POSITION SUMMARY:

CMA is a trade association, whose mission is to advance, promote, and honor country music, and CMA is looking for the executive who will help shape how it shows up in culture: on screen, on stage, on social, and everywhere fans find it. With the historic reach and popularity of today’s country music, CMA’s extended partnership with Disney+ and ABC for the CMA Awards, CMA Fest, and Country Christmas, and a new CEO at its helm, this is a defining moment to build the marketing, content, and creative engine that turns country music’s momentum into campaigns and moments people talk about, not just watch.

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is a culture-shaping executive leader responsible for setting CMA’s cultural agenda and shaping and executing the organization’s overall marketing, communications, creative, and content strategy, leading an integrated team across marketing, communications, creative, television production, and content development to elevate the association’s brand among fans and industry alike and expand the reach and relevancy of country music and its artists. As a member of the senior leadership team, the CMO will serve as a strategic and creative advisor to the CEO and executive leadership and a trusted partner to the board of directors, translating the organization’s mission, industry priorities, and business objectives into culturally resonant brand stories, original campaigns, programming, and content that audiences seek out and share. Here, marketing is a source of ideas and momentum for the entire organization, not just a service function, and this success depends on effective collaboration across every constituency the CMO serves artists, the board, production & distribution partners, internal colleagues, and the industry at large.

The CMO will also oversee the full content ecosystem across all network, streaming, digital, social, creator, and experiential channels. This includes leadership of the organization’s current television properties (including the CMA Awards, CMA Country Christmas, and CMA Fest programming) and production operations, including day-to-day management of executive producers, producers, production partners, and related creative talent, collaborating closely with them and with distribution partners to protect and elevate CMA’s signature properties.

The ideal candidate loves country music and is a culturally-fluent brand builder who combines a bold creative point of view with strategic vision, strong operational discipline, and track record of effective collaboration across multidisciplinary teams and content verticals.

This position is based in Nashville, TN and requires in-person work.

CMA believes in and expects all staff to act in alignment with its core values of collaboration: exhibiting a team-oriented focus, practicing active listening, demonstrating empathy; being solution-minded: proactively identifying problems and potential solutions; and commitment: exhibiting tenacity, engagement, and passion.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Cultural Strategy & Creative Leadership

• Set CMA’s cultural agenda, identifying where country music intersects with fashion, sports, film, gaming, and creator culture, and build original, unexpected campaigns that move the conversation rather than follow it.

• Build artist-first, fan-first storytelling that humanizes country music’s established stars and rising talent and deepens fan connection on every platform.

• Run the brand in real time by building the team, tools, and approval speed needed to participate in cultural moments as they happen.

• Champion calculated creative risk and a high creative bar across campaigns, television, digital, social, editorial, events, and brand experiences, partnering with internal teams, agencies, production companies, artists, and creators to deliver best-in-class, on-brand work.

Collaboration & Industry Engagement

• Serve as a trusted partner to the board of directors: keep directors informed and engaged on brand, marketing, and content strategy, and build alignment before major decisions.

• Work hand in hand with the producers, co-executive producers, and network and streaming partners behind CMA's signature television properties, respecting their craft while aligning creative, promotional, and audience goals.

• Listen to and build trust with the industry as a whole, including artists, songwriters, managers, agents, labels, publishers, and broadcasters, so that CMA's storytelling reflects the breadth of the community, advances its mission, and honors country music as a whole.

Marketing, Communications & Content Strategy

• Lead an integrated, enterprise-wide marketing and content strategy, spanning television, streaming, music and audio, live events, social, creator, digital, and editorial platforms, that advances CMA’s mission, strengthens its brand, and supports strategic and revenue objectives.

• Establish a differentiated, culturally relevant brand position and ensure consistency across every channel, and lead original, high-impact campaigns that grow awareness, fandom, membership value, and participation, including audiences beyond country music’s core.

• Oversee the organization’s communications function and support them in building strategies and operations for media relations, internal and crisis communications, reputation management, and press around major events, announcements, issues, and moments of reputational importance.

• Oversee sophisticated audience strategies and segmentation across fans, artists, members, industry stakeholders, and media, and foster strong relationships with media, artists, creators, and other external stakeholders.

• Establish meaningful KPIs and measurement frameworks covering marketing effectiveness, audience growth, brand health, cultural impact, and content performance, and use that data, along with social and creator signals and cultural listening, to continuously sharpen strategy and distribution.

• Apply AI and data responsibly to sharpen creative and distribution, holding a high bar for taste and originality, and build strategies for repurposing and extending premium content across channels and audiences.

Television, Streaming & Content Production

• Provide executive leadership for the association's content properties, overseeing programming strategy, creative direction, and distribution, and establishing the quality bar for all television and video content.

