Digital Marketing Lead

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Old Mutual is a firm believer in the African opportunity and our diverse talent reflects this.

Job Description

The Digital Marketing Lead is a senior strategic role within Group Marketing responsible for translating Old Mutual's broader marketing and business priorities into integrated, audience-led digital marketing strategies that drive brand awareness, consideration, engagement, digital adoption and business value.

The role is the custodian of digital marketing strategy across a portfolio of B2B-focused business units, Group functions, Brand Digital Marketing and Social Media.

The Digital Marketing Lead leads a team of Digital Marketing Managers, a Brand Digital Manager and Social Media Manager, ensuring that digital marketing capabilities are strategically aligned, commercially focused, well governed and consistently executed across the Old Mutual enterprise.

The role is responsible for establishing a coherent approach to how digital marketing supports:

• B2B and institutional business growth

• Corporate and investment audiences

• Brand awareness and consideration

• Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, including Masisizane

• Group functions such as Human Capital and Group Communications

• Digital adoption, servicing and rewards

• Enterprise social media

• Integrated Brand Media campaigns

The role works closely with the Group Head of Digital Marketing, Brand, Group Communications, business unit marketing teams, Group functions, Performance Marketing, Campaign Management, Insights & Analytics and external agencies to ensure that digital is embedded as a strategic component of the broader marketing ecosystem.

The Digital Marketing Lead should ensure that Group Digital Marketing moves beyond being primarily an executional service function to becoming a strategic marketing growth and value partner.

The role is expected to:

• Translate business objectives into clear digital marketing strategies.

• Establish consistent digital marketing principles and best practices across business units.

• Ensure digital channels play clearly defined roles within the marketing funnel. Connect Brand, B2B, Social, Content and Digital Adoption strategies.

• Drive greater effectiveness and efficiency from digital investment.

• Strengthen measurement, insight and optimisation. Build stronger agency and platform partnerships.

• Continuously evolve Old Mutual's digital marketing capabilities in response to changes in consumer behaviour, platforms, technology and the media ecosystem.

Key Result Areas:

1. Own and Lead Digital Marketing Strategy

• Develop and maintain the Group digital marketing strategy in alignment with the overall Old Mutual marketing and brand strategy.

• Establish the strategic role of digital across awareness, consideration, engagement and adoption.

• Translate business objectives, budgets and KPIs into clear digital strategies.

• Establish principles for integrated planning across:

  • Brand

  • Content

  • Social

  • Paid Media

  • Search

  • Owned digital channels

  • Digital adoption

• Ensure digital strategies are audience-led rather than channel-led.

• Drive consistency in digital planning while allowing appropriate flexibility for individual business unit requirements.

• Identify opportunities to improve the contribution of digital to commercial and brand outcomes.

2. B2B & Group Function Digital Marketing

Lead the strategic direction and effectiveness of the B2B and Group Function digital marketing portfolio through the Digital Marketing Managers.

B2B audiences may include:

• Institutional investors

• Corporates

• Employers

• Trustees

• Investment firms

• Financial intermediaries

• Professional advisers

• Corporate decision-makers

• Other specialist B2B audiences

Portfolio includes business areas such as:

• Old Mutual Investment Group

• Old Mutual Wealth

• Old Mutual Alternative Investments

• Old Mutual Corporate / Employee Benefits

• Old Mutual Unit Trusts

• Masisizane / CSR initiatives

Group Functions include:

• Human Capital

• Group Communications

• Digital Adoption

• Digital Servicing

• Rewards

• Other Group-wide initiatives as required

Responsibilities include:

• Provide strategic direction to Digital Marketing Managers.

• Ensure business unit objectives are translated into appropriate digital strategies.

• Challenge briefs where objectives, audiences, budgets or KPIs are unclear.

• Ensure appropriate channel and audience strategies are developed.

• Ensure digital plans are integrated with wider marketing activity.

• Review performance and strategic recommendations.

• Identify opportunities to improve efficiency, scale and business impact.

3. Brand Digital Marketing

The Digital Marketing Lead provides strategic leadership to the Brand Digital Manager, who is responsible for translating Brand Media campaigns into effective digital marketing strategies.

Responsibilities include:

• Establish the role of digital within the broader Brand Media strategy.

• Ensure digital activity extends and amplifies major brand campaigns.

• Develop principles for integrating:

  • TV

  • OOH

  • Radio

  • Digital media

  • Social

  • Content

  • Owned channels

• Ensure digital plans are designed around audience behaviour rather than simply replicating offline creative.

• Ensure appropriate digital channel selection and sequencing.

• Oversee the strategic relationship with the digital agency supporting Brand Digital.

• Challenge and improve agency strategic recommendations.

• Ensure Brand Digital activity has clear awareness and consideration objectives.

• Ensure digital brand activity is measurable and contributes to broader brand outcomes.

4. Social Media Strategy

The Digital Marketing Lead provides leadership and oversight to the Social Media Manager, who is the custodian of the Group-wide social media strategy.

The role is responsible for ensuring social media has a clear strategic role within the overall digital marketing ecosystem.

