Marketing Director, Penguin Random House Children\'s

We’re looking for a dynamic, talented, forward-thinking and experienced Marketing Director to lead the marketing, brand and social strategy for Penguin Random House Children’s, the no1 children’s publisher in the UK and brand owner of Peter Rabbit and The Snowman. This role is a key appointment to create awareness, reach and engagement for our books, authors and brands in order to drive sales.

The successful candidate will work hand in hand with the Publicity and Communications Director to ensure a seamless joined-up approach to the team and the campaigns for maximum success. This is a senior leadership role for a commercially astute, performance-driven people manager who brings energy and clarity, with the ability to guide high-performing teams, influence outstanding campaigns, and make decisive calls on priorities and spend.

About the team: You’ll join the leadership of a creative, market-leading and digitally expert function spanning Marketing, Social and Brand, with responsibility for campaigns across our publishing and consumer brands, and our much-loved and successful owned brands. You’ll work in close partnership with the Publicity and Communications Director to model a joined-up approach across marketing and publicity - collaborative, fast-moving and focused on impact.

The role: As Marketing Director, you’ll set the divisional marketing strategy and create the conditions for brilliant work by leading and developing a high-performing team to deliver outstanding campaigns - providing clear direction, sharp prioritisation and strong decision-making as well as clear brand strategy for our Owned Brands. A key part of the role is championing consumer insight and digital expertise, ensuring our campaigns and brand strategies are informed by data, creativity and experimentation. This is about delivery of sales success on the campaigns, successfully growing new talent, as well as managing and growing some of the biggest children’s book and character brands.

• Lead the divisional marketing, brand and social strategy and represent the division at a group level, shaping plans that drive awareness and sales.
• Build and maintain a creative, operationally excellent, digitally expert team, committed to understanding consumers and delivering effective, market-leading campaigns.
• Drive a marketing approach that puts books and stories at the heart and builds community-first engagement through our channels.
• Partner effectively with the Publicity and Communications Director, ensuring a seamless, consumer-facing approach.
• Partner closely with colleagues across the division (including Sales, Editorial and Penguin Ventures) to strengthen planning, communication and impact.
• Set and lead the strategy for key Owned Brands (including Peter Rabbit, The Snowman, Flower Fairies, Spot, and The World of Eric Carle), working with the Publicity and Communications Director and Penguin Ventures to build ambitious consumer-first brand plans and partnerships.
• Ensure excellent leadership and performance management: coach, develop and motivate the team, and handle direct conversations with clarity and respect.
• Own the annual marketing budget and make rigorous, commercial decisions on spend, reviewing performance and stopping/redirecting activity when needed.
• Champion innovation and considered experimentation (including appropriate use of AI aligned to company guidance) to improve effectiveness and efficiency.

What you’ll bring: A confident, practical leader who combines strategic thinking with crisp execution - able to be clear and honest, make tough calls, and bring pace and energy to the team. Senior marketing leadership experience, with a proven track record of delivering and influencing successful, integrated campaigns and brand building. Experience gained within a forward-thinking and dynamic trade publisher, this doesn’t need to be specific to Children’s publishing. Strong people management capability: you can lead through change, coach performance, and handle direct, sometimes difficult conversations constructively. Excellent judgement using consumer insight and data to guide strategy and campaign effectiveness; forward-thinking about digital and experimentation. Commercial and numerate: confident owning budgets, making decisions about spend, and prioritising for impact. Highly collaborative stakeholder manager, with the ability to build strong cross-functional relationships, especially a close, effective partnership with the Publicity and Communication Director. Clear communicator with strong leadership presence - organised, decisive, and calm under pressure.

Application instructions: Please apply with your CV and cover letter outlining why you are the right candidate for the role by 11:59pm on Sunday 15th February.

AI: Here at Penguin, we believe in the power of authenticity and human creativity. When you apply for a position, we want to encourage you to showcase your unique voice. Throughout our recruitment process, please share your own thoughts, experiences, and skills. This helps us get a true sense of who you are and what you might bring to our team. We celebrate creativity and diverse perspectives, so please be yourself! While we recognise AI tools can be helpful, we recommend using them thoughtfully to ensure your responses reflect you.

Disability Confident: As a Disability Confident Committed organisation, we offer interviews to candidates with a disability who meet the essential criteria for the role, and opt-in on their application form. The essential criteria for this role are listed as part of the ‘What you’ll bring’ section. There may be times when the volume of applications means we cannot take all eligible candidates to interview. We encourage you to tell us about any reasonable adjustments you may need by emailing PRHCareersUK@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk. Remember, you only need to share what you are comfortable with, for us to support your request.

Circa £85,000 - £90,000 annual salary dependent on how your skills and experience align to the role, plus bonus and benefits. While our offices across the UK are places to connect, collaborate and celebrate with colleagues, we recognise that flexibility around where you work is just as important. For this role we expect that you will work from our London office a minimum of three days per week.