Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB) has built a global reputation based on its immersive and innovative management programs. We provide students a transformative leadership experience, pushing the boundaries of knowledge with faculty research, and offering a portfolio of entrepreneurial and non-degree programs that deliver global impact. We invite you to be part of our mission of developing innovative, principled, and insightful leaders who change lives, change organizations, and change the world.
Success at the GSB is defined by The GSB Way, a commitment to shared purpose, community, and excellence in all that we do. We seek individuals who elevate themselves and those around them through the practice of academic candor, generous collaboration, and bringing curiosity and rigor to solving meaningful problems. At the GSB, impact means taking ownership and contributing to a purpose-driven, collaborative, and high-performing community in service to the institution's mission.
The Graduate School of Business seeks a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) to lead the school's enterprise marketing, audience engagement, and brand strategy functions. Reporting to the Chief Operating & Financial Officer, the CMO oversees an organization spanning brand stewardship, digital marketing, social media strategy, creative services, market intelligence, marketing technology, and related engagement platforms, working in close partnership with the Dean's Communications leadership. The role partners broadly across admissions, executive education, alumni relations, and development to align enterprise marketing strategy with the full breadth of GSB's institutional priorities.
The Chief Marketing Officer will play a central role in shaping the next generation of enterprise marketing and audience engagement capabilities for one of the world's most recognized and influential business schools. As Stanford GSB continues to evolve how it engages global audiences, amplifies institutional impact, and extends the reach of its ideas and programs, the CMO will advance the school's brand presence, digital engagement infrastructure, and enterprise marketing ecosystem, including the intelligent use of data and analytics, CRM ecosystems, and AI-enabled tools to deepen audience intelligence and drive engagement across the school's global constituencies.
The ideal candidate brings proven capabilities across enterprise marketing strategy, institutional partnership, and digital engagement, with the critical ability to integrate these across a school where central strategy must be activated through departments that operate with meaningful autonomy, demanding strong coordination instincts and the ability to influence without always having direct authority. Equally important is a change leadership orientation: the marketing organization is at a defining moment, with a focused mandate to go deeper in building marketing intelligence capabilities while extending its reach and influence across the school's broader ecosystem. The right leader brings the credibility, vision, and collaborative instincts to establish this function as a genuine strategic partner at every level of the institution.
This is a unique opportunity to help shape how one of the world's leading business schools engages global audiences, amplifies institutional impact, and evolves its enterprise marketing capabilities for the future.
Core Duties:
Responsible for overseeing strategic marketing initiatives and developing long-range marketing plans/programs to meet organizational objectives for a school, unit or VP/Area.
Define and/or leverage the communication and brand strategy for the organization incorporating appropriate channels (i.e., web presence, digital and print).
Lead market research and analysis efforts. Guide organization to use the results in strategic marketing direction, product segmentation and customer targeting.
Participate in university-wide and/or organization-wide initiatives and cross-functional teams to establish the organization as a strategic partner and thought leader.
Responsibility for department operations including the recruitment, management, development, and retention of staff.
Set departmental budget, goals, and objectives in alignment with organizational goals.
Select and oversee the department vendor relationships.
Minimum Education and Experience:
Bachelor’s degree and ten years of relevant experience; or a combination of education and relevant experience.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
Proven ability to achieve an organization’s vision, values and programs through marketing initiatives.
Demonstrated experience leveraging integrated marketing strategies to achieve goals.
Strong marketing management skills and the ability to persuade and influence decision-makers across all levels of an organization.
Exceptional strategic thinking and leadership skills.
Proven people manager, with the ability to motivate, grow and train staff across functions.
Prior experience in planning and managing department budget.
Exceptional written and oral communication skills.
Demonstrated experience presenting to senior managers.