VP, Client Strategy and Operations

Location: Remote

Reports To: Chief Executive Officer

Department: Executive Leadership

Employment Type: Full-Time

Position Overview

Divergent Growth is seeking a VP, Client Strategy & Operations to lead the intersection of client strategy, agency operations and integrated marketing delivery. This senior leadership role is responsible for ensuring that our clients' business objectives translate into clear, coordinated strategies across Paid Media, SEO & AEO, Data & Analytics, Front-End Development, Creative and Social Media.

The VP, Client Strategy & Operations will serve as a senior strategic partner to our clients and a key leader within Divergent, bringing together specialized teams around a shared understanding of what success looks like and ensuring the agency consistently delivers against it.

The ideal candidate combines strategic thinking, strong client leadership, broad digital marketing expertise and operational discipline. This person understands how the individual components of modern marketing work together and knows how to turn business challenges into focused, measurable action.

Key Responsibilities

Client Strategy & Leadership

• Serve as a senior strategic partner to key client accounts.
• Develop a deep understanding of each client's business model, growth objectives, competitive environment and priorities.
• Translate business objectives into clear, actionable marketing strategies.
• Lead strategic client conversations, presentations and business reviews.
• Establish strong communication and meeting cadences.
• Proactively identify opportunities, challenges and potential relationship risks.
• Ensure recommendations remain connected to measurable business outcomes.
• Build trusted, long-term relationships with senior client stakeholders.

Integrated Marketing Strategy

Lead the development and coordination of integrated strategies across:

• Paid Media
• SEO & AEO
• Data, Analytics & Attribution
• Front-End Development
• Creative
• Social Media

Ensure each discipline contributes to a cohesive strategy rather than operating independently. Partner with functional leaders to establish priorities, KPIs and measurable definitions of success. Identify opportunities to improve performance across the entire customer journey.

Growth Audits & Strategic Assessments

• Lead comprehensive marketing and growth assessments for prospective and existing clients.
• Evaluate the client's digital ecosystem, including website performance, paid acquisition, organic visibility, analytics, conversion paths, creative and marketing technology.
• Identify growth opportunities, performance gaps and barriers to scale.
• Develop clear, prioritized strategic recommendations.
• Partner with the CEO on significant new-business opportunities and presentations.
• Translate strategic assessments into actionable engagement plans.

Client Onboarding

Lead the strategic transition from new-business close to active client engagement. Establish clear:

• Business objectives
• KPIs
• Priorities
• Functional strategies
• Deliverables
• Owners
• Timelines
• Reporting expectations
• Communication cadences

Ensure new engagements begin with alignment across the client and Divergent teams.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Provide leadership and coordination across Divergent's functional teams.
• Establish clear priorities across disciplines.
• Ensure ownership and accountability are clearly defined.
• Coordinate timelines and cross-functional dependencies.
• Maintain visibility into major client initiatives and deliverables.
• Identify capacity or resource constraints.
• Resolve competing priorities.
• Facilitate collaboration between functional experts.
• Create an environment in which teams can operate efficiently and produce their best work.

Operational Excellence & Delivery

• Build and maintain the operating discipline required to consistently deliver exceptional client work.
• Establish clear workflows and operating cadences.
• Maintain visibility into client commitments and major deliverables.
• Identify risks and blockers early.
• Improve cross-functional planning and communication.
• Ensure deadlines and client commitments are consistently met.
• Establish clear standards for accountability.
• Continuously identify opportunities to improve agency efficiency and scalability.

Quality & Performance

• Ensure client-facing strategies and deliverables address the underlying business objective.
• Maintain high standards for client presentations, recommendations and communication.
• Partner with functional leaders to establish appropriate quality-control processes.
• Ensure performance insights translate into actionable recommendations.
• Identify opportunities to improve the strategic quality and effectiveness of Divergent's work.

Strategic Problem-Solving

• Lead the agency's response to complex, cross-functional client challenges.
• Diagnose root causes and identify opportunities for improvement.
• Bring together the appropriate functional expertise to develop solutions.
• Challenge assumptions and identify alternative approaches.
• Serve as a strategic thought partner to the CEO and functional leadership team.

Innovation, AI & Technology

• Help Divergent continuously evolve how we work and what we can deliver for clients.
• Identify opportunities to use AI and automation to improve client outcomes and agency efficiency.
• Evaluate emerging marketing technology and platforms.
• Identify opportunities for proprietary tools, systems and capabilities.
• Improve workflows through technology and automation.
• Evaluate build-versus-buy opportunities.
• Help translate emerging technology into practical applications for the agency and its clients.

Innovation should have a clear purpose: better client outcomes, greater efficiency, stronger margins or meaningful differentiation.

Client Growth & Retention

• Build durable, high-value client relationships.
• Identify opportunities to expand existing engagements.
• Recognize emerging client needs and recommend appropriate solutions.
• Proactively address retention risks.
• Participate in renewal and expansion strategy.
• Partner with the CEO on significant opportunities.
• Help ensure client relationships are both successful and profitable.

Leadership Expectations

The VP, Client Strategy & Operations is expected to operate as a leader of leaders. Successful leadership in this position means:

• Creating clarity rather than complexity.
• Establishing priorities rather than reacting to every request.
• Holding teams accountable while empowering functional expertise.
• Identifying problems before they become escalations.
• Connecting individual marketing activities to larger business outcomes.
• Building repeatable processes that allow the agency to scale.
• Maintaining high standards for both client experience and agency performance.

The role requires the ability to move comfortably between executive-level strategy and operational execution without losing sight of either.

Qualifications

Required

• 10+ years of experience in digital marketing, agency leadership, client strategy, marketing operations or a related discipline.
• Significant experience leading complex client relationships.
• Strong understanding of the digital marketing ecosystem, including paid media, SEO, analytics, websites, creative and social media.
• Demonstrated experience leading multidisciplinary teams.
• Strong strategic, analytical and commercial thinking.
• Ability to translate business objectives into actionable marketing strategies.
• Exceptional client-facing communication and presentation skills.
• Strong organizational, prioritization and decision-making capabilities.
• Demonstrated ability to create accountability across teams and initiatives.
• Ability to operate effectively in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment.

Preferred

• Senior leadership experience within a digital marketing or performance marketing agency.
• Experience working with healthcare, behavioral health, multi-location or other complex service-based organizations.
• Experience with marketing attribution and CRM ecosystems.
• Experience supporting new-business pitches, growth audits and strategic assessments.
• Strong understanding of AI, automation and emerging marketing technologies.
• Experience scaling agency processes and operations.

What Success Looks Like

Success in this position will be measured by the VP's ability to improve both client outcomes and agency performance, including:

• Strong client retention and satisfaction
• Growth within existing accounts
• Consistent on-time delivery
• Successful onboarding of new clients
• Clear cross-functional accountability
• Stronger integration across marketing disciplines
• Improved client profitability
• Fewer preventable client escalations
• Higher-quality strategic recommendations
• More efficient agency workflows
• Successful adoption of new technology and operating practices
• Reduced reliance on the CEO for routine client and delivery management

The Role in One Sentence

The VP, Client Strategy & Operations turns client business objectives into coordinated agency action and ensures Divergent Growth delivers against them.