VP Paid Media

Role Description The Vice President, Paid Media, is the senior-most Paid Media leader at Kanahoma, responsible for the strategic direction, performance, and continuous evolution of the agency's Paid Media practice. Reporting directly to the SVP, Marketing, the VP, Paid Media fully owns the Paid Media product, from strategy and team leadership to execution quality and partner outcomes. This leader, who will define what Kanahoma's paid media product and team become, bringing a strong point of view on will define what it becomes, bringing a strong point of view on attribution, the future of search, and creative strategy in a world where paid media will look fundamentally different in five years. This individual directly manages the Paid Media team, drives year-over-year enrollment growth across the partner portfolio, actively contributes to agency operations and new business development, and leads the integration of AI tools and emerging technologies to keep Kanahoma at the forefront of performance marketing. Role Responsibilities • Own Paid Media as a Product • Serve as the Paid Media product owner, defining and evolving product strategy, standards, and vision in collaboration with the SVP, Marketing • Translate agency-level strategy into actionable paid media frameworks, processes, and playbooks, leveraging AI tools to accelerate development and improve consistency • Partner with the Accounts team on upsells and partner renewals, identifying and championing opportunities to expand Paid Media scope • Represent the Paid Media team in partner pitches and AOR conversations • Collaborate with the SVP, Marketing on SOW development, resource planning, and new business pipeline • Build & Lead A Best-in-Class Paid Media Team • Directly manage Sr. Directors and Directors of Paid Media, serving as the primary leadership layer for the full Paid Media team • Lead by example; take ownership and execute with a sense of urgency • "Yes, but" Culture - always presenting solutions when tasked with an opportunity • Recruit, develop, and retain top paid media talent; actively support hiring and onboarding across all levels of the team • Champion AI fluency across the team, ensuring all Paid Media team members are trained on and actively utilizing approved AI tools in their day-to-day workflows • Conduct weekly one-on-ones with direct reports • Hold quarterly skip-level meetings with all Paid Media team members who are not direct reports • Set, track, and evaluate direct reports' annual and bi-annual goals, aligned with performance reviews • Execute bi-annual performance reviews for all direct reports • Escalate team concerns to the SVP, Marketing or through L10 discussions • Own Paid Media Performance • Meet or exceed partner inquiry, application, and start goals across all Paid Media books of business • Ensure all Paid Media campaigns come within 5% of planned spend goals • Maintain a thorough understanding of partner portfolio performance for L10 weekly meetings, including budget pacing and performance metrics • Identify and implement AI-powered optimization strategies to improve campaign performance, reduce inefficiencies, and drive stronger partner outcomes • Ensure all deadlines are delivered on time; communicate early and often when delays arise • Serve as the senior escalation point for all Paid Media account service interruptions, ensuring timely resolution and proactive partner communication • Own Kanahoma's Forward-Looking Paid Media POV • Serve as Kanahoma's primary voice on where paid media is headed, across attribution, search evolution, and creative strategy, and translate that POV into a concrete roadmap for the practice • Bring a strong perspective on cross-channel attribution: what's working, what's broken, and how to build measurement frameworks that reflect real business outcomes in a multi-step acquisition model • Maintain an informed, opinionated view on the future of paid search-including AI-driven bidding, the evolution of match types, and the shift in how intent is captured and monetized • Drive creative strategy thinking across the paid team, with a clear POV on how creative will evolve as generative AI matures and platform automation increases • Regularly share POV with agency leadership and partners; represent Kanahoma's perspective in industry conversations and new business contexts • Develop, own and execute a recurring Paid Media Testing process • Drive a culture of innovation across the Paid Media team, ensuring Kanahoma remains a leader in the performance marketing landscape • Own the annual and quarterly paid media testing roadmap; oversee performance readouts shared with partners and internal teams • Identify and evaluate new channels, platforms, and ad units to test across the portfolio, including AI-native and AI-enhanced media opportunities • Work with existing vendors to identify new ad units and AI-powered targeting or bidding capabilities to test • Bu...