Key responsibilities include:

• Provide strategic direction to the Social Media Manager.

• Ensure the Group social strategy aligns with the broader Brand and Digital Marketing strategy.

• Ensure social platforms have clearly defined roles and objectives.

• Oversee the development of social strategies focused on:

  • Brand relevance

  • Trust

  • Audience growth

  • Engagement

  • Positive net sentiment

• Ensure social media is integrated into major Group campaigns.

• Ensure social insights influence broader digital and marketing strategies.

• Oversee the strategic relationship with the creative/social agency.

• Ensure appropriate governance and risk management.

• Support the development of enterprise-wide social media standards.

The Digital Marketing Lead does not own day-to-day community management, which remains with the Community Management team in Group Communications.

5. Enterprise Digital Planning

Establish a consistent approach to planning digital activity across the organisation.

Responsibilities include:

• Establish annual and quarterly digital planning processes.

• Ensure BU and Group Function plans align with enterprise priorities.

• Identify opportunities for campaign integration and amplification.

• Identify duplication, conflicts and gaps across digital activity.

• Establish clear planning principles around:

  • Audience

  • Objective

  • Channel

  • Content

  • Budget

  • Measurement

• Ensure appropriate prioritisation where demand exceeds available resources.

6. Full-Funnel Digital Marketing

Ensure digital marketing operates as part of an integrated full-funnel ecosystem.

Awareness

• Reach

• Brand visibility

• Audience growth

• Brand storytelling

Consideration

• Content engagement

• Product education

• Website engagement

• Lead interest

Engagement

• Content interaction

• Digital experiences

• Customer engagement

Adoption

• App adoption

• Digital servicing

• Rewards

• Self-service behaviours

The Digital Marketing Lead should ensure there are clear connections between these stages rather than treating each campaign as an isolated activity.

7. Audience Strategy & Customer Engagement

• Establish audience-first planning principles.

• Ensure appropriate segmentation of B2B, corporate, institutional and Group audiences.

• Develop customer journey principles for key audience groups.

• Ensure content, channel and media strategies correspond to audience needs and intent.

• Encourage greater use of first-party insights and behavioural data where appropriate.

• Ensure audience strategies are aligned with privacy, regulatory and data governance requirements.

8. Digital Media Strategy & Budget Oversight

• Provide strategic oversight of digital marketing investment across the portfolio.

• Ensure budgets are allocated against clear business and marketing objectives.

• Challenge inefficient or poorly justified digital investment.

• Identify opportunities to consolidate or scale activity.

• Work with Performance Marketing and Campaign Management to ensure appropriate media planning and execution.

• Establish principles for measuring media efficiency and effectiveness.

• Ensure digital investment decisions are supported by data and insights.

9. Digital Campaign Strategy

• Provide strategic oversight of major digital campaigns.

• Ensure briefs are sufficiently robust before execution.

• Establish clear campaign objectives, audience definitions and KPIs.

• Ensure campaigns have:

  • Clear strategic propositions

  • Appropriate channel roles

  • Strong creative alignment

  • Defined measurement frameworks

  • Optimisation plans

• Ensure campaign learnings are captured and applied to future campaigns.

10. Insights, Measurement & Optimisation Insights

Partner with the Digital Marketing Analytics and Insights capabilities to ensure digital marketing decisions are evidence-led.

Responsibilities include:

• Establish a culture of test, learn and optimise.

• Ensure teams use performance data to inform decisions.

• Review campaign performance and identify strategic implications.

• Ensure reporting moves beyond activity metrics towards:

  • Effectiveness

  • Efficiency

  • Audience quality

  • Business outcomes

• Identify cross-business insights that can be applied across the organisation.

• Use digital performance insights to challenge strategy and improve future planning.

11. Governance, Risk & Compliance

Ensure digital marketing operates within appropriate governance and risk frameworks for a large financial services organisation.

Responsibilities include:

• Establish and maintain digital marketing governance principles.

• Ensure teams understand their compliance responsibilities.

• Work with Legal, Compliance and Risk where required.

• Ensure appropriate approval processes are followed.

• Ensure social, digital advertising and content activity meets relevant regulatory requirements.

• Ensure appropriate controls exist around:

  • Data

  • Targeting

  • Advertising claims

  • Influencer activity

  • Platform access

  • Brand usage

  • Customer communications

12. Agency & Partner Management

Act as a senior strategic partner to key digital marketing agencies.

Responsibilities include:

• Establish clear agency scopes and deliverables.

• Ensure agencies understand Old Mutual's strategic priorities.

• Challenge agency recommendations and ensure they are evidence-led.

• Establish appropriate performance measures.

• Ensure the organisation receives strategic value, not simply execution capacity.

• Drive knowledge transfer from agencies into the internal team.

• Manage agency performance and commercial value.

• Identify opportunities to consolidate agency capabilities where appropriate.

13. Stakeholder Management

Build and maintain senior relationships across the enterprise.

