Senior Director of Marketing

Title: Senior Director of Marketing

Department: Marketing

Reports to: Chief Marketing Officer

Position Type: Full-Time, Exempt

State of Play Hospitality is a rapidly growing international operator of tech-enabled social entertainment concepts. The portfolio includes Flight Club, AceBounce, and Hijingo—category-leading brands in the US and UK that combine immersive design, innovative gameplay, and elevated food & beverage programs to create unforgettable guest experiences. As we accelerate expansion across major US markets, the Senior Director of Marketing will play a defining role in shaping the future of our brands.

The Senior Director of Marketing is a highly operational, execution-driven leader who brings the marketing strategies to life across all U.S. venues. This role manages the centralized marketing team, oversees integrated campaign planning and execution, and ensures consistent brand activation across digital, PR, social, partnerships, and venue-level marketing.

This ideal candidate for this role is responsible for converting high-level strategy into actionable plans, orchestrating cross-functional execution and driving measurable gains in awareness, traffic, bookings, revenue, engagement, and loyalty. They will also play a crucial role implementing new product innovation, venue openings, digital marketing optimization, and cross-functional alignment to ensure consistent and compelling brand experiences across all guest touchpoints. The ideal candidate combines strong marketing expertise with exceptional organizational, operational, and team leadership skills.

Key Responsibilities

·       Work closely with the CMO to implement brand and marketing strategies into actionable plans that strengthen awareness, grow market share, and drive revenue across all venues.

·       Execute monthly marketing plans aligned with business priorities and market opportunities.

·       Lead the execution of fully integrated campaigns across digital, social, PR, partnerships, email, OOH, and in-venue channels to achieve business KPIs.

·       Implement and optimize audience segmentation, guest journey workflows, and competitive insights to enhance campaign and channel performance.

·       Translate national campaign initiatives into localized toolkits, playbooks, and standards to ensure consistent activation.

·       Ensure cohesive brand messaging and storytelling across creative design, F&B launches, programming, digital platforms, brand activations, and in-venue experiences.

·       Manage the day-to-day operations of the centralized marketing team across brand, PR, social, digital, field marketing, and events.

·       Implement targeted B2B programs, revenue-driving campaigns, and lead-generation strategies in support of national event sales.

·       Build strong cross-functional partnerships with operations, sales, culinary, regional directors, and venue GMs to ensure consistent communication, alignment, and execution of marketing initiatives and programs.

·       Provide direct supervisory leadership to centralized marketing team, including coaching, performance management, and professional development.

·       Monitor and report on KPIs across marketing channels—including awareness, traffic, conversions, bookings, revenue, and retention—executing against targets set by company leadership.

·       Serve as the primary day-to-day liaison for external agencies, media partners, brand partners, and community organizations.

·       Execute marketing plans for new venue openings, including launch timelines, media coordination, PR support, and opening event activation.

·       Monitor trends in experiential entertainment, F&B, digital marketing, and hospitality to inform ongoing optimization and innovation.

Qualifications

• 10 years of progressive experience in brand marketing, ideally within hospitality, entertainment, leisure, or experiential categories.
• Proven experience leading brand strategy, multi-channel marketing campaigns, and performance-driven programs.
• Expertise in digital marketing, CRM, social, paid media, and analytics.

·       Ability to understand advanced marketing analytics, attribution modeling, CRM segmentation, and mar-tech capabilities.

• Demonstrated ability to lead and scale high-performing teams.
• Strong understanding of marketing budget tracking and analysis.
• Strong strategic thinking paired with hands-on execution when needed.
• Experience collaborating in a fast-paced, multi-venue environment with tight timelines.
• Strong financial acumen with experience managing large marketing budgets.
• Ability to translate new business strategy into integrated marketing plans and creative solutions.
• Strong project management skills and ability to manage multiple initiatives simultaneously.
• Track record of launching new markets, products, or brand experiences is a significant plus.

·       This position will be based in the Chicago support office and will require occasional travel to venue locations.

The Company reserves the right in its absolute discretion to add to your duties or amend this job description at any time. In addition to the above duties, you will carry out such other duties as the Company reasonably directs from time to time.  

Equal Opportunity Statement: Flight Club is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. It is our policy to provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants and employees without regard to their actual or perceived race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, marital or civil union status, age, national origin, disability, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical condition, citizenship, veteran status, genetic information, gender, gender identity or expression, or any other basis prohibited by law.