Maternity Leave Cover Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Role Summary
Anthropologie is seeking a Director of Digital Marketing and Paid Media. This role begins as a 6-month maternity leave cover for our Sr. Director, Digital Marketing & Paid Media, with the intent to transition into a permanent Director position upon their return - anchored in building and leading a formal media planning function across the marketing organization.
We're looking for someone who can step in quickly, lead with confidence, and leave the org stronger than they found it. That means two things in parallel: holding the team's strategic direction during a leadership transition, and building something that hasn't fully existed here yet - a rigorous, integrated media planning discipline that connects channel investment to business strategy, customer insight, and cross-functional priorities in a way that's consistent, documented, and scalable.
Right now, media planning lives across marketing disciplines, with each function strong in its own right. The functions don't always speak a common language when it comes to how we plan, allocate, forecast, and evaluate. This role exists to change that. During Mat leave coverage, you'll manage three Sr. Managers who collectively oversee a 27 person team and every paid and outbound channel we run - paid search, SEO, display, paid social, affiliate, performance influencer, and brand outbound (email, app push, SMS.) You'll work on building the planning connective tissue that makes the whole marketing organization greater than the sum of its parts.
This is not a channel expert role, and it's not a passive coverage role. It's a builder role, wrapped inside a leadership role, inside a coverage role. We need all three.
What We Believe
The best marketing doesn't happen in silos. The strongest strategies aren't channel-first - they're customer-first. Paid media, CRM, search, organic, social, and retail marketing are all part of one connected ecosystem. We believe in building strategies that treat every channel as part of a single, seamless customer journey from first discovery to long-term loyalty.
We believe data should inform decisions, not replace judgment. The best marketers know when to trust the numbers and when to trust instinct - and how to explain both to a room full of senior stakeholders.
And we believe great leadership isn't about doing the work - it's about building and supporting the people who do it better than you could alone.
Role Responsibilities
What You'll Lead
Building the Media Planning Function
This is the long-term centerpiece of this role, and where we expect the most lasting impact. You'll establish media planning as a formal discipline within the Digital Marketing org - defining what a great media plan looks like at Anthropologie, building the frameworks and processes that produce it consistently, and creating a shared planning language across all marketing with groups that currently plan in parallel rather than together.
Concretely, that means:

• Developing integrated planning frameworks that connect paid, owned, and outbound channels into a single, customer-journey-oriented plan - from annual strategy through seasonal campaign planning through in-season optimization.
• Building a knowledge-sharing infrastructure that makes it easy to surface, showcase, and discuss plans at every level - from tactical channel detail up to executive summary - so great thinking doesn't stay siloed within a channel or a team.
• Establishing clear planning calendars, briefing processes, and cross-channel alignment rituals so planning is predictable, collaborative, and not recreated from scratch every quarter.
• Building the bridge between what our Analytics team produces (MMM, incrementality, forecasting) and how the channel teams actually plan and allocate - closing the gap between measurement insight and planning decision.
• Creating the standards for how we evaluate a media plan: what does good look like, what trade-offs are we making, and how do we know it's working.
• Partnering with Finance and analytics on investment planning, forecasting, and reforecasting so budget decisions are grounded in a consistent planning view across all channel groups.

This function is being built largely from the ground up. You won't inherit a playbook - you'll write it.
People Leadership & Team Development
You'll help to manage three Sr. Managers workflow, with each overseeing a portfolio of channels. This team is genuinely talented - strong technically and strategically. The team needs support in: executive and cross-functional communication, and managing up and across. A significant part of this role, especially during the Mat leave period, is being a hands-on coach who assists in work prioritization based on business and executive leadership direction, so these leaders can be the most impactful in their roles, responsibilities. You are helping them get the bandwidth to represent their respective channels at an executive level.
You'll also be a part of holding the standard for what leadership looks and feels like across the broader team - including what it means to give and receive feedback in a high-feedback culture, to stand in your own authority, and to lead from the front even when things are ambiguous.
Strategy, Executive Communication & Organizational Continuity
You'll work on translating integrated media plans and channel performance into clear, confident business narrative for senior leadership - not just reporting numbers, but articulating the strategy behind them, the trade-offs made, and what we're learning. During the mat leave period specifically, you'll represent the org fully: running the team, owning cross-functional relationships, and keeping senior stakeholders informed and aligned.
Building that executive trust quickly - ideally before the leave begins - is a critical success factor. We need this person visible and credible at the leadership level from day one, not after a long ramp.
Cross-Functional Partnership
Integrated media planning only works if it's built with partners, not handed to them. You'll work closely with Brand, Creative, Social, Merchandising, Analytics, and Finance to build plans that reflect shared priorities and earn organizational buy-in - not just marketing's wishlist.
What Success Looks Like

• A media planning framework exists, is documented, and the channel teams are using it - not because they have to, but because it makes their jobs easier and their plans stronger. It is informed using MMM, customer insight, and other appropriate inputs
• Each Sr. Manager has a clear support plan, and is growing in their capabilities and leadership presence, and needs less escalation support than before.
• Senior leadership and team trusts this person to represent the organization's strategy independently and proactively - not just reactively.
• The Sr. Director returns from leave to a team that is better organized, better aligned, and better resourced to plan than when they left.

Role Qualifications
What We're Looking For

• 8-10+ years in media planning, marketing strategy, or integrated planning roles, with meaningful experience managing managers - people who have run channel teams, not just channels themselves.
• Deep, genuine expertise in media planning as a discipline - you've built plans, built planning processes, and built planning teams. You know what rigor looks like and how to install it in an org that doesn't yet have it.
• Fluency across paid digital (search, social, display, affiliate, influencer) and outbound/lifecycle channels (email, push, SMS) - enough to integrate across all of them meaningfully, without needing to have executed in each one.
• Experience working with measurement frameworks (MMM, incrementality, forecasting) from a planning seat - translating analytical outputs into planning and investment decisions, not building the models yourself.
• Executive presence that's genuine and earned. This is a non-negotiable: you need to be able to walk into a senior leadership conversation independently and hold the room - bring clarity, defend trade-offs, and instill confidence.
• Strong people-leadership instincts, specifically around coaching leaders through developmental gaps rather than just managing their output. Experience helping strong individual contributors or channel managers grow into planning-oriented, executive-ready leaders.
• Comfort with ambiguity and building from scratch - this role requires someone who is energized by the absence of a playbook, not unsettled by it.
• Retail marketing experience and an understanding of how brand and performance work together across the customer lifecycle.

Nice to Have

• Prior experience standing up or formalizing a media planning function within a larger marketing organization.
• Experience as a second-in-command or deputy leader within a scaled marketing team.
• Background leading through a planned leadership transition or extended absence.

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The Perks
URBN offers comprehensive Perks & Benefits to employees. Availability and eligibility to specific benefits may be subject to your location and employment status. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, PTO, generous employee discounts, retirement savings and much more! For additional information visit www.urbn.com/work-with-us/benefits
EEO Statement
URBN celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We are proud to provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, sex (including gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression), religion, creed, age, physical or mental disability, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, citizenship, service in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other protected characteristic as established by law. We believe strongly in fostering a safe, fair and respectful work environment. To ensure compliance with our non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, we offer anti-harassment training to managers and employees.