person or situation (not including direct reports) quickly and directly; is not afraid to take negative action when necessary.
• Creativity: Comes up with a lot of new and unique ideas; easily makes connections among previously unrelated notions; tends to be seen as original and value-added in brainstorming settings.
• Customer Focus: Is dedicated to meeting the expectations and requirements of internal and external customers; gets first-hand customer information and uses it for improvements in products and services; acts with customers in mind; establishes and maintains effective relationships with customers and gains their trust and respect.
• Dealing with Ambiguity: Can effectively cope with change; can shift gears comfortably; can decide and act without having the total picture; isn’t upset when things are up in the air; doesn’t have to finish things before moving on; can comfortably handle risk and uncertainty.
• Drive for Results: Can be counted on to exceed goals successfully; is constantly and consistently one of the top performers; very bottom-line oriented; steadfastly pushes self and others for results.
• Interpersonal Savvy: Relates well to all kinds of people, up, down, and sideways, inside and outside the organization; builds appropriate rapport; builds constructive and effective relationships; uses diplomacy and tact; can diffuse even high-tension situations comfortably.
• Learning on the Fly: Learns quickly when facing new problems; a relentless and versatile learner; open to change; analyzes both successes and failures for clues to improvement; experiments and will try anything to find solutions; enjoys the challenge of unfamiliar tasks; quickly grasps the essence and the underlying structure of anything.

Our Competencies for All People Managers

• Strategic Agility: Sees ahead clearly; can anticipate future consequences and trends accurately; has broad knowledge and perspective; is future oriented; can articulately paint credible pictures and visions of possibilities and likelihoods; can create competitive and breakthrough strategies and plans.
• Developing Direct Reports and Others: Provides challenging and stretching tasks and assignments; holds frequent development discussions; is aware of each person's career goals; constructs compelling development plans and executes them; pushes people to accept developmental moves; will take on those who need help and further development; cooperates with the developmental system in the organization; is a people builder.
• Building Effective Teams: Blends people into teams when needed; creates strong morale and spirit in their team; shares wins and successes; fosters open dialogue; lets people finish and be responsible for their work; defines success in terms of the whole team; creates a feeling of belonging in the team.

Kate Spade is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer and we pride ourselves on hiring and developing the best people. All employment decisions (including recruitment, hiring, promotion, compensation, transfer, training, discipline and termination) are based on the applicant's or employee's qualifications as they relate to the requirements of the position under the consideration. These decisions are made without regard to age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic characteristics, race, color, creed, religion, ethnicity, national origin, alienage, citizenship, disability, marital status, military status, pregnancy, or any other legally-recognized protected basis prohibited by applicable law. Visit Kate Spade at www.katespade.com.