Chief Marketing Officer

The Role:

Reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Marketing Officer will play a critical role in driving the company's growth and competitive positioning through best-in-class marketing practices that will activate and engage new customers, enhance the CreditAssociates brand, and build loyalty with existing customers. Overall, they will move marketing forward, realizing key wins in the short to mid-term while bringing along-term, data-driven and strategic perspective.

Currently, marketing is predominantly focused on traditional marketing with direct mail being a key tactic. It is now time to upgrade the marketing efforts to be more inclusive of digital marketing. This leader will play a key role in crafting the marketing strategy and transforming the team.

The CMO will lead a marketing function including brand strategy, digital and performance marketing, creative, direct mail, TV, social media, and the website. S/he will lead a team of 1O marketing team members (and several agencies), charged with driving revenue growth through new and existing customers with a marketing budget/spend of $40M.The CMO will rely on analytics and insights to develop a best-in-class marketing function that drives measurable ROI. S/he will continuously improve the effectiveness of marketing investments, determining the necessary level of investment to achieve growth and profitability goals, and optimizing the marketing mix to increase share.

As a leader, the CMO will build, develop, and integrate various aspects of the organization; finding the right talent and identifying efficiencies as a marketing organization will be critical, as well as assessing and improving the abilities of the team. This role will require someone with exceptional leadership skills and a deep passion/energy for the mission of CreditAssociates. Energizing, ambitious for the business, curious, and low-ego, this CMO wIll be equally collaborative, a player-coach who flexes across all levels to "get it done." They will embody the four culture principles of Credit Associates: Trust, Collaboration, Being Performance Driven, and Having a Sense of Urgency.

Key responsibilities include:

• Partnering with the leadership team to develop annual marketing plans and long-range strategies that directly support the company's overall business goals.
• Build the digital experience with a focus on aligning marketing with the full life-cycle customer experience.
• Identify new, innovative strategies to actively engage customers and new prospective customers and partners via a diverse and complex marketing mix.
• Execute a clearly defined marketing and communications strategy that aligns with business objectives and enhances brand equity.
• Significantly improve performance marketing capabilities to increase marketing effectiveness and efficiency.
• Develop and maintain key performance metric reports that track performance and test the efficiency of marketing efforts.
• Attract top talent and develop and lead a world-class marketing function.
• Work creatively and collaboratively across functions within the organization.

Candidate Profile:

The Chief Marketing Officer will be proven strategic leader with deep expertise in all things marketing and a reputation for leading a successful strategy and transformation from a traditional marketing organization to one that now possesses best-in-class digital capabilities. S/he will have an understanding of the value of the consumer and have experience with the financial services industry. The ideal candidate will bring significant experience in full funnel marketing with focus on

customer acquisition and digital marketing strategies. The successful candidate will have demonstrated success in driving measurable business goals through strategic leadership, marketing expertise, analytics, and insights.

The CMO must embody, encourage, and inspire innovative thinking and creative problem-solving. The competencies gained from industries where marketing/digital has reshaped distribution and member experience are highly sought after, as well as a rich understanding of those companies where traditional acquisition methods - direct mail, television, and outbound call centers - were bettered, not fully replaced, by digital strategies.

This executive must have a proven track record of driving marketing strategies across the enterprise into actionable plans and results, all while building coalitions, driving change, and connecting the dots across infrastructure, operations, product, and go-to-market strategies. This leader will develop a high-performing team where a diversity of perspectives is valued, and champion cross-functional teamwork and break down silos. The ideal candidate will be an innovative and collaborative executive who thinks about how marketing can generate new possibilities for the overall business.

In terms of the performance and personal competencies required for the position, we would highlight the following:

Setting Strategy

• The ability to create and articulate an inspiring vision for CreditAssociates, not only for the areas s/he is directly responsible for, but the enterprise as a whole.
• The inclination to seek and analyze data from a variety of sources to support decisions and to align others with CreditAssociates' overall strategy.
• An entrepreneurial and creative approach to developing new, innovative ideas that will stretch the organization and push the boundaries within the industry.
• The ability to effectively balance the desire/need for broad change with an understanding of how much change the organization is capable of handling; to create realistic goals and implementation plans that are achievable and successful.

Executing for Results

• The ability to set clear and challenging goals while committing the organization to improved performance; tenacious and accountable in driving results.
• Comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty; the ability to adapt nimbly.
• A collaborator who seeks data and input from others to foresee possible threats or unintended circumstances from decisions; someone who takes smart risks.
• A leader who is viewed by others as having a high degree of integrity and forethought in his/her approach to making decisions; the ability to act transparently and consistently while always taking into account what is best for the organization.

Leading Teams

• The ability to attract and recruit top talent, motivate the team, delegate effectively, and manage performance, a strong developer of others.
• The ability to persevere in the face of challenges and exhibit a steadfast resolve and relentless commitment to higher standards, which commands respect from followers.
• A leader who is self-reflective and aware of his/her limitations; leads by example and drives CreditAssociates' performance with an attitude of continuous improvement by being open to feedback and self-improvement.

Relationships and Influence

• Naturally connects and builds strong relationships with others, demonstrating strong emotional intelligence and an ability to communicate clearly and persuasively.
• An ability to inspire trust and followership in others through compelling influence, passion in his/her beliefs, and active drive.
• Encourages others to share the spotlight and celebrates and supports the success of the team.
• Creates a sense of purpose/meaning for the team that generates followership beyond his/her personality and engages others to the greater purpose for CreditAssociates as a whole.

CreditAssociates (and its group of affiliated companies) is a leading, fully integrated provider of debt settlement services with a highly profitable business model built on operational efficiencies across all stages of the debt settlement process. CreditAssociates provides high-touch debt settlement solutions, negotiating credit card debt, medical debt, department store credit card debt, and unsecured personal loans. Over 90% of the debt settled is credit card debt.

The Company negotiates with creditors on behalf of consumers to achieve a reduction in the principal balance owed. CreditAssociates clients pay the negotiated amount and have the debt shown as settled on their credit report for a fee paid to CreditAssociates only upon successful settlement of each debt. CreditAssociates charges no advance fees for its services.

The process typically takes 24 - 48 months, depending on the size and number of enrolled debts. As such, the Company is acutely focused on heavy customer growth to continuously build its portfolio of clients, who in turn "enroll" their credit card debt in the CreditAssociates program. This enrollment kicks off the negotiation and settlement processes, which ultimately result in revenue streams for the Company.