VP, Brand and Performance Marketing

About Us:

Rent the Runway (RTR)  is transforming the way we get dressed by pioneering the world’s first Closet in the Cloud. Founded in 2009, RTR has disrupted the $2.4 trillion fashion industry by inspiring women with a more joyful, sustainable and financially-savvy way to feel their best every day. As the ultimate destination for circular fashion, the brand now offers infinite points of access to its shared closet via a fully customizable subscription to fashion, one-time rental or ownership. RTR offers designer apparel and accessories from hundreds of brand partners and has built in-house proprietary technology and a one-of-a-kind reverse logistics operation. RTR has been named to CNBC’s “Disruptor 50” five times in ten years, and has been placed on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list multiple times.

About the Job:

RTR is looking for a Head of Brand and Performance Marketing to own the strategy and long-term direction that shapes how the world sees, discovers, and loves Rent the Runway. This is a VP-level role with a broad mandate: brand strategy and positioning, integrated marketing, social and creators, partnerships, communications, and performance marketing across paid acquisition and retention. Sitting within the Customer organization and reporting to the SVP, Customer, the Head of Brand and Performance Marketing is a key member of the Marketing senior leadership team.

The person in this role is accountable for leading a team that executes the RTR brand with coherence, creativity, and velocity. They ensure every touchpoint, from a customer's Instagram feed to a campaign brief, is rooted in a coherent and differentiated brand strategy. They own the balance between long-term brand-building and short-term performance, ensuring brand and demand operate as one integrated system rather than competing priorities.

What You’ll Do:

• Set RTR's brand strategy and long-term positioning, defining the messaging architecture, seasonal and multi-year narrative, and brand voice that guides how RTR shows up across every channel, moment, and customer segment.
• Lead the Brand Marketing function, setting a high bar for output, developing leaders and next-generation leaders, and establishing the operating model for, defining how the function plans, briefs, measures, and iterates, building the standards and practices that allow Brand Marketing to scale and to serve as a strategic resource for the broader Customer organization.
• Own the brand and performance marketing budget, making strategic investment decisions, prioritizing programs with the highest brand and return-on-investment impact, tracking spend against plan, and making the case for both brand and performance investment with data and narrative to executive leadership.
• Lead integrated campaign development from brief through launch owning the seasonal narrative, driving cross-functional alignment, and ensuring every campaign moment is grounded in brand strategy and connected across channels.
• Lead RTR's Social & Creators function, with the Head of Social & Creators reporting into this role, setting the strategic direction for how RTR shows up on social platforms and within the creator economy, ensuring social execution is integrated with brand strategy and not operating as a standalone channel.
• Manage RTR's Performance Marketing function, with the Head of Performance Marketing reporting into this role, owning paid acquisition, retention/CRM, and growth across search, social, affiliate, and lifecycle channels, and ensuring performance execution is tightly integrated with brand strategy rather than optimized in isolation.
• Lead brand partnerships and editorial programming, developing co-marketing and partnership strategies that expand RTR's reach and reinforce brand positioning in fashion, lifestyle, and culture, with a particular eye on the channels and partners that matter most to the next generation of RTR customers.
• Guide PR/Communications to build RTR's earned presence, aligning brand narrative with press and earned media strategy to ensure a consistent story across paid, owned, and earned channels.
• Partner with the Head of Creative and creative team on brand expression, ensuring brand strategy translates into visually compelling, on-brief creative through a relationship built on mutual accountability.
• Own brand and performance measurement, defining and tracking the metrics that matter for long-term brand health including awareness, consideration, sentiment, and mid-funnel engagement, as well as performance outcomes such as CAC, ROAS, LTV, and marketing-driven revenue, and translating that data into strategic adjustments that compound over time.
• Serve as RTR's brand voice in cross-functional conversations, bringing the brand point of view into discussions about product, pricing, AI strategy, and customer experience, and ensuring brand considerations are protected across the organization.

About You:

• You have 12+ years of brand and performance marketing experience, including meaningful time at VP level or equivalent, owning brand strategy, integrated campaign development, paid media and growth, and a multi-disciplinary marketing function end-to-end including social, partnerships, communications, and performance/growth marketing, or a combination thereof.
• You have owned performance marketing and paid media at scale, and can speak fluently to CAC, LTV, ROAS, attribution, and media-mix decisions - and to how performance and brand reinforce one another across the funnel.
• You have set brand strategy at a level that has had measurable, multi-year impact on brand awareness, consideration, and customer trust and you can speak to that impact in business terms.
• You build and develop leaders who are themselves responsible for leading others. You have a track record of building high-performance teams and creating the conditions for people to do the best work of their careers.
• You have strong creative instincts and know how to partner with a creative team effectively. You give a brief that gets great work, and give feedback that makes the work better without diluting the vision.
• You are a skilled cross-functional leader who influences without authority and earns trust across Marketing, Creative, Product, and Customer Experience. You are comfortable in board-level and executive conversations, and bring a business perspective, not just a brand perspective, to every room you're in.
• You communicate with clarity and conviction at every altitude, from a brand strategy presentation to the SVP to a brief for the creative team. Your thinking is sharp and your communication is direct.
• You have experience in fashion, retail, lifestyle, or direct-to-consumer. You understand the relationship between product, brand perception, and customer loyalty, and you understand the RTR customer.
• You are energized by building. You have probably rebuilt a brand strategy before, and you know what it takes to bring a team, a leadership group, and a culture along on that journey.

Benefits:

At Rent the Runway, we’re committed to the wellbeing of our employees, and aim to create a workplace that fosters both personal and professional growth. Our inclusive benefits include, but are not limited to:

• Paid Time Off, including vacation, paid bereavement, and family sick leave - every employee needs time to take care of themselves and their family.
• Comprehensive health, vision, dental, FSA and dependent care from day 1 of employment - Your health comes first, and we’ve got you covered.
• 401(k) match - an investment in your future.
• Exclusive employee subscription and rental discounts -  to ensure you experience the magic of renting the runway (and give us valued feedback!).
• Universal Paid Parental Leave for both parents + flexible return to work program  - because we know your newest family member(s) deserve your undivided attention.
• Paid Sabbatical after 5 years of continuous service - Unplug, recharge, and have some fun!
• Company-wide events and outings - our team spirit is no joke - we know how to have fun!
• Office-centric work - our corporate employees and technical leaders have the option to work remotely on Fridays, in accordance with Company policies.

Rent the Runway is an equal opportunity employer. In accordance with applicable law, we prohibit discrimination against any applicant or employee based on any legally-recognized basis, including, but not limited to: race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, lactation, childbirth or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, age (40 and over), national origin or ancestry, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, genetic information (including testing and characteristics), veteran status, uniformed service member status or any other status protected by federal, state or local law.

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The anticipated base salary for this position is $250,000–$290,000. The actual base salary offered will depend on a variety of factors, including without limitation, the qualifications of the individual applicant for the position, years of relevant experience, level of education attained, certifications or other professional licenses held. 

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