Director - Small Business Strategy & Go-To-Market

Job description

American Express Global Commercial Services (GCS) is the leading payment issuer and partner for businesses and corporations of all sizes. The Global Commercial Services Marketing team (GCSM) is responsible for making business membership essential by creating and delivering world-class marketing for our differentiated products and services that drives demand and inspires engaged customers across the lifecycle. Within GCSM, the Strategy, Brand & Transformation (SBT) team helps turn priorities into marketing and capabilities that resonate with business audiences.

In close partnership with our Small Business and Corporate marketing teams, SBT shapes our go-to-market and creative approach, builds awareness and demand through brand activation, and advances the tools and technology that make our marketing stronger. Together, we create cohesive user experiences that build our brand and drive business growth. This role will have a dedicated focus on the Small Business segment, shaping how we bring our products, value propositions, and benefits to market and strengthening the relevance and differentiation of American Express for Small Business customers.

This individual will lead holistic marketing and go-to-market strategies for priority Small Business initiatives, including Card product refreshes and new or enhanced partner benefits. The Director will bring fresh thinking to transform how we go to market—shifting from individual product launches to ongoing, iterative solutions that deepen customer value. They will turn business, customer, and competitive insights into differentiated propositions, compelling narratives, and integrated strategies that drive acquisition, engagement, and loyalty.

Responsibilities

Lead Small Business Marketing Strategy & GTM

Own end-to-end strategy for priority initiatives, from proposition development through launch, optimization, and ongoing engagement. Define the value proposition, positioning, messaging, audience, channel approach, and integrated customer experience—evolving GTM from episodic launches to iterative, always-on solutions.

Turn Insights into Strategy

Leverage customer research, behavioral and performance data, competitive intelligence, and market trends to identify opportunities and inform product positioning, messaging, creative strategy, and GTM decisions.

Drive Cross-Functional Alignment

Mobilize and align partners across Marketing, Small Business Product, and Communications, and other key functions to move complex initiatives from strategy through execution.

Develop Customer-Centric Messaging

Partner with channel and creative teams to translate product features and partner benefits into clear, differentiated, and relevant customer messaging across acquisition and existing customer experiences.

Create Integrated GTM Roadmaps

Establish clear strategies, milestones, decision points, dependencies, and measurement frameworks to ensure disciplined execution across multiple concurrent initiatives.

Measure and Optimize Impact

Define success metrics and leverage performance insights to assess GTM effectiveness, identify opportunities for optimization, and inform future product and marketing strategies.

Influence Senior Leadership

Develop clear, compelling, and visually engaging narratives that articulate strategic choices, recommendations, progress, risks, and business impact to senior leaders.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

Proven experience developing marketing strategy and go-to-market plans for products, propositions, benefits, or other complex customer offerings , ideally within financial services, payments, B2B, or Small Business. Strong strategic marketer with demonstrated ability to connect customer needs, product capabilities, competitive dynamics, and business objectives into differentiated value propositions and actionable GTM strategies.

Demonstrated success transforming go-to-market models—moving beyond one-time launches to build, test, learn, and optimize ongoing customer solutions. Strong customer-first orientation and ability to translate product features and partnership benefits into simple, compelling reasons for customers to engage and choose the brand. Analytical problem solver who can synthesize customer research, competitive intelligence, performance data, and business inputs into clear insights and recommendations.

Proven ability to lead through influence and mobilize complex, cross-functional teams without direct authority. Exceptional communicator and storyteller across written, verbal, and visual formats, with demonstrated ability to influence senior leaders and drive alignment around strategic recommendations. Comfortable operating in ambiguous, fast-paced environments with multiple stakeholders, competing priorities, and high executive visibility.

Hands-on, proactive, and highly accountable, with the ability to move fluidly between strategic thinking and executional detail. Strong relationship builder with demonstrated collaboration, influencing, and negotiation skills across functions and levels. People leadership experience, with the ability to coach, motivate, and develop talent while driving high standards of performance.

Preferred Qualifications

8–10 years of business and marketing experience preferred. Employment eligibility to work with American Express in the United States is required as the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.