Head of Customer Engagement Activation

Description
The Head of Customer Engagement Activation will serve as a key marketing and business leader at General Motors, responsible for the activation, operation, and end-to-end delivery of all 1:1 customer communications. This requires having a performance-driven leadership approach that optimizes both customer outcomes, enterprise efficiency, and business growth. This position reports to the Executive Director, Customer Engagement Marketing.
This leader will oversee a matrixed team that partners with our Customer Lifecycle, Owner Growth, MarTech, Marketing Applied Sciences, and Data Engineering teams. To be effective, we are looking for a candidate who can collaborate with confidence, developing a strategic perspective that both direct, indirect, and external teams can rally around.
To achieve strong results, a successful candidate will need a modern marketing mindset that is curious, adaptable, digital-first and outcome-driven. This leader will be accountable for transforming our current sophisticated partner activation model while also building a world-class internal production studio.By leveraging modern MarTech tools, process automation, and a business mindset, a successful candidate will be able to unlock transformation in speed-to-market, channel outcomes, and resource efficiencies.
What you will do (key responsibilities):
Build and scale a tiered activation studio

• Design and stand up an end to end CRM inhouse studio that can deliver modern 1:1 customer communications from brief intake through production, QA, and deployment.

• Evolve and scale our studio as the flagship integrated production capability for Customer Engagement, unifying ways of working, tools, and SLAs across digital and physical channels.

• Redesign the Marketing Activation operating model to shift the team from manual campaign execution to strategy, inspiration, and continuous improvement.

• Leverage AI and automation to ensure flawless delivery of 1:1 campaigns.

• Operationalize and scale a three-tier delivery model:
• Agency - for the most complex, high-risk or breakthrough work.
• Insourced - for repeatable, high value work that the studio can execute efficiently at scale.
• Expansion / Innovation - for rapid prototyping, new formats, and test and learn.

Optimize processes and ways of working to deliver outcomes

• Establish clear process and decision frameworks that determine when work is done in house vs. with external partners, balancing speed, quality, risk, and cost.

• Build the studio's capacity planning, resource management, and vendor management practices.

• Partner with Product teams to ensure technical readiness and quality across CRM channels.

• Evolve our scaled, repeatable operating model with clear SLAs, playbooks, and KPIs across channels (email, SMS, push, direct mail, digital media extensions, etc.).

• Stand up a process improvement / transformation office within the studio that:

• Identifies and prioritizes workflow, tooling, and process improvements across activation and production.

• Runs a visible transformation roadmap and backlog with clear owners, milestones, and value realization.

• Implements LEAN/Agile ways of working, standard operating procedures, and consistent documentation.

• Use data, dashboards, and KPIs to track production throughput, cycle time, quality, and cost, and systematically eliminate manual work, handoffs, and rework.

• Oversee day to day studio operations, including brief intake, scoping, scheduling, trafficking, production, QC/QA, and deployment for all 1:1 customer communications and related assets.

Lead and partner effectively across teams

• Partner with Lifecycle, Owner Growth, OnStar Marketing, CCA Marketing, GM Energy Marketing, and other internal stakeholders.

• Maintain strong relationships with external agency partners.

• Partner with MarTech Product Management to ensure the studio operating model fully leverages enterprise platforms .

• Translate studio and campaign needs into clear requirements for MarTech, ensuring features are designed for operational reality and adopted effectively by studio teams.

• Collaborate with MAS and Analytics to integrate data and insights into day to day studio work.

• Lead and develop a multidisciplinary team of producers, project/program managers, operations specialists, and vendor/agency managers.

• Foster a culture that is curious, operationally excellent, customer obsessed, and experimentally minded, encouraging small autonomous teams to author work.

• Champion change management, leading teams to thrive through transformation.

Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications):

• 10+ years leading marketing production, in-house agency, or marketing operations for a direct-to-consumer brand or scaled enterprise; 7+ years in people leadership roles.
• Bachelor Degree required

• Demonstrated experience building or significantly scaling an in-house production studio or agency-like production function (creative adaptation, content production, QA, trafficking).

• Deep understanding of CRM / 1:1 communication production (email, SMS, push, direct mail, and related channels), including workflow design, capacity management, and quality control.

• Strong program and portfolio management skills; proven ability to manage complex, multi-year transformation initiatives while maintaining business continuity.

• Proven track record of process redesign and continuous improvement, with measurable impact on speed to market, cost efficiency, and quality.

• Solid working knowledge of modern MarTech ecosystems (e.g., ESPs, journey orchestration, CDPs, DAM, content supply chain tools) and how production teams integrate with these platforms.

• Demonstrated ability to manage agencies and vendors, including negotiating scopes, defining roles and responsibilities, and optimizing onshore/offshore models.

• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with comfort working across marketing, technology, analytics, legal, privacy, and brand/business leaders.

What Can Give You a Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications):

• Experience as a Head of Production, MarTech professional, or Operations Lead within an advertising/creative agency or internal studio.

• Experience using AI and automation to drive organizational change.

• Experience transforming an organization to an integrated, multichannel model.

• Background in automotive, retail, subscription, or other high-complexity, high-frequency CRM environments.

• Experience designing or scaling global or multi-region studio models, including playbooks, hubs/spokes, and shared services.

• MBA or relevant graduate degree in marketing, business, operations, or a related field.

Desired Attributes:

• Operationally tuned and action-oriented, with a strong bias for simplifying complex workflows.

• Customer obsessed, ensuring every asset and process improves owner and prospect experiences.

• Hands-on approach to developing and testing new capabilities and AI.

• Entrepreneurial and resourceful, comfortable building net-new capabilities in an evolving environment.

• Collaborative and inclusive leader, skilled at bringing together cross-functional teams and aligning them to shared goals.

• Strong executive presence, with the ability to influence senior leaders, advocate for the in-house model, and represent CET's studio vision across the enterprise.

#LI-MO1
GM does not provide immigration-related sponsorship for this role. Do not apply for this role if you will need GM immigration sponsorship now or in the future. This includes direct company sponsorship, entry of GM as the immigration employer of record on a government form, and any work authorization requiring a written submission or other immigration support from the company (e.g., H1-B, OPT, STEM OPT, CPT, TN, J-1, etc.)
This role is categorized as hybrid. This means the selected candidate is expected to report to a specific location at least 3 times a week {or other frequency dictated by their manager}.
This job may be eligible for relocation benefits.
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