Associate Director, Content Strategy

Verndale is a digital experience agency dedicated to driving growth by helping businesses create meaningful human connections in an increasingly digital world. With offices in Boston, Montreal, Los Angeles, Quito, and hubs across the Americas, we partner with marketing and technology leaders to deliver personalized web, mobile, and ecommerce solutions that elevate customer experiences.

About the Role

As we expand our Marketing Services practice, we are seeking an Associate Director, Content Strategy: a senior, client-facing content strategist who can lead enterprise content programs across discovery, design, build, migration, governance, AI search, personalization, and performance. This role sits within the Marketing Services team and reports to the VP, Content Strategy. Verndale is fully remote enabled; this position can be remote, with a preference for candidates based in Canada.

Responsibilities

• Lead content strategy workstreams across discovery, design, build, migration, and optimization programs.
• Oversee and execute editorial content strategy, including content inventories, content assessments, transformation strategy, message planning, and editorial planning.
• Oversee and execute UX content strategy, including content audits, gap analyses, taxonomies, content hierarchies, copy planning, and content planning for design and migration.
• Oversee and execute delivery content strategy, including content matrices, governance models, workflows, guidelines, migration support, and authoring guidance.
• Facilitate client workshops, stakeholder interviews, content working sessions, and alignment meetings that connect content decisions to business goals and audience needs.
• Design content approaches that support AI Search, Answer Engine Optimization, Generative Engine Optimization, personalization, site search, related content, filtering, and content reuse.
• Develop structured, governed, machine-readable content strategies, including taxonomy, metadata, schema guidance, content models, and reuse patterns.
• Use AI tools to improve content inventories, audits, gap analyses, taxonomy exploration, migration mapping, content QA, prompt testing, and content performance review.
• Define and improve content lifecycle processes across planning, creation, review, approval, publishing, optimization, maintenance, and retirement.
• Create content governance models that clarify roles, responsibilities, decision rights, approval paths, editorial standards, and maintenance cadences.
• Develop taxonomies, metadata models, tagging strategies, and structured data approaches that help power navigation, search, personalization, content relationships, and reporting.
• Guide information architecture work including navigation strategy, sitemaps, content hierarchy, and page-level content planning.
• Lead content migration strategy, including inventories, keep/edit/kill analysis, migration mapping, content matrices, content models, and authoring requirements.
• Partner with Business Development, Client Services, and Practice Leads to shape content strategy solutions for proposals, pitch meetings, and active accounts.
• Coach cross-functional teammates on content strategy methods, client facilitation, deliverable quality, and content decision-making.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in content strategy, content design, content operations, digital strategy, or a closely related discipline.
• 3+ years of experience leading workstreams, mentoring content strategists, enabling cross-functional teams, or guiding client stakeholders.
• Deep experience across editorial content strategy, UX content strategy, delivery content strategy, content governance, and content operations.
• Strong knowledge of digital redesigns, platform implementations, CMS programs, content migrations, and enterprise digital transformation activities.
• Experience with content management systems and digital platforms such as Sitecore, Optimizely, Adobe Experience Manager, Contentstack, Drupal, WordPress, or similar systems.
• Demonstrated ability to create taxonomies, metadata models, content models, information architecture inputs, content matrices, migration plans, and governance documentation.
• AI fluency, including practical experience using generative AI and LLM-based tools to support content strategy, content operations, research synthesis, content QA, taxonomy development, migration planning, and optimization.
• Experience defining content quality standards, performance measures, review criteria, and lifecycle processes for complex content programs.
• Proven ability to facilitate workshops, lead client conversations, influence stakeholders, and present executive-ready recommendations.
• Experience scoping and estimating content strategy work for proposals, statements of work, and active engagements.
• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Communications, English, Journalism, Digital Strategy, UX, Information Science, or a related field preferred, or commensurate experience.

Ten Great Reasons to Work at Verndale

• We are a rapidly growing company that is just as scrappy and entrepreneurial today as when we were founded in 1998.
• We foster a culture that enables every person in the organization to do the best work of their career.
• We offer regular training and professional development to move careers forward.
• We offer generous paid company holidays, vacation, and paid sick time to every employee starting on day one.
• We are fully remote enabled and embrace the evolving definition of the workplace.