Manager, Community Engine - Hybrid, Cary, North Carolina
About the job
The Events & Experience Marketing team is looking for a Manager, Community Engine to lead the strategy, team and evolution of a modern global community capability — transforming fragmented, episodic user-group activity into year-round engagement that builds stronger relationships with priority users, customers and advocates and delivers measurable business impact. This leader will connect global strategy with regional activation, balancing consistency with local relevance while integrating Community with flagship experiences, digital programs and priority go-to-market initiatives.
As a Manager, Community Engine, you will:
- Define and evolve the global Community strategy and portfolio — establishing the purpose, audience priorities, program portfolio, operating principles, investment approach and roadmap for a scalable, modern community capability aligned to SAS business and marketing priorities.
- Lead year-round community growth and engagement — translating audience, industry, product and market priorities into coordinated campaigns and a mix of digital, local, educational, peer-to-peer and flagship-event experiences that drive awareness, participation, repeat engagement and sustained community relationships.
- Integrate Community with the broader customer and marketing journey — partnering with the Strategy & Marketing Engine on audience strategy, campaign planning and measurement, while ensuring community relationships and insights inform flagship experiences, digital programs, customer and partner initiatives and sales activation.
- Directly manage and develop the Community team and extended delivery network — setting priorities and accountabilities, coaching performance and development, assigning portfolio ownership, leading agency execution, and establishing governance that enables regional and market partners to activate effectively within one global framework.
- Build influential internal and external partnerships — working across Marketing, Industry Sales, Customer Success, R&D, regional teams, community leaders and advocates to understand needs, shape programming, earn participation and strengthen SAS's connection to its user and customer communities.
- Own measurement, investment effectiveness and optimization — establishing common measures for participation, engagement, conversion, impact, cost and portfolio return; managing the Community portfolio budget and using insights to determine where to scale, optimize, redesign or recommend shifts in resources.
- Embrace curiosity, passion, authenticity and accountability. These are our values and influence everything we do.
Required qualifications
- Minimum 8 years of experience in Marketing, Community, Customer Engagement, Customer Advocacy, Event/Experience Marketing or related field
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Communications or other related field. An equivalent combination of related education, training and experience may be considered in place of the above qualifications
- Demonstrated ability to operate as a modern marketer, combining strategic thinking, creative problem solving, analytical decision making and strong brand orientation.
- Significant experience developing marketing strategy, translating business priorities into clear strategies, integrated plans, tactical roadmaps and measurable outcomes.
- Demonstrated people-leadership capability, including setting direction, developing talent, establishing accountability and driving performance.
- Strong understanding of contemporary customer community, advocacy and engagement strategies, including approaches that support customer success, learning, retention, advocacy and growth.
- Demonstrated ability to develop audience acquisition, engagement and retention strategies, including campaign-based approaches that drive awareness, registrations, attendance and community growth.
- Working knowledge of enterprise technology, analytics and AI-related topics, with the ability to evaluate and curate content and programming that aligns with business priorities, customer interests and market trends.
- Strong business leadership skills, including budget management, executive communication and cross-functional influence that extends the reach and impact of community programs.
Additional competencies, knowledge and skills
- Catalyzes change—Creates momentum by taking immediate action and encouraging others to take action to improve organizational culture, processes, or products/services; offers resources and direction to support implementation; breaks down cultural and operational barriers to change; recognizes and rewards those who contribute to change efforts.
- Leads through vision and values—Translates the organization’s vision and values for employees and organizational partners by linking them to their daily responsibilities; shapes team or group priorities to reflect the vision and values; rewards associates whose actions support the organization’s vision and values.
- Clarifies performance expectations—Clearly communicates the importance and parameters of the delegated task/responsibility, including task scope, limits of decision-making authority, performance standards, time constraints, and expected outputs and their impact (on the individual and team); identifies others’ issues and concerns; summarizes to ensure shared expectations. Maintains high attention to team's KPIs and annual goals - assures that teams and individuals perform as expected according to Performance and Development Plans
- Initiates action—Takes action, within parameters set by higher level leader, to achieve improved results despite the uncertainty of outcomes; confronts difficult problems early.
World-class benefits
Highlights include...
