Senior Director of Advertising Product

This is a Full Time Job

Title: Sr. Director of O&O Ad Product
Reporting to: SVP of Marketing Operations & Advertising Strategy
Location: NYC – HQ

''We must be alarmingly enterprising and startlingly original. We must be honest and fearless. And we must spark a revolution.''
• William Randolph Hearst, 1887

Role Overview

Reporting to the SVP of Marketing Operations & Advertising Strategy, the Sr. Director of Ad Product is accountable for the vision, roadmap, execution, and monetization of Hearst Newspapers' O&O advertising products. This role is directly responsible for driving direct O&O digital advertising revenue growth, with a primary focus on enhancing the current suite of products and launching new, proprietary, high-performing solutions.

This leader partners closely with product development, sales, product marketing, editorial, finance, and ad operations to ensure O&O offerings are market-driven, performant, scalable, and aligned with advertiser outcomes. The role combines product strategy, commercial rigor, and hands-on execution, with a mandate to turn data, feedback, and market insight into prioritized product investments.

Key Responsibilities

Own the O&O Ad Product Strategy & Roadmap
• Own and continuously evolve the O&O ad product roadmap, aligning investments to advertiser demand, market trends, and revenue opportunity.
• Lead cross-functional prioritization to balance revenue impact, operational feasibility, and long-term product strategy.
• Manage intake and evaluation of requests for new ad units, placements, custom executions, and digital advertising sections.
• Establish clear product management discipline, including MVP development, performance testing, iteration, and sunsetting of underperforming products.

Product Development & Cross-Functional Execution
• Partner with product development, sales and ad operations to define requirements, assess technical feasibility, and execute new O&O ad solutions.
• Collaborate with ad operations and product teams on availability tools, proposal automation, and reporting enhancements to improve speed-to-market and sales productivity.
• Serve as the primary O&O ad product voice across product, editorial, sales, ad operations, finance, and marketing.

Revenue Performance, Analytics & Optimization
• Own O&O ad product KPIs, including adoption, utilization, yield, CPM, and revenue performance.
• Analyze performance data to inform and pricing, packaging, and roadmap decisions.
• Partner with finance and ad operations to build and maintain dashboards that track O&O revenue by:
• Product type
• Market
• Advertiser vertical
• Utilization and CPM
• Participate in strategic decisions that drive continuous optimization across direct-sold, direct PMP and programmatic O&O inventory, informed by holistic yield management and advertiser outcomes.

Go-To-Market & Sales Enablement
• Partner with product marketing to translate O&O product strategy into clear, market-ready sales narratives, tools, and training.
• Own O&O product pricing and support development of packaging frameworks grounded in performance data, margin analysis, and advertiser value.
• Act as a strategic partner to sales leadership, incorporating frontline feedback into product evolution and roadmap decisions.
• Support change-management across markets to improve consistency, adoption, and execution of O&O offerings.

Industry Perspective & Thought Leadership
• Maintain a strong point of view on digital advertising trends, emerging formats, privacy and identity changes, and evolving advertiser needs.
• Translate external market insight into actionable product strategy and innovation.
• Monitor the competitive landscape across large publishers, ad networks, and major technology platforms to inform product differentiation, positioning, and investment decisions.

Success in This Role Looks Like
• A clearly defined, data-backed O&O roadmap informed by revenue opportunity, yield performance, and advertiser demand, and aligned through close partnership with sales, ad operations, product development, and editorial.
• Sustained growth in O&O digital advertising revenue, utilization, and yield.
• Launch of innovative, scalable O&O ad experiences that deliver meaningful advertiser outcomes.
• Faster, more consistent execution of both custom and repeatable ad solutions.
• Strong alignment between product strategy, sales execution, and revenue performance.

Requirements
• 8–12 years of experience in digital advertising, ad product management, or media monetization (publisher-side strongly preferred).
• Proven experience owning a product roadmap with revenue accountability.
• Strong understanding of publisher ad tech and monetization ecosystems, including ad serving, direct-sold and programmatic workflows, and performance optimization.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional initiatives across product, editorial, sales, finance, and operations.
• High comfort with analytics, KPI development, and revenue reporting.
• Experience working with CRM and ad tech systems (Salesforce and related tools preferred).
• Ability to balance strategic vision with hands-on execution in a complex, multi-market environment.
• Excellent communication, influence, and stakeholder management skills.
• College degree required; MBA preferred.

HNP Overview

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