About this role
With a roster of spectacular dancers and an unparalleled repertory, New York City Ballet is one of the foremost dance companies in the world. Founded in 1948 by George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein, the Company quickly became world-renowned for its athletic and contemporary style. Widely acknowledged for its enduring contributions to dance, New York City Ballet is committed to promoting creative excellence and nurturing a new generation of dancers and choreographers. The School of American Ballet is the official training academy of the New York City Ballet.
The Director, Digital Platforms serves as New York City Ballet’s digital product owner, leading the digital function within the company’s fast-paced Marketing and Media department and guiding a digital product roadmap across NYCB’s platforms, e-commerce systems, and the vendor and data infrastructure that power them for New York City Ballet and the David H. Koch Theater. The Director also owns website and e-commerce strategy, digital signage, and central governance of shared platforms and tools, and manages a small team executing that strategy day to day. The Director also drives cross-departmental digital governance standards across the whole organization.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Digital Platform & E-Commerce Strategy
• Own overall digital platform and e-commerce strategy for NYCB and the David H. Koch Theater, spanning website, app, and e-commerce systems, digital signage, and the underlying vendor relationships and data infrastructure.
• Serve as the organization’s digital product owner, translating business and audience priorities into a digital product roadmap across websites, e-commerce, and related platforms.
• Set direction and final sign-off for annual NYCB and DHKT season build-outs and ticket on-sale readiness on the websites as executed by the Manager, E-Commerce & Digital Content, in coordination with Box Office, IT, Box Office and Customer Care, with the internal teams (i.e. Marketing, Education, Development) responsible for each on-sale for testing and troubleshooting support.
• Serve as the clearinghouse for website content prioritization across the organization, deciding the substance and prominence of content featured on the homepage, internal pages and purchase path of both nycballet.com and davidhkochtheater.com.
• Lead strategic structured experimentation (A/B testing and conversion rate optimization) on the ticketing purchase funnel, balancing conversion improvements against user experience, accessibility and security considerations.
• Own digital and e-commerce strategy for David H. Koch Theater third-party rentals, partnering with the
• Theatre’s management team and rental marketing and ticketing teams as needed.
Vendor & Partner Relationships
• Own strategic, contract-level relationships with website/e-commerce development vendor, digital ticket delivery provider, and third-party sales distribution partners.
• As the largest internal client of the organization’s Tessitura instance, work in tandem with IT’s Tessitura staff on shared strategy and ongoing platform management – particularly as it pertains to web and digital platform functionality, including coordinating digital platform testing around vendor-driven updates and upgrades.
• Lead contract-level project management of external vendors for new platform builds, redesigns, and major upgrades, in conjunction with the Manager, E-Commerce & Digital Content.
• Own platform reliability and vendor SLA management across the digital vendor stack, monitoring uptime expectations and incident escalation practices.
• Maintain a recurring vendor contract review and renewal cadence that cohesively considers budget forecasting, tool reassessment, and relationship management.
• Periodically evaluate emerging digital tools and vendors with an eye to revenue generation and efficiency opportunities, bringing recommendations forward as appropriate to Senior Director and senior leadership.
Fraud Prevention & Payment Security
• Own fraud-prevention and chargeback-reduction strategy for NYCB’s e-commerce channels, including guardrails such as 3D Secure (3DS) and bot/queue protection, staying current on emerging fraud-prevention practices as they evolve, and partnering with IT and Finance on the organization’s broader security and PCI DSS compliance efforts.
Email Governance
• Own central, cross-departmental governance of email deployment platform, including access, organizational list segmentation standards, and best practices for all departments sending patron communications, and lead periodic reassessment of core email marketing tools against organizational needs.
• Maintain an active relationship with email marketing platform vendor to stay current on new features, train new and existing staff on platform updates and identify opportunities to grow engagement and revenue through email marketing.
Data Strategy & Personalization
• Investigate and make recommendations on data strategy and personalization across all digital touchpoints, partnering with relevant departmental leadership and IT to assess feasibility and build institutional buy-in. If such initiatives are pursued, lead modeling, forecasting and business case development for a centralized data initiative, in partnership with the Senior Director, Marketing & Media and CFO.
• Own data privacy and compliance strategy for patron data across digital channels.
