Director - Sales Activation, Amex Offers & Ads

The Director of Sales Activation will lead the organization responsible for delivering operational excellence across Amex Offers and future Ads products. This leader will oversee campaign execution, merchant operations, scaled merchant management, governance, workflow optimization, and shared services—ensuring the business can grow efficiently while delivering a high-quality merchant experience.

The Director will establish and evolve the operating model for Sales Activation, building scalable processes, clear service-level expectations, strong controls, and effective resource allocation. Working closely with Product, Marketing Operations (MarOps), Analytics, Finance, Legal, Go-to-Market (GTM), Business Development, and Client/Customer Success teams, this leader will translate commercial growth into reliable, efficient execution.

The role will also shape the longer-term vision and roadmap for a future Campaign Delivery & Shared Services organization.

• Lead, develop, and inspire the newly created Sales Activation team, creating a high-performing and accountable team.
• Establish the team’s operating model, service-level agreements (SLAs), governance structure, roles and responsibilities, and performance standards.
• Allocate resources effectively across merchant portfolios, sales-specific campaign execution and operational functions based on business priorities and capacity.
• Build organizational capabilities through coaching, employee development, career planning, and succession management.
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement, collaboration, ownership, and operational excellence.
• Own the sales-specific campaign execution functions, from verbal win through campaign submission, insertion order approvals, acquiring merchant assets, merchant communication and campaign reporting.
• Ensure campaigns are executed accurately, efficiently, on time, and in accordance with applicable governance and compliance requirements.
• Identify and prioritize opportunities for automation, workflow simplification, standardization, and process redesign.
• Develop scalable operating processes capable of supporting continued growth across Amex Offers and future Ads products.
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, MarOps, Analytics, Finance, Legal, Go to Market, and other stakeholders to resolve execution challenges and improve business outcomes.
• Establish strong quality assurance, risk management, and compliance controls throughout campaign delivery.
• Own the servicing strategy and operating model for merchant relationships below $50K in annual investment.
• Develop merchant segmentation, coverage, and service models that appropriately balance merchant needs, business value, and operational efficiency.
• Lead capacity planning and workload allocation across the portfolio.
• Continuously evaluate opportunities to improve merchant experience, engagement, and retention.
• Create scalable servicing approaches that enable Sales Activation and Business Development/Customer Success teams to focus greater capacity on strategic and growth-oriented activities.
• Establish and manage a comprehensive performance-management framework for Sales Activation.
• Track and improve key measures including team productivity, campaign throughput, cycle time, execution quality, merchant satisfaction, SLA performance, and portfolio retention.
• Deliver regular business reviews and performance reporting to senior leadership, clearly articulating results, risks, capacity constraints, and opportunities.
• Develop business cases and recommendations for investments in automation, technology, process improvement, and organizational capabilities.

• An experienced leader who combines strategic thinking with disciplined execution

• Highly organized, proactive, and must be able to persuade across the team and with partners alike.

• Comfortable operating within whitespace and challenging the status quo when there is opportunity to improve.

• Comfortable building and transforming operating models, leading teams through change, using data to drive decisions, and navigating a complex cross-functional environment.

• Bring a strong customer-first mindset while maintaining rigorous standards for execution, governance, controls, and operational efficiency.

• Ability to build an organization that can scale—creating the processes, capabilities, technology, and talent required to support the continued evolution of Amex Offers and future Ads products.

Additional Details

• Visa Sponsorship: Employment eligibility to work with American Express in the U.S. is required as the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for this position.

American Express is an equal opportunity employer and makes employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, age, or any other status protected by law.