As the Director of Business Lending Acquisition Marketing within Optum Bank Small Business Lending, you will be responsible for driving profitable customer growth across the bank's business lending portfolio, including small-dollar and large-dollar lending solutions. Serving as the primary bridge between Lending Product, Marketing, Analytics, Digital, and Risk teams, you will own the end-to-end acquisition strategy and marketing roadmap designed to increase awareness, generate demand, improve conversion, and accelerate portfolio growth.
This role operates at the intersection of product strategy, customer acquisition, digital marketing, analytics, and customer experience. You will act as the central orchestrator for lending initiatives, ensuring cross-functional alignment and execution of integrated, data-driven marketing programs that deliver measurable business results. The successful candidate will combine deep acquisition marketing expertise, lending industry knowledge, and strong leadership skills to optimize borrower acquisition and enhance the end-to-end customer journey. In this role, you will oversee multi-million-dollar acquisition budgets across paid search, paid social, affiliates, SEO, and emerging digital channels to drive qualified traffic, improve conversion performance, and maximize return on investment.
Primary Responsibilities:- Strategic Growth & Acquisition Leadership
- Own the end-to-end customer acquisition strategy across all business lending products, including demand generation, lead acquisition, conversion optimization, and portfolio growth
- Develop and execute multi-quarter and multi-year acquisition roadmaps aligned with business objectives, lending product strategies, and growth targets
- Establish customer acquisition goals, performance metrics, and optimization frameworks to maximize marketing effectiveness and lending volume
- Marketing & Channel Management
- Lead acquisition efforts across digital marketing channels, including paid search (SEM), paid social, affiliates, SEO, display, and emerging acquisition platforms
- Manage and optimize acquisition budgets to achieve customer growth, cost efficiency, and return-on-investment objectives
- Oversee campaign development and execution from strategy through launch, testing, measurement, and optimization
- Customer Experience & Conversion Optimization
- Identify opportunities to improve the end-to-end borrower journey and digital application experience
- Utilize customer journey mapping, funnel analysis, and behavioral insights to reduce friction and improve application completion rates
- Partner with Product, UX, Operations, and Technology teams to implement customer experience enhancements that drive improved conversion outcomes
- Analytics & Performance Management
- Partner with Analytics, Data Science, and Modeling teams to identify target audiences, build segmentation strategies, and develop acquisition models
- Establish performance dashboards and executive reporting that provide visibility into acquisition, funnel conversion, portfolio growth, and campaign effectiveness
- Analyze marketing and lending performance metrics to identify opportunities for optimization and continuous improvement
- Product & Cross-Functional Leadership
- Serve as the primary marketing liaison for Business Lending Product teams, translating product priorities into comprehensive go-to-market and acquisition plans
- Coordinate across product, marketing, digital, technology, user experience, legal, compliance, and risk stakeholders to ensure successful execution of strategic initiatives
- Drive alignment across teams to ensure marketing strategies remain compliant with applicable banking and lending regulations
- Market & Competitive Intelligence
- Monitor competitive market activity, industry trends, lending products, acquisition tactics, and customer preferences
- Partner with market research teams to develop customer insights that strengthen positioning, messaging, and acquisition effectiveness
- Team Leadership
- Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of acquisition marketing professionals and analysts
- Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, data-driven decision making, and continuous improvement
You'll be rewarded and recognized for your performance in an environment that will challenge you and give you clear direction on what it takes to succeed in your role as well as provide development for other roles you may be interested in.
Required Qualifications:- 10+ years of experience leading acquisition, growth, digital marketing, or customer lifecycle strategies
- 5+ years of experience within a bank, fintech, online lender, marketplace lender, payments company, or other regulated financial services organization
- Demonstrated experience marketing lending products, including small business loans, lines of credit, commercial lending products, consumer lending products, or payment solutions
- Experience leveraging data, AI, predictive modeling, and customer segmentation to improve acquisition performance and campaign ROI
- Demonstrated experience in executive communication and stakeholder management skills, with experience influencing senior leaders and cross-functional teams
- Experience managing multi-channel digital acquisition programs including SEM, SEO, paid social, affiliate marketing, partnerships, and performance media
- Deep understanding of the lending lifecycle, including customer acquisition, underwriting, onboarding, servicing, retention, and portfolio growth
- Solid understanding of banking regulations, fair lending requirements, UDAAP, privacy requirements, and compliance considerations within marketing and customer acquisition
- Expertise in conversion rate optimization, customer journey mapping, and digital funnel management
- Proven ability to partner effectively across Product, Analytics, Risk, Compliance, Technology, and/or Operations organizations
- Proven ability and willingness to travel up to 25%
Preferred Qualifications:- Experience working within both traditional banking and fintech environments, with a solid understanding of the strengths, capabilities, and operating models of each
- Experience launching or scaling digital lending products, including SMB lending, business lines of credit, embedded finance, marketplace lending, or digitally originated commercial lending products
- Experience supporting partnerships with fintechs, digital distribution partners, referral marketplaces, or embedded lending channels
- Experience building and leading high-performing acquisition marketing teams within rapidly growing financial services organizations
- Familiarity with modern fintech acquisition technologies, customer data platforms, marketing automation tools, and digital analytics platforms
- Proven strategic thinker with a demonstrated track record of driving customer acquisition, portfolio growth, and digital transformation initiatives
Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to local labor markets, education, work experience, certifications, etc. In addition to your salary, we offer benefits such as, a comprehensive benefits package, incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). No matter where or when you begin a career with us, you'll find a far-reaching choice of benefits and incentives. The salary for this role will range from $134,600 - $230,800 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.