Key stakeholders include:

• Group CMO

• Group Head of Digital Marketing

• Brand leadership

• Group Communications

• Business Unit CMOs / Marketing Heads

• Human Capital

• Corporate Affairs

• Product teams

• Customer Experience

• Technology

• Data & Analytics

• Performance Marketing

• Campaign Management

• Legal, Risk & Compliance

The role must be able to influence without direct authority, manage competing priorities and create alignment across a complex matrix organisation.

14. Digital Capability & Ways of Working

Continuously improve how Group Digital Marketing services the organisation.

Responsibilities include:

• Establish clear roles and responsibilities across Group Digital Marketing.

• Improve briefing and prioritisation processes.

• Develop consistent digital planning templates and standards.

• Establish appropriate SLAs and ways of working with BUs.

• Identify opportunities for automation and process improvement.

• Reduce duplication between agencies and internal teams.

• Establish mechanisms for sharing best practices across business units.

• Develop digital marketing capability within the team.

15. Innovation & Future Digital Marketing

The Digital Marketing Lead should ensure Old Mutual remains future-ready by monitoring developments across:

• Digital media

• Social media

• Search

• Content

• Martech

• Marketing automation

• Measurement

• Privacy

• Audience technology

• Creative technology

• Platform ecosystems

• Emerging digital behaviours

The role should identify practical opportunities to test, learn and scale new capabilities where they can create measurable value.

16. People Leadership

Lead and develop the Digital Marketing leadership team comprising:

• Two Digital Marketing Managers

• Brand Digital Manager

• Social Media Manager

Responsibilities include:

• Set clear objectives and performance expectations.

• Develop individual capability and career pathways.

• Build a high-performance culture.

• Encourage collaboration across specialist disciplines.

• Identify capability gaps and future talent requirements.

• Coach team members in strategic thinking and stakeholder management.

• Ensure effective workload and resource allocation.

• Build succession and resilience within the team.

17.Key Performance Indicators

Performance should be assessed across five dimensions.

Strategic Impact

• Quality and effectiveness of digital strategies

• Alignment with business objectives

• Stakeholder satisfaction

• Contribution to marketing outcomes

Brand & Audience

• Brand awareness and consideration

• Quality audience reach

• Engagement

• Social net sentiment

• Audience growth

Digital Effectiveness

• Campaign effectiveness

• Media efficiency

• Digital adoption

• Content performance

• Contribution to business outcomes

Operational Excellence

• Campaign delivery

• Quality of planning

• Governance compliance

• Agency performance

• Process efficiency

People & Capability

• Team engagement

• Capability development

• Talent retention

• Collaboration

• Innovation adoption

Requirements: Skills, Qualifications and Experience required

Minimum Educational Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Communications, Digital Marketing or related discipline.

• Relevant digital marketing qualifications or certifications advantageous.

Experience Required

• 8–10+ years' experience in digital marketing, integrated marketing or related disciplines.

• Significant experience developing digital marketing strategies.

• Experience managing multiple business units, brands or portfolios.

• Experience managing digital agencies and specialist partners.

• Experience leading teams of digital marketing professionals.

• Strong understanding of paid, owned and social digital ecosystems.

• Experience operating in complex stakeholder environments.

Advantageous

• Financial services experience across banking, insurance, investments, wealth or employee benefits.

• Experience within a large corporate or multinational environment.

• B2B digital marketing experience.

• Brand digital marketing experience.

• Enterprise social media experience.

TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES

The role should demonstrate strong knowledge across:

• Digital marketing strategy

• Integrated campaign planning

• Brand digital marketing

• B2B digital marketing

• Social media strategy

• Paid media

• Audience strategy

• Digital analytics

• Measurement

• Martech

• Digital adoption

• Marketing technology

• Agency management

• Digital governance

The role does not need to be the deepest technical specialist in every discipline. Instead, it must be able to connect specialist capabilities into a coherent digital marketing strategy.

LEADERSHIP & BEHAVIOURAL COMPETENCIES

• Leadership and team development

• Strong communication and presentation skills

• Strategic thinking

• Commercial acumen

• Stakeholder management  and influence

• Customer & audience centricity

• Data orientation

• Ability to operate in a complex, matrixed organisation

FUTURE-READY CAPABILITIES

The Digital Marketing Lead should increasingly operate as an enterprise digital marketing orchestrator, rather than simply a channel specialist.

• Key future capabilities include:

• Integrated digital and brand

• Audience-led marketing

• Measurement-led decision making

• Digital experience

• Social & creator ecosystems

• Marketing technology

• Experimentation

 

Skills

Action Planning, Brand Development, Campaign Management, Content Development, Customer Value Proposition Development, Data Management, Digital Literacy, Executing Plans, Learning and Development (L&D), Marketing Systems, Media Management, Policies & Procedures, Social Media Management, Talent Attraction, Technologically Savvy

Competencies

Builds Effective Teams

Builds Networks

Business Insight

Collaborates

Communicates Effectively

Cultivates Innovation

Customer Focus

Drives Results

Education

Bachelors Degree (B) (Required)

Closing Date

15 September 2026 , 23:59

The appointment will be made from the designated group in line with the Employment Equity Plan of Old Mutual South Africa and the specific business unit in question.

The Old Mutual Story!