Director, Marketing Communications Operations

About Core Education

Core Education partners with small and mid-sized colleges and universities, providing embedded leadership across HR, finance, technology, and academic operations. We help institutions navigate complex challenges and build sustainable operational infrastructure — enabling them to focus on their mission of student success.

About The Role

We're looking for a Director, Marketing Communications Operations to build the systems, processes, and infrastructure that power Core's marketing and communications engine. This is a high-impact, cross-functional role for someone who thrives on turning complexity into clarity — designing scalable workflows, managing significant contractor budgets, and giving marketing leadership the visibility they need to make smart, fast decisions.

You'll own the operational backbone behind our marketing initiatives: from budget lifecycle management and vendor relationships to KPI dashboards and process governance. If you're energized by building infrastructure that lets creative and strategic teams do their best work — and you want to see your impact reflected directly in campaign performance, enrollment growth, and organizational efficiency — this role is for you.

What You'll Do

• Own marketing operations end-to-end: Drive operational planning, process design, and workflow optimization across all marketing and communications initiatives.
• Manage the contractor budget lifecycle: Lead forecasting, vendor selection, contract negotiation, project scoping, invoicing, and financial tracking for 1099 contractors.
• Build project management infrastructure: Establish frameworks, timelines, and accountability structures that keep cross-functional marketing campaigns on track and on time.
• Deliver visibility through data: Develop KPI dashboards, attribution methodology, funnel reporting, and measurement standards that inform strategic decisions at the leadership level.
• Manage the MarTech stack: Evaluate, procure, license, and optimize marketing technology platforms and strategic vendors.
• Drive continuous improvement: Identify bottlenecks, propose solutions, and implement process enhancements that increase speed-to-market and campaign quality.
• Set governance standards: Establish SOPs, QA/UAT processes, intake workflows, and knowledge management practices across the marketing function.
• Partner with leadership: Serve as a strategic thought partner on resource planning, capacity management, and operational trade-offs.

Qualifications

• 8-10+ years of progressive experience in marketing operations, project management, or a related field
• A proven track record managing marketing budgets of $500K+ with strong fiscal discipline
• Extensive experience managing external contractors, agencies, and vendor relationships
• Advanced project management skills, with hands-on proficiency in tools like Asana, Monday.com, Trello, Jira, or Confluence
• Strong financial acumen — budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, and P&L oversight
• Comfort with marketing analytics and reporting tools (Google Analytics, Tableau, Excel, Power BI)
• Experience in fast-paced, high-growth environments — EdTech, SaaS, or higher education strongly preferred
• A collaborative leadership style that builds trust and drives alignment without formal direct reports
• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Communications, Operations Management, or related field (MBA or Master's preferred)
• PMP certification preferred; MarTech or marketing operations certifications a plus