• Stay abreast of developments in state and federal legislation around privacy, ticket sales and pricing practices (i.e. pricing transparency, resale/scalping laws), ensuring NYCB’s digital ticketing practices remain compliant.
• Own API/integrations architecture governance across NYCB’s digital vendor stack, ensuring systems are designed to work together seamlessly.
Digital Governance
• Convene and lead a standing digital governance function bringing together Marketing & Media, Development/Corporate Relations, Special Events, Education and IT on a regular cadence to align platform priorities, data strategy, and content placement — with shared objectives and metrics embedded across all departments.
• As institutional AI initiatives are developed, begin exploring approaches to generative AI tool use across the organization’s digital platforms, including disclosure norms and patron data handling; collaborate with broader institution stakeholders on AI governance ownership.
Team Leadership & Organizational Representation
• Manage hiring, professional development, and performance for the Manager, E-Commerce & Digital Content and the Coordinator.
• Own the digital team’s budget, including vendor contracts, platform licensing, and tooling.
• Set goals/KPIs for digital channel performance and represent the digital function to senior company management, including periodic presentation of a digital roadmap.
• Lead major cross-functional initiatives — including full website redesigns, platform migrations, and new digital function initiatives — from strategy through launch.
MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
We encourage highly motivated and interested candidates who meet many, if not all, of the qualifications listed below to apply.
• Bachelor’s degree and 8+ years of experience directly owning digital platforms, e-commerce systems, or digital product management, with substantial experience in both directly managing a team and managing vendor/contract relationships.
• Strong working knowledge of Tessitura required, along with comfort working with CMS platforms and ticketing/CRM systems generally.
• Track record of leading full website redesigns or major platform migrations, from RFP through launch, and managing external vendor relationships and contracts.
• Experience with fraud prevention and payment security practices (3DS, PCI DSS) in an e-commerce context.
• Experience with data strategy, data governance, or building business cases for infrastructure investment; comfort leading initiatives that span multiple departments without direct authority over all participants.
• Familiarity with data privacy regulations relevant to patron data.
• Strong cross-departmental leadership skills and comfort convening and facilitating alignment across multiple key stakeholders.
• Experience owning a departmental or team budget, including vendor and licensing spend, and building budget forecasts or business cases for major investments.
• Familiarity with email marketing platforms and web analytics.
• Excellent project/workflow management, problem-solving, analytical, written and oral communication skills.
• Capacity to communicate technology and digital strategy issues to both technical and non-technical audiences, including senior management.
• Ability and willingness to work occasional evenings and weekends, particularly around season on-sales and launches.
• A demonstrated interest in the arts/culture, ballet, and/or NYCB a plus.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
While performing the duties of this position the employee is frequently exposed to an office and theater setting environment.
POSITION TYPE / EXPECTED HOURS OF WORK
This is a full-time, salaried position. Hours of work are typically between 10 AM and 6 PM weekdays, with occasional evenings and weekends, especially around season on-sales, launches, or when issues arise that require immediate attention.
OTHER DUTIES
Please note that this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive list of activities, duties, or responsibilities that are required of the employee to do this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.
EEO STATEMENT
New York City Ballet is proud to be an equal opportunity employer committed to equity and inclusion in all aspects of recruiting and employment. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply and will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, age, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, citizenship status, disability, pregnancy, creed, genetic predisposition or carrier status, military status or veteran status, status as a victim of domestic violence, unemployment status, familial status, sexual violence or stalking victim status, caregiver status, arrest or conviction record to extent required by applicable law, credit history or any other characteristic protected by law.
OUR COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION
New York City Ballet, one of the foremost ballet companies in the world, pursues the highest levels of artistic excellence and innovation. Therefore, we seek to attract, retain, and cultivate the most talented dancers, musicians, designers, stage technicians, and arts administrators. To this end, we are deeply committed to creating and sustaining an organizational culture that values and reflects inclusion, equity, and access for all. We are inspired by our founders, George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein, who envisioned an authentically American expression of ballet with a company that reflects the rich cultural diversity of this nation. In pursuit of their vision, we are committed to all by educating, developing, and supporting an organization that welcomes and amplifies the voices and lived experiences of everyone.
$125K - $135K Annually