Senior Director of Media
Company: Backbone Media
Role summary
Senior Director of Media is a full-time role at Backbone Media in Carbondale, Colorado, United States (hybrid). Posted 2026-08-24. Experience level: 10+.
- Job title
- Senior Director of Media
- Company
- Backbone Media
- Location
- Carbondale, Colorado, United States
- Work arrangement
- hybrid
- Employment type
- full-time
- Category
- Software Engineering
- Experience level
- 10+
- Date posted
- 2026-08-24
Backbone Media is looking for an experienced leader to shape their media strategy and guide a high-performing team. You’ll have the opportunity to oversee impactful campaigns for major outdoor and lifestyle brands while enjoying a collaborative environment that values seasoned expertise over rigid credentials.
Job description
Senior Director of Media
Hybrid, Denver or Carbondale, CO | 2 days a week in office required
At Backbone, we live by the mantra that passion drives results. We are insiders of the outside and it’s our job to advocate for the brands we believe in. But to us, it's more than just a job, because we live those brands day in and day out. We've always believed it's possible to bridge the gap between work and personal passions, and our team is full of talented people who share in that vision. Ours is a team of smart, driven marketers, drawn together by a passion for the outdoors and doing great work for great brands. Find out more about us at backbone.media
The Job
The Senior Director of Media will join Backbone’s media leadership team, co-leading the media practice across brand and paid, ensuring every channel we touch ladders up to a single, cohesive story for our clients. This is a builder and connector role: you are someone who can shape the strategic vision for how audiences are reached across Connected TV, Linear TV, Out-of-Home, Audio, Direct Partnerships, Paid Social, and Search, while also running the operational engine that turns that vision into disciplined, profitable execution.
This person sits at the intersection of brand strategy, creative, and media investment. They think in terms of full-funnel integration, not channel silos, and they're comfortable being both the strategic architect in the room with a client and the person building the process that makes a growing team run well. They bring an entrepreneurial mindset to agency growth, a coach's instinct for developing talent, and the judgment to know when a bold idea is worth the risk.
The Work
Drive the development of integrated media strategies and deliver senior-level strategic counsel to clients: Connecting consumer insight, category trends, and channel expertise to recommendations that serve broader business objectives and drive measurable ROI.
Partner with client and strategy leadership to define audience strategy: who we need to reach, what we want them to feel or do, and which combination of channels will deliver that message most efficiently.
Drive new business development and revenue growth in collaboration with sales and marketing teams. This includes overseeing proposals, staffing plans, and client engagements from pipeline through close, with a focus on profitability and long-term client retention.
Own key account management across priority client relationships, serving as senior escalation point and driving retention, satisfaction, and year-over-year growth of strategic accounts.
Oversee the translation of strategic insight into channel architecture and media plans across linear TV, CTV, OOH, radio, streaming audio, direct partnerships, paid social, search, and emerging formats.
Own P&L accountability for a portfolio of clients, overseeing budgeting, forecasting, and resource planning using Forecast and Harvest, driving margin, utilization, and staffing efficiency across the team.
Develop and refine agency processes for strategic planning, media buying, briefing, QA, measurement, optimization, and reporting, building consistency, rigor, and efficiency across all media efforts.
Maintain and grow relationships with media vendors, networks, publishers, and partners, securing preferred rates, added value, and cost efficiencies.
Manage and mentor a team of Media Strategists and channel leads, cultivating the next generation of leaders through feedback, goal-setting, and hands-on coaching.
Collaborate closely with Directors and Senior Directors across other disciplines (Programmatic, Paid Social, Search, Strategy) to ensure channel integration, unified measurement, and efficient use of resources.
Oversee media investment negotiations and ensure financial accuracy in billing, reconciliation, and cost management.
Actively drive innovation and test-and-learn approaches to emerging media formats and measurement methodologies, evaluating impact against cost and return.
Conduct quarterly business reviews across Backbone’s top 15 Paid Media clients, identifying scope alignment, margin opportunities, and efficiency gains to drive account health and profitability.
Leadership Impact
Inspire big-picture strategic thinking within the team while holding clarity on execution and accountability for results.
Operationalize media strategy processes to enable high-functioning planning across paid and earned disciplines.
Champion an entrepreneurial, solution-oriented mindset, identifying new opportunities for agency growth and client success.
Serve as a coach and mentor, empowering all team members from strategists to senior managers to take ownership of their work.
Deliver direct, constructive feedback that strengthens performance, alignment, and collaboration across teams.
Forecast and manage team hours and staffing needs based on client scopes and fees, monitoring utilization and pacing in Harvest.
Act as a change catalyst, bringing fresh thinking and leading the evolution of Backbone's media offering.
The Essentials
Bachelor's degree.
10+ years of experience in media planning and buying, with deep experience across brand media channels (TV, CTV, OOH, Audio, Direct Partnerships, Sponsorships, Content Integration) and working fluency in earned/social ecosystems.
At least 3–5 years in a leadership or management role with a track record of developing and motivating high-performing teams.
Demonstrated ability to think strategically, lead collaboratively, and drive change in a fast-paced agency environment.
Strong command of measurement tools and frameworks for both brand and performance media (reach/frequency, MMM, brand lift, awareness studie