Director, Sales Customer Journey Strategy

Job description

Position Summary: The Director, Sales Customer Journey Strategy leads the development of customer journey strategy across the end-to-end sales experience. This role is accountable for defining strategic priorities, directing work that identifies the highest-value customer and business problems, and guiding where the organization should focus to improve experiences across research, shopping, purchase, financing, trade in, early ownership, and repurchase. Reporting into the Marketing organization under the Senior Director of Customer Experience this role serves as the strategic leader for sales journey strategy and the central voice of the customer within this area of the business. The Director integrates customer insight, market intelligence, financial considerations, and operational realities to shape strategic direction, align cross-functional partners, and inform investment decisions over time. This role combines enterprise-level strategic leadership, cross-functional influence, and people management to ensure sales journey priorities are clearly defined, evidence based, and translated into actionable roadmaps and recommendations. Responsibilities: Lead the development of customer journey strategy for the end-to-end sales experience, spanning research, shopping, purchase, financing, trade in, early ownership , and repurchase. Define the strategic vision, priorities, and opportunity areas for sales journey improvement, ensuring the work is grounded in customer need, business value, and enterprise priorities. Lead, coach, and develop a team responsible for sales journey strategy, providing direction on priorities, work quality, stakeholder engagement, and professional growth. Establish clear ways of working, decision frameworks, and repeatable practices that enable the team to consistently translate customer understanding into strategic recommendations and experience priorities. Oversee a disciplined approach to collecting, synthesizing, and maintaining customer insight across research, journey analytics, behavioral data, voice of customer, and operational signals. Direct the analysis of customer behavior, journey performance, and experience friction to identify meaningful opportunities to improve the sales experience and related customer and business outcomes. Lead competitive benchmarking and cross-industry analysis to identify gaps, emerging patterns, and proven approaches that can inform sales journey strategy. Translate customer, market, operational, and business insight into clear problem statements, strategic priorities, and recommendations for action. Develop and maintain multi-year sales journey roadmaps that sequence major initiatives and capabilities based on expected customer experience impact, business value, and organizational readiness. Serve as a senior strategic partner to leaders across Product Management, Technology, Marketing, Operations, Finance, and other functions to align sales priorities, influence decisions, and drive shared understanding of customer needs and opportunity areas. Lead the development of business cases and investment proposals that define scope, expected impact, financial assumptions, capability requirements, dependencies, and measurable outcomes. Define success measures for sales journey strategies and strategic initiatives, and evaluate performance to inform acceleration, adjustment, or deprecation. Communicate strategy, insights, tradeoffs, and recommendations through clear narratives and decision-ready materials for senior leadership and cross-functional partners. Champion modern journey strategy and experience planning practices, including customer-centered problem framing, design thinking, experimentation, and outcome-based prioritization. Qualifications: 10+ years of experience in customer experience strategy, customer journey strategy, digital strategy, product strategy, transformation, or a related field within complex, cross-functional organizations. Demonstrated experience leading enterprise-level or business-unit customer journey strategy across a broad lifecycle or experience domain, rather than individual features, channels, or platforms. Prior people leadership experience, including managing, coaching, and developing strategy, customer experience, product, analytics, or similarly oriented professionals. Proven ability to set strategic direction, establish priorities, and guide teams through ambiguous, high-impact work that requires coordination across multiple functions and stakeholders. Strong track record of collecting, synthesizing, and applying customer insight from research, analytics, voice of customer, operational signals, and market data to inform strategic decisions. Experience influencing senior leaders and aligning cross-functional partners around complex customer experience opportunities, tradeoffs, and investment decisions. Experience conducting competitive benchmarking and drawing relevant lessons from adjacent or non-traditional industries. Proven ability to frame ambiguous problems, make strategic tradeoffs, and guide investment decisions based on evidence and measurable outcomes. Experience building business cases, modeling expected impact, and connecting strategic initiatives to measurable financial outcomes, growth, efficiency, and long-term customer value. Experience partnering with Product Management, Technology, Marketing, Operations, Finance, and other enterprise functions to align strategy and execution in matrixed environments. Familiarity with AI-enabled capabilities, including generative and agentic models, and the ability to evaluate how emerging technologies may create meaningful customer and business value. Comfort operating at both executive and working levels, translating complex analysis into clear narratives, strategic recommendations, and decision-ready materials. Exciting Benefits and Perks Await You: Competitive compensation and 401k matching Enjoy a healthy work-life balance with insurance plans (health, dental, vision) and maternity benefits. Associate purchase and discount programs for new and pre-owned vehicles, services, parts, collision, accessories, and AutoGear Access amazing deals and discounts through YouDecide, a website with offers from top providers and retailers Join our DRVPNK mission to raise and donate millions of dollars to cancer research and treatment, partnering with cancer charities nationwide AutoNation is one of the largest automotive retailers in the United States, offering innovative products, exceptional services, and comprehensive solutions, empowering our customers to make the best decisions for their needs. With a network of dealerships nationwide strengthened by a recognized brand, we offer a wide variety of new and used vehicles, customer financing, parts, and provide expert maintenance and repair services. Through DRV PNK, we have raised over $40 million for cancer-related causes, demonstrating our commitment to making a positive difference in the lives of our Associates, Customers, and the communities we serve. AutoNation is committed to creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment in our workplace and the services we provide. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds who are passionate about making a positive impact. Even if you do not meet every requirement, we encourage you to apply. Join our team and help us foster a culture of belonging while contributing to our revolutionary work in the automotive industry. We value innovation, teamwork, and a commitment to making a positive impact in the world.