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HARRY’S COMMENTS: We are working with a confidential financial services firm in their search for a world-class VP of Client Digital. This is a hybrid role that will require that you work two days per week from one of the firm’s offices located in Illinois, Wisconsin, or Minnesota. During my initial pitch to you, I can share with you a complete list of those locations.

Before reading further, here’s how this search ends:

It ends with me recruiting a world-class CX A-player with 1./ a deeply analytical bias, 2./ an extensive background in financial services, and 3./ proven project management chops … PLUS A./ organizational agility, B./ client empathy, and C./ significant experience partnering with marketing and technology to drive the firm’s complete consumer / client digital experience.

Not quite a unicorn hunt, but almost.

A lot of what I’m looking for won’t appear on a Linkedin profile, which is why the client is using an ecommerce recruiter. The job has a LOT of moving parts: This is a complicated business, and the financial services industry is moving fast.

Moreover, you’ll be reporting to one of the smartest hiring managers I’ve ever worked with. She’s loaded with C-level (and Board-level) ecom experience, and she has really high standards. They’re not unreasonably high, but if you’re a High B / Low A-player and you’re hoping somehow to mask that during the interviews, don’t bother. This won’t be the role for you.

About the Company

Since the VP of Client Digital will be marketing to both businesses and consumers (aka, clients), a well-rounded DTC growth-marketing approach would be relevant.

My client’s organization was founded eight years ago through a merger of three different companies, but its lineage goes back roughly a hundred years. There is a massive amount of goodwill toward them in the markets they serve: Very strong affinity. Excellent brand awareness. Sky-high NPS. The organization’s customers know it and love it.

My client exists to help both agriculture and rural communities thrive, a mission that is well-served by the fact that it is a co-op.

Co-ops are for-profit. But instead of having to hit quarterly or annual targets because their institution is publicly traded, my client is wholly owned by its members. This means that the organization itself does better when the businesses and consumers it serves THRIVE, and the fact that it serves businesses and consumers in the agricultural space is part of its CHARTER.

Normally, I wouldn’t go into such detail about a client’s ownership structure.

But in this case, please know that the firm has the ability to make very long-term decisions about its business. It’s powerfully vested in the financial health of its stakeholders — and that’s going to mean a lot as you start making decisions about its digital model.

Most of the organization’s business transacts in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois. The rest is national. Every aspect of its business is growing, and it looks forward to increasing its presence within AND outside of its core states, where its charter and capabilities differ.

That’s where you come in.

As the organization’s new VP of Client Digital, you will lead its strategy and roadmap for enterprise-wide digital and mobile. It will fall to YOU to ensure that the organization delivers an exceptional digital experience across all stages of engagement with its brands, and across each type online event, tool, report, and resource.

That means delivering on a multi-product, multi-channel, multi-touch, multi-device roadmap focused on client acquisition, onboarding, and engagement in a seamless, frictionless way.

These days, there’s an awful lot happening in the financial services industry, and the rate of change has never been higher. Your job is to make sure the organization stays ahead of that in a way that makes a difference to its clients.

The organization offers financial products and services in multiple industries to multiple types of consumers in multiple categories, across multiple sites.

Primarily, it services agri-businesses and related consumers.

Now, it’s one thing to know a ton about integrated CX. It’s another thing to know about financial services. But it’s a whole ‘nother ball-of-wax to know about agricultural economics.

In this role, you’ll need to understand how B2B growers, farmers, packers, small business owners, and rural financial services consumers THINK and ACT, and how such biases inform their financial lives and decisions.

To win in this role, you do NOT need to be an agricultural economist. But you DO need to be able to wrap your brain around the basics of Ag financing.

Your job is to help the firm’s clients feel confident about their farms and their families’ future. To feel smarter. Better prepared for life. More risk-aware and in control. And to do that, you and your team will need to see the world through your clients’ eyes.

You and your team will lead and grow THREE sites:

1./ A home mortgage site with a focus on rural markets, which will launch in the first quarter. It will look like it’s live in January, but it won’t be live until March. That site will be focused on the consumer mortgage market. Competitors would be any major financial institution as well as RocketMortgage. That consumer is different than a core farmer.

