Executive Director, Brand Strategy & Social Innovation

Responsibilities

• Builds and develops a high-performing team of brand professionals, including national promotions leaders, social strategists, creator partnership managers, and content producers, fostering a culture of creative risk-taking balanced with business discipline and clear accountability to performance outcomes. Responsible for leading the team and recruiting, selecting, and retaining associates, elevating associates’ performance in support of the company’s growth goals.
• Translates Panda’s brand positioning into compelling integrated campaigns across national promotions, digital activations, and local market initiatives, ensuring every touchpoint is designed for social amplification and authentic storytelling.
• Develops and executes the annual and three-year communications plan that brings menu innovation strategy to life, embedding social-first thinking across all marketing initiatives while championing authentic storytelling.
• Responsible for the brand and social marketing budget, allocating spend against highest ROI initiatives across agencies, content production, creator partnerships, and paid media. Leads annual budget recommendations with clear business rationale tied to business KPIs, guest acquisition targets, and brand health objectives.
• Leads strategic relationships with creative AOR, social AOR, and media agency partners, ensuring alignment on brand positioning and creative excellence. Negotiates agency contracts and scopes of work to maximize output quality relative to investment while conducting annual performance reviews with each partner.
• Builds and scales a comprehensive creator ecosystem across micro, macro, mega, and celebrity tiers, prioritizing brand values alignment over vanity metrics, establishing a creator partnership framework that balances creative freedom with brand protection.
• Designs and executes a comprehensive social media vision aligned with brand positioning and business objectives, anticipating cultural shifts and platform evolution. Leads cross-functional transformation to embed social-first thinking across agencies, campaign process, and scales strategies to market-based DMA plans.
• Serves as a strategic bridge between brand positioning and execution, partnering cross-functionally with Operations, Finance, Media Strategy and Community Marketing to ensure brand and social strategies support business objectives, profitability, and brand equity.
• Provides quarterly business reviews and strategic recommendations to leadership presenting performance against agreed-upon KPIs, competitive benchmarking, and actionable optimization insights while monitoring competitive spend to ensure appropriate investment levels.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in marketing, innovation, communications, advertising, computer science or related field required
• Twelve to fifteen years in marketing leadership with at least five years in social strategy roles, including managing media budgets in excess of $20MM.
• Successful completion of initial and periodically required trainings.
• Obtaining a valid Food Handler's Card within 30 days of employment is a requirement of this position.

Benefits

• Hybrid Work schedule
• 401K with company match
• Yearly bonus opportunity*
• Full medical, dental, and vision insurance *
• On-site fitness center, biometric screen, and flu shot clinic
• Discounts at Panda restaurants, theme parks, and gym memberships
• Paid time off starting at 15 days with 7 federal holidays*
• Continuous education assistance and scholarships*
• Income protection including Disability, Life and AD&D insurance*
• Bereavement leave*