ABOUT PERFORMANCE MARKETING & GROWTH

The Performance Marketing & Growth team is responsible for executing Zalando’s customer communication strategy across all performance-driven paid and unpaid marketing channels globally. At the heart of this function sits the CRM Team, which ensures our 52M+ active customers across 26 markets receive impactful and personalized messages that enhance their journey with Zalando.

The CRM team is essential to implementing Zalando’s lifecycle engagement and retention strategy, using data-driven insights, automation, and platform excellence to support customers' onboarding, engagement, winback, cross-proposition selling, and loyalty-building.

THE ROLE & THE TEAM

As the Director of CRM, you will be responsible for the operational and strategic implementation of Zalando’s communication platform. You will lead a cross-functional team of up to 50 FTEs across product, engineering, direct marketing, analytics, and tech consulting. Your mission is to ensure timely, relevant, and high-impact CRM communication across all channels.

In this role, you will work collaboratively with leaders across the business, including Markets, Propositions, Product, Engineering, and Applied Science, to translate strategic directives into effective operational delivery. You will be a key member of Zalando’s leadership team.

The team includes:

• Audience Management: This team defines the CRM strategy and the "what", owning the customer engagement plan across different lifecycle stages. Audience Management leads the approach for Activation, Engagement, Up- & Cross-Selling, and Winback management. They determine customer segmentation, channel strategy, and campaign goals that Direct Marketing and other teams execute.

• Direct Marketing: Responsible for the operational execution of CRM campaigns. This team executes campaigns for Country GMs, Proposition Leaders, and the Loyalty team. Their work is closely aligned with the strategy and targeting set by the Audience Management and Analytics teams, ensuring campaigns are executed effectively and in line with broader business goals.

• Product & Tech Consulting: The product function is split into two core responsibilities: 1) Focusing on internal platform development, interfacing closely with engineering to define and deliver the underlying CRM infrastructure. This team also supports setting up new channels and templates. 2) Ensuring platform features and services are fully operational, working in tight alignment with engineering to maintain system performance and reliability.

• Engineering: Builds and maintains the core infrastructure of the communication platform. This team ensures technical scalability, platform stability, and system excellence.

• Analytics: Drives reporting and targeting. This team plays a central role in defining lifecycle campaigns through data insights, segmentation logic, and campaign performance measurement.

WHAT WE’D LOVE YOU TO DO (AND LOVE DOING)

• Define a cohesive product strategy and manage both first-party and third-party CRM applications to meet evolving business needs.

• Lead, inspire, and grow a cross-functional team of leaders across product, engineering, analytics, and direct marketing, providing clear vision and direction.

• Build strong, collaborative relationships with key stakeholders such as Country GMs, Proposition Leaders, and Product & Tech stakeholders, to ensure the CRM platform supports their commercial goals.

• Act as a trusted and valued senior leader within the wider Markets organization and beyond, fostering a culture of openness, purpose-first collaboration, and operational excellence.

• Champion measurement and experimentation using causal inference and other advanced analytics approaches to continuously optimize CRM impact.

• Explore new engagement channels beyond emails and push notifications, including in-app messaging and notification capabilities, to innovate the customer experience.

• Support the engineering leadership in ensuring platform excellence, technical scalability, and system stability.

WE’D LOVE TO MEET YOU IF

• You have a proven track record of building and maintaining CRM products for B2C companies, including the successful delivery of large-scale, data-intensive marketing platforms that support the commercial roadmap and strategic objectives of the business.

• You have led large cross-functional teams, ideally covering both technical (engineering/product) and marketing (campaign execution) functions.

• You have a strong strategic and technical mindset, capable of balancing operational execution with innovation and stakeholder engagement.

• You are experienced working with complex CRM tech stacks, such as Braze or equivalent CRM tools.

• You are data-driven, with a solid understanding of analytics, experimentation, and customer segmentation.

• You are passionate about building loyal customer relationships, driving engagement, and testing new ways to interact with customers across channels.

OUR OFFER

Zalando provides a range of benefits, here’s an overview of what you can expect. Ask your Talent Acquisition Partner to learn more about what we offer. Learn all about Zalando and our values here: https://jobs.zalando.com/en/our-culture

• Employee shares program

• 40% off fashion and beauty products sold and shipped by Zalando, 30% off Lounge by Zalando, discounts from external partners

• 2 paid volunteering days a year

• Hybrid working model with 60% remote per week, actual practice is up to each team to best support their collaboration  

• Work from abroad for up to 30 working days a year

• 27 days of vacation a year to start

• Relocation assistance available (subject to prior agreement)

• Family services, including counselling and support

• Health and wellbeing options (including Wellhub "Gympass")

• Mental health support and coaching available
   

INCLUSIVE BY DESIGN

At Zalando, our vision is to be inclusive by design. This vision starts with our hiring - we do not discriminate on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation, personal expression, ethnicity, religious belief, or disability status. You are welcome to leave out your picture, age, or marital status from your application. We only assess candidates on their qualifications and merit. 

We want to provide you with a great candidate experience. Feel free to inform us of any accommodations you may need, so we can best support you throughout the hiring process. 

• do.BETTER - Our Diversity & Inclusion strategy: https://corporate.zalando.com/en/our-impact/dobetter-our-diversity-and-inclusion-strategy

• Our Employee Resource Groups: https://corporate.zalando.com/en/our-impact/our-employee-resource-groups