2./ The organization’s main site, which offers commercial and business financial services to farmers and agribusinesses.

3./ A third site, which provides secondary market agriculture loans. It offers a range of long-term loans for farm and ranch real estate, as well as appraisal services. The site primarily serves agricultural lenders, including community banks, nationwide banks, and agricultural finance companies, helping them expand their agricultural loan portfolios.

Variously, the sites …

• offer rate information,
• host specific informational, educational, or promotional content, tools, and events,
• help clients to access their accounts and other services, and
• serve a range of purposes, from offering general information to client-specific services like online banking and account management.

For each of those sites, you’ll be working with Marketing to get the right people into the right slot in the right funnel at the right time, then helping them make better decisions with more useful and engaging content as they make their way down the funnel. As you “work the building,” you’ll need to think in part like a product manager.

The keys to turning each funnel into a greased chute will be better data, content, and personalization.

• How do we get really clear on who our target clients are (and what they NEED)?
• How do we move those clients to and through the funnel?

That’s a combination of driving greater awareness of the brand, but it’s also making sure the CONTENT gets marketed effectively.

And: What does that AI-proof content look like? Again, some of the organization’s clients are Gen-Z’ers. Others are Boomers. You’ll be designing / testing / optimizing / personalizing for BOTH.

I spent a ton of time on the phone with the client teasing out exactly what you’ll need to KNOW and DO to hit the ground running in this role. Some of the things I can share with highly qualified candidates include …

1. The “real” background requirements for this position, along with the top five things all resumes MUST have to be considered for the role.
2. The top five problems that exist due to this position being open. These are the little brush fires you will be expected to put out during your first month on the job. Every ecommerce job has these — and this one’s no different.
3. What your average day/week will look like in this role. There’s what you read in the standard ecommerce job posting … then there’s reality. We’ve got the reality.
4. The leading and lagging KPIs that will determine your success in this role. In a nutshell: How you’ll keep score.
5. The major projects you’ll need to complete by Day 100 to be considered a home run in this position. We’ve got the lowdown on how you can plug-and-play and drive REAL value in this ecommerce job.

I have quite a bit of proprietary intel to share with qualified candidates. My industry research for this assignment exceeds 100 pages! Be sure to TEXT me, Harry Joiner, at (404) 281-2025 for this info. Or simply use the email link when you apply for the role below.

Digital Client Roadmap and Strategy

• Sets the vision and digital strategy, communicating the roadmap across a wide range of teams. Delivers strategic leadership in the evolution and impact of digital and mobile banking. Identifies and evaluates digital opportunities, driving competitive advantage and enhancing client value.
• Collaborates with Marketing to develop strategies to drive digital adoption and self-service while enhancing and ensuring a consistent and positive digital client experience.
• Develops and leads the SEO strategy to ensure top search engine rankings and deliver personalized content across all client journeys. Prioritize SEO to establish authority in key areas, collaborating with the marketing team to integrate SEO insights into the broader paid search and site search strategies.
• Develops and implements a comprehensive content strategy for the websites that align with the overall marketing calendar and addresses each stage of the customer funnel. Designs targeted strategies for different customer segments and collaborates closely with creative and marketing teams to brief and create assets that bring product and client stories to life on the website.
• Measures the performance of these assets and strategically leverages them with various audiences using personalization techniques.

