Associate Director of SEO & Generative Engine Optimization

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced, strategic, and innovation-oriented Associate Director of SEO & Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to lead our enterprise organic search program. This role is responsible for driving results across traditional SEO, local SEO, technical SEO, and the emerging landscape of AI-powered search and answer engines (Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, ChatGPT Search, etc.).

The ideal candidate has 10+ years of hands-on and strategic experience managing large-scale SEO programs—ideally in a direct-to-consumer financial services environment—and is skilled at partnering across Product, Technology, Creative, Analytics, and Compliance to execute high-impact organic growth initiatives.

This role combines program leadership, SEO strategy, AI-driven innovation, technical fluency, and cross-functional influence at the highest levels of the organization.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the enterprise SEO + GEO roadmap, ensuring alignment with business goals, product strategy, and the changing AI-driven search ecosystem.
• Develop strategies for ranking in both traditional search and generative search interfaces, including AI answer engines.
• Drive entity-based SEO, structured data expansion, and E-E-A-T optimization to strengthen brand authority in generative engines.
• Identify and pilot AI-driven SEO workflows (content augmentation, clustering, topical mapping, prompt engineering, automation, QA).
• Partner with Product and Engineering leadership to influence roadmap priorities, advocate for SEO needs, and support major site redesigns or migrations.
• Work closely with Legal/Compliance on content and claims approvals, ensuring compliance does not hinder organic growth.
• Lead cross-functional working groups and evangelize SEO + GEO best practices across the organization.
• Oversee technical SEO audits and prioritization of fixes, working with engineering teams to ensure timely delivery.
• Guide structured data, schema strategies, indexation optimization, internal linking enhancements, and page-speed improvements.
• Maintain oversight of local SEO operations, including listings accuracy and local authority-building strategies (executed through team members or vendors).
• Oversee the content operations process, including editorial planning, content briefs, calendar ownership, and governance.
• Ensure all content is optimized for both traditional SEO and emerging GEO requirements (answer-first formatting, entity optimization, structured content).
• Provide guidance—not execution—on CMS content publishing and content lifecycle management.
• Oversee relationships, SOWs, quarterly reviews, and performance evaluations for key SEO and GEO vendors (Conductor, Chatmeter, Milestone, PR partners, etc.).
• Manage SEO budget tracking and forecasting in partnership with Finance.
• Lead test-and-learn frameworks for SEO, GEO, SERP experimentation, AI search monitoring, and competitive intelligence.
• Deliver monthly and quarterly executive-level reporting on organic performance, highlighting insights, risks, and opportunities.
• Use GSC, Conductor, GA4, and custom dashboards to analyze trends and guide data-driven recommendations.
• Mentor internal team members and elevate SEO capabilities across the organization.
• Provide training on evolving GEO best practices, AI search fundamentals, and responsible use of generative AI.
• Serve as the team's senior point of escalation for complex SEO or GEO questions.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in enterprise SEO, with proven success driving organic growth at scale.
• Deep expertise in technical SEO, content strategy, local SEO, and entity-based optimization.
• Strong understanding of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and emerging AI-driven search experiences.
• Experience influencing product and engineering teams at the roadmap level.
• Demonstrated ability to manage vendors, marketing budgets, and complex program operations.
• Exceptional communication skills, including executive-level storytelling and data visualization.
• Hands-on experience with tools including Google Search Console, Conductor, GA4, Contentful, Workfront or Jira, and SEO intelligence platforms.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in highly regulated industries or financial services.
• Familiarity with AI-driven content workflows, LLM-based research, or prompt engineering.
• Background in PR/earned media SEO collaboration or off-page authority-building.
• Experience with website migrations, large-scale redesigns, or multi-site architectures.

Key Skills/Competency

• Enterprise SEO
• Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
• Technical SEO
• Content Strategy
• Local SEO
• AI-driven Search
• Structured Data
• E-E-A-T Optimization
• Organic Growth
• Vendor Management