Director of Client Services, School Marketing

Director Of Client Services - School Marketing

Be the one who makes a difference!

At Vertex Education we are a team of high achievers, courageous leaders, and passionate believers in changing lives through education. As a purpose-led education services provider, our mission is destined to benefit many and yet it starts with just one person inspired to work together with us to make a memorable and meaningful difference for our clients, schools, students, and communities. Be the one who makes a differencewith us.

Driven by our mission of changing lives through education, the Director of Client Services - School Marketing serves as the external-facing sponsor, retention champion, and business leader for enrollment marketing school clients within Vertex Support Services (VSS). In a challenging enrollment environment where schools are facing shrinking applicant pools and increasing competition, this leader ensures partner schools receive proactive, strategic, and high-quality marketing support that helps them achieve their student enrollment goals.

The Director leads the School Marketing service line by building deep relationships with school clients, navigating high-stakes escalations, supporting new business opportunities, and continuously strengthening the service model. This role requires a leader who is equally comfortable representing the offering in sales conversations, shaping product, pricing, and packaging strategy, managing the service line P&L, and staying close enough to delivery to understand client needs, team capacity, and operational realities.

Success in this role requires balancing strong operational discipline with flexible, high-touch client service. The Director will clarify workflows, improve team structure, coach team members, and create scalable delivery systems while also knowing when to personally step in to protect key client relationships, support urgent client needs, or accommodate targeted requests that strengthen long-term retention. This leader will also pilot new marketing strategies, AI-enabled technologies, and service offerings that help schools respond to evolving enrollment challenges and create measurable impact.

Ultimately, the Director of Client Services - School Marketing will grow and retain the client portfolio, improve client outcomes, strengthen team performance, and ensure the service line operates with the clarity, innovation, and financial discipline needed for long-term success.

Responsibilities/Essential Functions:

• Client Sponsorship & Relationship Management:

• Serve as the primary sponsor, senior relationship owner, and escalation point for school clients, ensuring school leaders experience proactive communication, executive-level care, and strong partnership through changing enrollment conditions.

• Build and maintain deep relationships with school leadership teams through strategic partnership reviews, high-touch onboarding, recurring check-ins, and ongoing alignment around enrollment goals, campaign performance, client satisfaction, and emerging needs.

• Personally lead high-stakes client communications and escalations, including urgent enrollment challenges, campaign performance concerns, service delivery issues, and sensitive school-facing situations that require executive attention.

• Monitor client satisfaction, renewal risk, and loyalty across the portfolio, using direct client feedback, performance data, and relationship health indicators.

• Service Line Growth:

• Represent the School Marketing service line as a trusted advisor to partner schools, helping clients navigate difficult enrollment climates with practical solutions, strong communication, and a clear commitment to their long-term success.

• Develop standardized and customized pricing structures, and complex service level agreements during the acquisition and renewal of external school clients.

• Support the client acquisition process by developing service line and client-facing materials, attending and presenting at conferences, leading client discovery meetings, and contributing to proposal development and delivery.

• Service Innovation & Technology Strategy:

• Design, build, and pilot net-new marketing services, bringing fresh enrollment strategies to market for external school clients.

• Evaluate, select, and implement new marketing and AI software platforms across the technology stack to expand the delivery team's capabilities and actively combat shrinking applicant pools.

• Direct the adoption of automation tools within existing platforms to create delivery efficiencies, redirecting saved bandwidth into high-value creative production.

• Monitor digital advertising trends and campaign data across Google Analytics 4, Meta Ads Manager, and Google Ads to inform ongoing enhancements to client service offerings.

• Team Leadership & Tactical Execution:

• Develop and enforce adherence to standardized playbooks and operational workflows to drive on-time campaign launches, while purposefully allowing targeted flexibility for high-priority client requests.

• Step in to personally execute hands-on tactical campaign build-outs and support the team for select clients and during peak demand cycles.

• Lead ongoing team development and coaching initiatives, constantly balancing the effort to mature internal operations with the immediate need to hit client enrollment targets.

• Financial & Operational Management:

• Manage the overall VSS School Marketing service line P&L, tracking delivery costs against revenue while operating within established budget boundaries.

• Analyze operational metrics in Asana, such as campaign SLA adherence and average cost per enrolled student, to adjust daily workflows and resource allocation.

• Navigate financial tradeoffs by deliberately deciding when to absorb extra delivery costs or bypass strict margin guidelines to preserve and protect strategic external client relationships.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

• Bachelor's degree in marketing, communications, business, education, or a related field.

• 10+ years of professional experience, including leadership experience in client services, account management, marketing services, digital agency operations, enrollment marketing, or a related field.

• Direct experience supporting marketing, enrollment, admissions, or student recruitment efforts for K-12 schools, higher education institutions, or education service providers.

• Proven ability to build senior-level client relationships, navigate complex client needs or escalations, and serve as a trusted partner to client leadership.

• Strong ability to translate client goals, enrollment challenges, market conditions, campaign performance, and audience acquisition data into clear marketing strategies, service recommendations, and delivery plans.

• Demonstrated ability to lead a marketing delivery team by clarifying roles, improving workflows, coaching team members, managing capacity, and ensuring consistent execution across a client portfolio.

• Experience evaluating and applying modern AI-enabled tools to improve the quality, speed, personalization, or scalability of marketing services and client delivery.

• Strong business acumen, including the ability to understand pricing, staffing, delivery costs, margin implications, and the financial tradeoffs involved in running a scalable client services function.

• Master's degree in marketing, business administration, education leadership, communications, or a related field.

• Experience supporting sales, renewals, or expansion opportunities by contributing subject-matter expertise, service recommendations, pricing input, or client-facing presentations.

• Experience managing or contributing to a service line P&L.

• Experience evaluating, selecting, or piloting new marketing technologies, service offerings, automation tools, or campaign capabilities to improve client outcomes and delivery scalability.

• Working knowledge of creative and web production tools such as Adobe Creative Cloud, Canva, Figma, WordPress, Webflow, or similar platforms.

Be excited to be a part of our team and grow your career with us!?

Be the one who enables us to positively impact over 258,000 students across multiple states while driving our growth forward so we can enrich even more lives. Be the one who helps us achieve excellence for over 226 schools that we support with academics, finance, technology, human resources, communications, marketing, facilities, construction, and food services. Be the one who is a diverse thinker, a team player, a smart risk taker, an innovator, and a difference maker by encouraging others to climb higher and reach farther to further education.

• Be yourself surrounded by wonderful people who care about you, value your unique skills, and lift you up.

• Be supported in your work by caring leaders and team members who want you to succeed.

• Be empowered to make a difference and climb higher and reach farther to change lives through education.

• Be well in all aspects of