Digital Client Experience

• Oversees secured digital experiences, enabling clients to manage funds, pay bills, and optimize capital, using full-funnel web metrics to enhance the client experience, collaborating with Research and Client Experience (CX) teams to gain a deep understanding of the client experience. Partners with Business Technology (BT), leveraging an agile format to bring the roadmap to life.
• Oversees multiple public sites, utilizing expertise in personas and the marketing technology (Martech) stack to create engaging content and drive client interactions through various channels. Collaborates with Marketing and Business Technology (BT) to deliver hyper-personalized website experiences.
• Champions the understanding and strategic use of the full suite of Martech tools, including personalization, testing, tagging, and landing pages. Drives the usage and adoption across teams to maximize their effectiveness.
• Leads the analysis and understanding of risk, fraud, and compliance requirements in digital channels. Collaborates with BT and Operations leadership to design, implement, and oversee effective mitigating controls.
• Partners with Sales and Operations leadership to ensure the roadmap delivers the desired omnichannel experience through the full funnel.
• Oversees the systematic use of analytics and client feedback to uncover opportunities, track and optimize key performance indicators (KPIs), and inform decision-making.
• Partners with BT to leverage agile teams and methodologies to develop stories, size efforts, and create metrics to optimize sprint-level throughput.
• Utilizes data analytics and insights to foster a test-and-learn culture, informing decision-making processes and driving data-driven strategies.
• Owns, tracks, and reports on goals and KPIs using data-driven insights.

Leadership and Team Management

• Champions the brand; serves as a role model for the vision, mission, core values, and key belief statements of the organization.
• Promotes a positive work environment that leverages the talents and abilities of team members in achieving organizational and team goals.
• Communicates business expectations and goals to team and is responsible for team’s results.
• Collaborate closely with IT and other departments to ensure resource prioritization aligns with business goals.
• Drives continuous process improvement, change management, use of technology, and develops best practices within the team.
• Ensure timely and on-budget delivery of products on the digital roadmap while clearly communicating progress and expectations to internal teams and partners.
• Manages team workloads and adjusts as needed in order to remain as efficient as possible.
• Provides work guidance and direction.
• Coaches the team and identifies future successors for key roles.

Strategic Leadership

• Champions client digital products across business units and departments.
• Is responsible for ensuring products are aligned with business objectives and strategy.
• Actively participate in leadership and executive discussions and planning sessions.
• Develop, own, and manage comprehensive digital business plans, including timelines and milestones.
• Provide strategic leadership and oversight for the design, implementation, troubleshooting, and training of new features and functionality.
• Identifies products and services to develop and/or purchase through client feedback, research, and industry networking.
• Reviews client-facing capabilities and anticipates future function requirements.
• Develops strong relationships with other leaders across the bank to enhance the Team Relationship Model.
• Serves on various formal and informal organization teams and committees to further the bank’s mission and vision.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, marketing, agribusiness, or related field or an equivalent combination of education and experience sufficient to perform the essential functions of the job.
• Ten or more years of leadership and management experience preferred, with a track record of hiring, leading, and training high-performing digital teams.
• Proven experience in full-funnel web metrics, including the ability to analyze, interpret, and optimize data to enhance and optimize the client journey and overall digital experience.
• 10 or more years of experience creating and optimizing large-scale digital experiences in financial services and an emphasis on agricultural or rural lending preferred.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Demonstrates visionary thinking and expertise in digital strategy to develop and communicate a comprehensive roadmap that enhances the entire client digital experience across the full funnel.
• Strong analytical skills, capable of identifying patterns and making data-driven decisions to enhance and elevate demand generation practices.
• Demonstrates exceptional relationship-building and consensus-building abilities.
• Expansive knowledge of industry trends and best-in-class solutions.
• Deep understanding of web content, design, and user experience to create compelling experiences.
• Extensive knowledge of client personas, age groups, and varying levels of digital engagement.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to effectively present to senior leadership.
• Strong organizational and project management skills.
• Proficient in both creative and analytical problem-solving approaches.
• Systematically uses research, analytics, and client feedback to uncover opportunities.
• Demonstrates exceptional storytelling skills, capable of bringing others along on the journey to create compelling experiences.
• Builds strong relationships and consensus across teams and stakeholders.
• Committed to understanding and improving the client experience, helping others see through the client’s eyes.
• Valid driver’s license.

Applications for this ecommerce job are being coordinated by Harry Joiner. To apply, CLICK HERE. Candidates, please be sure to email Harry for additional information that will differentiate you in your candidacy. Due to the intensely competitive nature of this search, thorough preparation for these interviews with this proprietary material is strongly recommended.