UK CS Acquisition - Strategy & Planning at American Express

The Strategy and Planning Manager will be responsible for planning and budgeting marketing activities, leading our downstream reporting and analysis initiatives, supporting the wider Acquisition team with dashboards, ad-hoc reports and insights focused on reviewing performance, driving continued growth in acquisition volume and improvements in investment efficiency. It is an ideal role for someone with a keen interest in marketing and a strong analytical background.

• Lead and oversee the UK CS Acquisition planning and budgeting activities for both Consumer and Small Business portfolios (Prospect and Customer acquisition), ensuring alignment with overall business objectives.
• Partner with the Demand Generation and Performance Marketing teams to design and execute strategic initiatives that drive increased acquisition volume and optimize investment efficiency.
• Cultivate and advance talent within a high-performing team of two analysts. Offer leadership and mentorship, promoting an environment focused on continuous improvement and innovation.
• Monitor and report monthly results and key performance metrics, actualising results and reforecasting balance of the year quarterly.
• Contribute to the UK CS Acquisition strategy by identifying and proposing new insights, monitoring trends, assuring investment efficiency, and protecting ROI.
• Maintain and implement a pipeline of ad-hoc analysis and map opportunities to implement new reports.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with key stakeholders, including Finance, Risk, Centre of Excellence, Enterprise Analytics, and other marketing and analytics teams.
• Represent the UK CS Acquisition team in senior leadership meetings, providing insights and recommendations to drive business decisions.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Ability and experience working with a wide array of stakeholders and influencing them.
• Comfortable working with agility in a constantly moving scenario, finding a way around obstacles and challenges effectively and with a positive attitude.
• Clear and confident communication (written and verbal).
• Strong attention to detail and organisational skills required.
• Ability to coach in core skillset to their team, set development goals and targets and increase leverage. Preferred experience with people leadership.
• Highly numerical with strong financial and business acumen.
• Advanced level Excel data analysis and visualization, ability to manipulate large datasets.
• Advanced PowerPoint skills, including creating charts and graphs.
• Proficiency in analysing data and presenting valuable insights from large and complex datasets in a concise and compelling manner for diverse audiences, including senior leaders.
• Highly motivated, resilient, and proactive self-starter who can take initiative.
• Creative and innovative thinker, intellectually curious with the ability to challenge the status quo.
• Team-oriented with strong relationship management and interpersonal skills, confident in leading projects and excellent process management ability.
• Experience with or knowledge of acquisition and marketing funnel is preferred but not required.

Preferred skills:

• Programming skills (SQL, LUMI, Big Query).