VP, Deputy MarComms Officer

Overview

The Deputy Marketing & Communications Officer serves as the principal strategic and operational partner to the SVP/Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, with accountability for divisional planning and a broad portfolio of cross-functional initiatives. This role supports cross-functional initiatives and drives excellence across MarComm strategy, operational management and innovation for a 100+-person integrated MarComm division supporting UF Health, the University of Florida's academic health center.

The Deputy serves as the SVP/Chief Marketing & Communications Officer's primary delegate, working with leaders across the organization to ensure alignment with organizational vision, foster a culture of high performance and champion high-impact best-in-class marketing and communications practices, including expanding the division's analytics functions. This role partners across the enterprise to advance strategy through high-impact, innovative operational performance, ensuring MarComm strategies are executed with discipline, consistency and measurable impact.

The Deputy also serves as an escalation point for any challenges, resolving complex prioritization of marketing and communication requests and addressing resource and alignment issues across the division. Operating in a highly matrixed academic health system environment, this role interfaces regularly with university and health system executive leadership, hospital and service line leaders, and academic and research stakeholders. While supporting enterprisewide missions, the role is primarily focused on advancing the clinical enterprise's growth, reputation and patient engagement objectives.

Responsibilities

• Partner with the CMCO to shape and continuously refine enterprise marketing and communications strategy
• Drive execution of strategic priorities, ensuring alignment of messaging, campaigns and initiatives with organizational goals
• Ensure integration of brand, growth and reputation strategies into a cohesive enterprise narrative
• Serve as a senior advisor to executive leadership on marketing, communications and reputational considerations
• Oversee day-to-day division operations, including resource allocation, workflow optimization, process improvement and cross-team coordination; serve as a primary escalation point for any challenges or issues, including triaging of requests and prioritization of marketing or communication needs
• Drive continuous improvement in processes, tools and ways of working to enhance efficiency and effectiveness
• Manage annual budget planning and monthly financial oversight for the division, including tracking spend, identifying efficiency opportunities and preparing financial summaries for leadership
• Oversee contract management for vendors and freelancers; support other MarComm leaders (e.g., Marketing Lead) as needed to assess vendor and/or agency performance
• Oversee MarComm's role in transformation initiatives to support UF Health strategic objectives and continuous improvement
• Identify and implement industry-leading practices to modernize capabilities and improve outcomes; expands division's data analytics capabilities
• Champion innovation and digital advancement, spearheading MarComm AI guidelines development and oversight, partnering with subject matter experts (e.g., IT, Digital, Compliance) to set standards for ethical, effective and forward-looking AI usage across MarComm teams
• Build and maintain strong, trusted relationships with senior leaders across clinical, academic and administrative functions, ensuring clear alignment on priorities, expectations and timelines across stakeholders
• Facilitate collaboration across markets and functions to deliver integrated solutions
• Champion a collaborative culture that reflects organizational values
• Lead change management efforts to support team redesign and engagement and model adaptive leadership
• Mentor, coach and develop team members to support talent growth and foster a collaborative, high-performing culture
• Drive change management and adoption efforts for the new MarComm operating model and ways of working
• Provide leadership oversight on issues management, crisis communications and reputational risk
• Partner with legal, compliance and clinical leadership to ensure alignment with regulatory and policy requirements

Illustrative Performance Metrics:

• Operational Performance: Percentage adherence to budget targets; cost savings from process improvements or vendor negotiations; percentage of division projects completed on schedule / budget
• Vendor & Quality Management: Vendor performance scores tied to quality, timeliness, innovation and value standards; percentage of deliverables meeting or exceeding defined quality standards
• Service Quality: Average initial response time to stakeholder inquiries across MarComm; average time to intake; satisfaction scores; percentage of projects delivered on time, on budget and within agreed upon scope
• Adoption of MarComm Operating Model: Stakeholder satisfaction with new operating model; feedback from market and functional leaders on effectiveness of new engagement approaches
• Financial Performance: Budget adherence, cost optimization and return on investment
• Talent and Culture: Employee engagement, retention of top talent

Qualifications

Education:

• Bachelor's degree in marketing, communications, journalism, business or related field required.
• Master's degree in relevant area of specialization preferred.

Experience:

• 12-15+ years of progressive leadership experience in marketing and/or communications or related field
• Significant experience operating in a complex, matrixed organization
• Demonstrated success leading multidisciplinary teams and working collaboratively in a fast-paced environment
• Proven track record of driving operational excellence, transformation and measurable business impact
• Health care or academic health system experience strongly preferred