The purpose of this role is to provide end to end leadership for a set of technology platforms in support of an entire business function such as Finance. Partnering with the business, this role will drive end-to-end delivery, deployment and support of all applications in this space as well as ensuring the set of platforms bring business value. The platform director will typically be the face of technology to a business function.

Job Description

The SVP of Digital Engineering & Commerce Technology works within Merkle America’s CX & Commerce capability area and serves as a critical member of Merkle’s overall CX&C leadership team.

With a primary focus on commercial management of the team, including go-to-market strategy, offering innovation, and P&L responsibility, this role “GTM & Commercial Lead” role is for a hybrid practitioner – an expert in modern human-centered digital customer and employee experience; best practices in front-end and back-end engineering; and depth in commerce technologies (including commerce “adjacent” technology ecosystems, such as order management, inventory management, PIM/PXM, POS, payments, and marketplace platforms) – and commercial leader, who has lived experience running a professional services team delivering successful strategic project-based and retained work for ambitious clients across industries. 

You have a deep-rooted experience with technology, hands-on experience building complex systems, and inspire engineering talent.

Specific responsibilities include:

• Manage and communicate a vision for the technology discipline across Americas, while ensuring understanding across the practice groups / technology sub-disciplines and domains. 
• Be an executive sponsor on high-profile client engagements across Merkle; consult directly with clients and help steer high priority client relationships
• Support new business pitches and client development / cross-sell opportunities
• Establish a learning agenda to enrich the community by overseeing industry trends, while focusing on new technology and solutioning at the intersection of our industry-leading capabilities, in consideration of the CX overall solution roadmap and go-to-market plan
• Work with practice leads to create toolkits, frameworks, templates, and other IP that can be adapted/adopted across the discipline to accelerate time to market while boosting brand and delivery consistency
• Oversee and contribute to a thought leadership plan and roadmap, working with practices leads, Merkle Marketing, and the broader community building the Merkle CX brand with a consistent voice and tone across multiple channels including digital, corporate comms, and event engagement.
• Develop mechanisms to enhance the quality of Technology work across Merkle Americas (e.g., hands-on delivery, pitches, training programs, recurring work share meetings)
• Work with Client Finance and practice leads to develop cross-practice tracking, reporting, and data visualization (e.g., PowerBI) for staffing and utilization
• Establish a DEI strategy for the community that reflects consumer behaviors and the broader marketplace

Qualifications

• 15+ years of postgraduate work experience; success and progressively increasing responsibilities within the technology space, including consulting organizations, top-tier marketing agencies or similar professional services environments
• 10+ years of experience defining and leading technology strategy within large professional services firms, matrixed organizations, or F500 enterprises
• Domain experience across modern marketing technologies (including CRM, consumer data platforms, and marketing automation), experience technologies (front-end experience delivery, search, latest experiences), commerce technologies (eCommerce, order management, inventory management), and a broad array of personalization solutions. Familiarity with modern patterns (MACH, composability) and enterprise platform ecosystems (Adobe, Salesforce) and data science.
• An understanding of the craft of engineering, evolving modalities (e.g., the role of generative AI and co-pilots), excellence in modern complex systems and custom software and app development
• Demonstrated history of public presentation and engagement with leading technology communities
• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, IT, Computer Science, or similar