Chief operations officer Jobs in Knoxville, TN

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

PetSafe Brands is the world leader in pet products through our family of brands: Pet Safe Brand, Sport DOG Brand, Invisible Fence Brand, Kurgo and Premier Pet. We exist to unleash freedom for pet parents by keeping their pets happy, healthy and safe.

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is an executive leadership role responsible for setting and executing the marketing vision and strategy. Reporting directly to the CEO, the CMO serves as the chief brand architect and growth catalyst owning the strategies that drive brand equity, consumer engagement, and commercial results at scale. This leader provides executive oversight across four key functions: Brand & Communications, Creative Services, Digital and Marketing Insights & Analytics. The CMO serves as a critical member of the Executive Growth Team (EGT), partnering cross-functionally to integrate marketing into every dimension of the business strategy.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as the senior marketing voice on the Executive Growth Team, providing data-informed recommendations on brand investment, market positioning, consumer trends, and competitive landscape.
• Lead, develop, and inspire a high-performing, multi-disciplinary marketing organization, fostering a culture of creativity, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Own the annual marketing budget, allocating resources with a focus on ROI, efficiency, and strategic impact.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with external agency partners, vendors, and industry stakeholders to amplify the company's marketing capabilities.
• Oversee brand strategy ensuring distinct yet cohesive positioning and messaging that drives competitive differentiation.
• Provide executive leadership and direction on PR, internal/external communications, and social media strategy.
• Serve as the ultimate steward of brand equity - owning visual identity systems, tone of voice, and brand architecture across all consumer and trade expressions.
• Lead the development of national and multi-brand campaigns, media strategy, and brand storytelling that build awareness, emotional connection, and loyalty with pet parents.
• Own the brand narratives and reasons to believe across the portfolio ensuring messaging is rooted in clear, differentiated points of view that resonate across channels, audiences, and retail environments.
• Ensure the development of compelling, on-brand creative content and assets across all brands and all channels.
• Champion a portfolio-wide creative vision that differentiates PetSafe Brands in the marketplace and resonates with diverse target audiences across product categories.
• Establish and uphold creative standards and brand guidelines that enable consistency at scale while allowing for brand-level differentiation within the portfolio.
• Provide executive oversight of digital marketing strategy, including performance media, paid social, SEO/SEM, and eCommerce content, ensuring brand integrity across all digital touchpoints.
• Partner closely with the commercial teams to ensure brand campaigns, creative assets, and messaging are effectively translated into retailer-specific activations across Amazon, PetSmart, Chewy, Walmart, and direct-to-consumer channels.
• Serve as the brand authority in joint planning with commercial teams, ensuring executional efforts at retail and online are grounded in consistent brand identity, narrative, and reason to believe across all brands.
• Champion a data-driven marketing culture establishing enterprise-wide KPIs and performance dashboards that translate consumer and market insights into actionable strategy.
• Define and monitor key marketing performance metrics across all brands; leverage data to optimize spend, sharpen targeting, and improve campaign results continuously.
• Own consumer research and market intelligence capabilities, ensuring the organization maintains a deep, current understanding of pet parent needs, competitive dynamics, and category trends.

Qualifications:

• 15+ years of progressive marketing experience, with at least 57 years in a senior executive leadership role (VP or above) with P&L or enterprise budget responsibility.
• Demonstrated success leading brand strategy, integrated marketing, and portfolio management in a consumer products environment; experience in the pet industry, adjacent specialty retail, or multi-brand consumer goods strongly preferred.
• Proven ability to build, lead, and develop high-performing, multi-disciplinary marketing organizations across brand, creative, digital, and insights functions.
• Track record of driving measurable brand equity growth and commercial results at scale, including new market entry, product launch, and retail partnership strategies.
• Deep expertise in digital marketing, eCommerce, performance media, and the evolving retail media landscape (Amazon, PetSmart, Chewy, Walmart, DTC).
• Strong executive presence with the ability to influence at all levels of the organization, including Board-level communication.
• Proven experience managing and optimizing agency ecosystems, external creative partners, and media buying relationships.
• Exceptional ability to leverage consumer research, market intelligence, and data analytics to inform and refine strategy.
• Bachelor's degree required; MBA or advanced degree strongly preferred.

Accountabilities:

• Brand equity scores by brand
• Creative performance (CTR, ROAS, engagement rate)
• Consumer engagement & retention metrics
• Campaign effectiveness and media efficiency
• eCommerce content quality and conversion contribution
• Marketing budget stewardship and ROI

Relationships:

• Reports to: Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Benefits:

Working for PetSafe Brands definitely has its benefits. We offer a collaborative and creative team-oriented work environment where we encourage you to take risks to learn and grow! We offer a competitive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, and 401K match. In addition we offer a rich wellness program which includes an onsite health clinic, workout facility and of course, we encourage you to bring your dog to work, which is our whole reason for what we do!

PetSafe Brands is dedicated to offering equal employment opportunity for all teammates and fostering a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. At PetSafe Brand, our teammates are our greatest strength. We strive to build a workforce as diverse as the customers we serve by hiring great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, life experiences, knowledge, self-expression and talent. We recruit and reward teammates based on capability and performance and together we are building a culture that welcomes all dimensions of an individual's identity including race, color, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, age, educational background, national origin or ancestry, religion, veteran status, or physical ability. We embrace these differences and the unique contributions each teammate brings not just because it is the right thing to do but because it makes our company stronger. While we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace and a culture of belonging, we recognize that we still have more work to do and a lot more to learn.