• Manage day-to-day engagement with executive producers, producers, production teams, networks, platforms (including CMA's partnership with Disney), talent, and agencies, ensuring productions are delivered on strategy, on budget, on schedule, and at a level of quality consistent with CMA's brand and our contractual obligations.

• Evaluate and develop new television, streaming, documentary, audio and podcast, and other content opportunities that advance the association's mission to grow, promote, and honor country music.

• Extend television properties across digital, social, streaming, events, editorial, commerce, and licensing, so the biggest moments live well beyond the broadcast.

Team, Partnerships & Industry Leadership

• Lead, develop, and inspire a high-performing organization spanning marketing, communications, creative, content, and production, and build the leadership bench needed to execute the strategy.

• Establish a clear organizational structure, roles, and performance expectations, and foster a collaborative culture that connects distinct disciplines, and CMA’s other departments (e.g., Industry Engagement, Business Strategy, Insights, Ticketing, Event Production, Partnerships, Finance, and Business Affairs), around shared objectives.

• Represent the association externally as a senior voice for its brand and media strategy, and invest in long-term relationships across the country music community, showing up consistently for its events and moments, not only CMA’s own.

• Develop strategic partnerships with media organizations, production companies, agencies, platforms, artists, creators, consumer brands, and sponsors, and identify ways to extend CMA’s content and IP through licensing and new formats.

Leadership Profile

The successful candidate will be a strategic, creative, and commercially minded and culturally fluent executive with the ability to operate across marketing, communications, music, entertainment, and content. They will bring both a strong point of view and the ability to build consensus, align stakeholders, and execute at scale.

They should be:

• A visionary marketer and brand builder with a record of campaigns that shaped culture rather than followed it, and an exceptional storyteller who can influence audiences from industry insiders to mainstream consumers.

• An accomplished communications leader who can navigate complex issues and advise senior executives.

• A creative executive with strong instincts for storytelling, artists and talent, production, and fan engagement, and an experienced television/streaming/content leader fluent across media verticals, including firsthand experience launching in new or emerging formats.

• A strong people leader and strategic operator who can unite diverse disciplines, build a high-performing culture, and turn ambitious ideas into executable plans, budgets, and measurable outcomes.

• A relationship builder and consensus-maker who earns trust in a relational industry, collaborating as naturally with a board of directors, producers, and artists as with agency partners, and who builds dealmaking partnerships that create value for every side.

• Comfortable with calculated creative risk while disciplined about protecting CMA’s trust with its members, artists, and industry, and deeply committed to CMA’s mission to advance, promote, and honor country music as a whole.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• 15+ years of progressively senior experience in marketing, communications, media, music, entertainment, sports, lifestyle, content, or creative fields, including leadership at a culture-defining brand, property, or institution. Experience with/in country music and experience at a media, entertainment, music, sports, or lifestyle brand known for shaping culture is highly desirable.

• Genuine respect for and familiarity with country music, its artists, and its community, and a commitment to CMA’s mission to advance, promote, and honor the genre as a whole.

• Significant experience leading multidisciplinary teams across marketing, communications, creative, and content, and demonstrated success building consensus and trust across many constituencies at once, including a board, executive leadership, production partners, talent, and industry stakeholders, in a relational, matrixed environment.

• Proven track record building and executing integrated brand and marketing strategies, and a portfolio of original campaigns you conceived and led that demonstrably drove cultural conversation and business results (for example, earned media, audience growth, or recognition such as Cannes Lions, Effies, or Emmys). Finalists may be asked to present this work.

• Demonstrated experience overseeing television, video, or other premium content production, including working collaboratively with executive/co-executive producers and external partners, and a strong understanding of television and digital media ecosystems, including monetization.

• Hands-on experience across at least three media verticals (for example, television/streaming, music/audio, live events, social/creator, digital/commerce, film/documentary, or experiential), including launching in new or emerging formats, and proven ability to build brand collaborations and talent partnerships with artists and creators.

• Experience managing significant budgets, agencies, production partners, and complex portfolios of initiatives, and demonstrated ability to lead through influence, ambiguity, change, and organizational complexity.

• Experience serving as a senior communications advisor to executives and managing high-profile organizational narratives, is valued but not required.

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS:

Finalist candidates will be asked to submit a portfolio of campaign and content work.

COMMITMENT TO INCLUSIVITY: CMA is committed to creating lasting change by nurturing an inclusive and equitable culture. By fostering these practices in all areas of our business, we will ensure the future of our industry. We celebrate the dedication of our staff, our membership and the industry in moving Country Music forward and are committed to offering education and resources to help ensure an equitable pipeline of opportunity that continues for years to come.

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, age, genetic trait, sexual orientation, national origin, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law.