Vice President, Marketplace Growth

About the Role

The Vice President, Marketplace Growth is responsible for the performance, health, and long-term evolution of the DonorsChoose Marketplace—the ecosystem that connects teachers seeking classroom resources with donors who want to support them. This executive leader defines the organization's Marketplace growth strategy, bringing together audience insight, product partnership, marketing strategy, and data-informed decision making to strengthen both sides of the Marketplace, deepen donor engagement, and expand equitable access to classroom resources for teachers and students.

Reporting to the Chief Marketing Officer, this role serves as Marketing's primary strategic partner to Product, shaping Marketplace investment priorities and ensuring product strategy is informed by donor needs, teacher insights, market opportunities, and measurable business outcomes. While Product defines what gets built and how it works, the Vice President, Marketplace Growth defines where the organization should invest to accelerate Marketplace growth and maximize long-term impact.

The Vice President leads an integrated Marketplace Growth organization—including Digital Growth & Marketing, Product Marketing, and Mid-Level Giving—aligning these functions around a shared growth strategy that attracts new donors, deepens engagement, increases donor lifetime value, and strengthens the overall health of the Marketplace.

As a key member of the Marketing leadership team, this role partners closely with leaders across Product, Development, Analytics, Finance, and Executive Leadership to align priorities, make strategic tradeoff decisions, and ensure Marketplace investments deliver meaningful results for both teachers and donors.

Success in this role requires balancing immediate fundraising opportunities with the long-term health of the Marketplace, building strong cross-functional partnerships, and fostering a culture of experimentation, learning, and continuous improvement. Success is measured not only by Marketplace growth, but by how effectively that growth expands educational opportunity for teachers and students across the country.

Primary Responsibilities

Define Marketplace Growth Strategy

• Define the long-term strategy that grows and strengthens the DonorsChoose Marketplace.
• Establish the vision, priorities, and operating strategy for Marketplace Growth.
• Identify the highest-value opportunities across Product, Marketing, and Fundraising to improve Marketplace performance and donor outcomes.
• Translate teacher and donor behavior, market trends, research, and organizational priorities into actionable growth strategies.
• Partner with the Chief Marketing Officer and cross-functional leaders to establish Marketplace investment priorities, annual objectives, and success metrics.
• Influence enterprise decision-making by aligning Marketplace strategy across Product, Marketing, Development, Finance, Analytics, and Executive Leadership.

Drive Marketplace Growth & Performance

• Lead sustainable Marketplace growth through customer insight, experimentation, and data-informed decision making.
• Develop strategies that increase donor acquisition, engagement, retention, recurring giving, reactivation, upgrades, and lifetime value.
• Champion a culture of experimentation, measurement, and continuous optimization.
• Partner with Analytics to establish performance metrics, evaluate results, and identify new growth opportunities.
• Balance immediate fundraising opportunities with long-term health of the Marketplace, strengthening outcomes for both donors and teachers.
• Define the organization's Marketplace growth strategy and translate it into clear priorities for functional leaders, ensuring teams are aligned around shared goals while empowering them to own execution.

Partner with Product & Drive Go-to-Market

• Ensure new product capabilities create measurable Marketplace value.
• Serve as Marketing primary strategic partner to Product throughout product planning and roadmap development.
• Represent the voice of multiple audiences including teachers, donors, partners, vendors when evaluating new product opportunities for the multi-sided marketplace.
• Identify Marketplace opportunities that influence product investment priorities.
• Partner with Product to evaluate new capabilities, define success measures, and assess business impact.
• Ensure new features and enhancements are successfully positioned, launched, adopted, and measured.

Lead the Marketplace Growth Organization

• Build a high-performing team capable of delivering sustained Marketplace growth.
• Lead the leaders responsible for Digital Growth & Marketing, Product Marketing, and Mid-Level Giving.
• Align teams around shared Marketplace objectives and organizational priorities.
• Develop high-performing managers through coaching, clear expectations, and thoughtful prioritization.
• Foster a collaborative, data-informed culture that encourages experimentation, accountability, and continuous learning.
• Build organizational capability that enables the Marketplace Growth function to scale alongside the organization.

Qualifications

• Have 10+ years of related work experience in growth, lifecycle marketing, product marketing, digital marketing, Marketplace strategy, or revenue growth in a high-growth technology company, digital Marketplace, or mission-driven organization.
• Understand how to grow multi-sided marketplaces by balancing customer acquisition, engagement, retention, and lifetime value.
• Have significant experience partnering closely with Product organizations to influence roadmaps, launch new capabilities, and improve customer experiences.
• Have successfully balanced customer experience, product strategy, and business performance to drive sustainable growth.
• Enjoys using data, experimentation, and customer insights to solve complex business challenges.
• Have successfully led managers and built high-performing, cross-functional teams.
• Are comfortable operating at both strategic and operational levels, moving seamlessly between long-term vision and execution.
• Build trust through collaboration, curiosity, and sound judgment while influencing without relying solely on formal authority.

Level Expectations

Vice Presidents are enterprise leaders responsible for defining strategy, leading significant organizational functions, and driving outcomes that advance DonorsChoose's long-term mission and organizational priorities. They establish a clear vision for their function, build and develop high-performing leaders and teams, and influence decisions across the organization through strong executive partnership, strategic judgment, and cross-functional leadership.