Vice President of Membership

Sustainable Brands® is the premier global community of brand innovators who are shaping the future of commerce worldwide. Since 2006, our mission has been to inspire, engage and equip today’s business and brand leaders to prosper for the near and long term by leading the way to a better future. Digitally published news articles and issues-focused conversation topics, internationally known conferences and regional events, a robust e-learning library and peer-to-peer membership groups all facilitate community learning and engagement throughout the year. Sustainable Brands is a division of Sustainable Life Media.

Joining our team offers you an opportunity to gain first-hand awareness into what is happening at the forefront of innovation for sustainability. You'll meet the people who are making it happen and will help us keep our organization healthy and growing.

You are a natural leader with passion and integrity at your core. You are both people and performance driven. You know how to operate effectively in a scaling, dynamic environment. You can lead with diplomacy, and truly care about both driving value for our business and our customers, inspiring and developing your team and being a committed partner to the people who work alongside you. You have a solid track record for building a high performance team. You are inspired to work with others whose purpose is to have a lasting impact on the world.

The Role:

In this position, you will be responsible for the growth, health, and vitality of our corporate member community.  

The ideal candidate will be an entrepreneurial, strategic, creative thinker with an exceptional ability to leverage active listening skills and domain expertise to synthesize the perspectives and goals of diverse stakeholders, and bring that synthesis to bear in our corporate members community through member meetings, member activations at public events, specific projects or collaborations and other work products.  You will be a self-motivated and goal oriented leader with excellent team building skills who will mentor, train and lead by example.  

In this role, you will work closely with all internal teams to ensure goals are met, which requires a strong strategic/collaborative team-oriented orientation. 

Keys to success in this role will be:

• Deep expertise at scale in product/brand-level sustainability leadership (both environmental and social, including concepts such as LCA, GHG Scope 2-3 emissions management, supply chain management/design, employee engagement, and global regulatory requirements) and at least two of the following domains:
• Brand building and marketing (especially as it relates to growing brands built on sustainable market facing attributes)
• Sustainability-focused business transformation  and internal corporate culture change 
• Innovation/design leadership (especially as it relates to advanced sustainable/regenerative design principles and processes), and/or 
• Research & development;
• Capacity to create, develop, and retain trusted relationships with influential multinational corporate brand leaders responsible for leading the shift to a sustainable economy.  
• Demonstrated success building and growing affinity-based membership groups;
• Exceptional listening and collaborating skills that have translated into successful new products, services, and opportunities to bring stakeholders together for common purpose and shared outcomes;
• Exceptional written, verbal, and public presentation skills; and
• An entrepreneurial mindset. 

Responsibilities:

• Cultural leadership 
• Deeply understands our company mission, business/product strategy and unique sales/value proposition;
• Models desired behavior:  courageous optimism, personal accountability, curiosity, results orientation;
• Inspires and enables high-performance and success across the Membership Team;
• Encourages desired behavior / discourages undesired behavior on Membership Team;
• Enhances SB brand through contribution of membership-related thought leadership (written word and spoken engagements);
• Maintains currency and deep expertise across corporate sustainability,  consumer marketing, innovation/design, research & development, and membership organization domains.
• Operational leadership 
• Ensures the growth, health, and vitality of our corporate member community;
• Together with other internal leaders, establishes and delivers on revenue and growth targets across the membership portfolio;
• Ensures high quality execution, regular evaluation, and evolution of the membership offering;
• Works directly with Director, Membership Programming and Business Transformation to design and execute high quality in-person corporate member meetings and member activations at public events; 
• Serves as staff liaison to our Advisory Board’s Membership Council, to solicit and respond to feedback on the membership offering and to recruit new members to the community;
• Leads the scoping, formation and execution of SB Working Groups, which are pre-competitive, project-based initiatives formed to create and deliver specified, tangible outcomes. These Working Groups are open to members and require additional annual fees.
• Shares ownership with the Sales Team of the corporate member pipeline (both new members and renewals); and
• Recognizes opportunities at the intersection of our unique sales/value proposition, the marketplace, and evolving customer needs.

Membership Community Management: 

• Collaborates with the Marketing team to help ensure continued flow of relevant, targeted content into the marketplace that enhances SB’s brand and helps drive business leads.
• Shares ownership (with the Sales and Marketing teams) of the the assessment, inventory, development and maintenance of all sales support collateral to drive sales performance in the membership line of business; and
• Leverages competitive market insights and data to improve our offering and the satisfaction of the corporate member community;
• Deeply understands the composition and needs of , and builds strong relationships with, our corporate member community;
• Serves as the primary point of contact and engagement lead for our corporate member community on membership topics;
• Capability/Capacity building
• Leverages understanding of Membership Team profile to drive effective recruiting and hiring for Membership Team
• Owns and leads the assessment of capabilities vs, needs, training programs, and performance management for Membership Team to ensure the entire team is set up for success; and 
• Deeply understands skills, tools, capabilities necessary to drive Membership Team success;

Key Performance Indicators for this position:

• Performance vs. plan, actuals - membership revenue, gross margin
• Member retention rate
• Membership mix
• Member evaluation scores (NPS) 
• Internal team surveys

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice at Sustainable Brands:  

At Sustainable Brands, we're not just aware of the importance of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) — we're actively committed to it. We aspire to build a team as diverse as the communities we serve, championing an environment where every individual is celebrated for their authentic self. Here, barriers to inclusion are dismantled, ensuring equal opportunities for all to flourish. Join us on this journey to embed DEIJ within our organization and beyond, making a lasting difference in the world.

Together, let's redefine the future of commerce through sustainability and innovation.