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Building a Digital (Communications) Services Function at Mathematica

How a multi-year transformation reshaped strategy, operations, and audience engagement across Mathematica’s digital comms channels.

Summary

Between 2019 and 2025, Mathematica underwent a significant digital communications transformation as it needed to pivot it external communications to support market diversification and the buildout of a demand generation focused though leadership program. As Director of Digital Services, I led the vision, strategy, and execution for building out the supporting digital strategy and function.

This included revamping the corporate website twice, defining and hiring roles new to the organization, implementing new scalable content and marketing operations functions, building digital analytics and SEO practices, expanding audience engagement channels, and activating new capability areas.

This overview outlines how I built a high-functioning digital services team—including content strategists, operations specialists, multimedia producers, event managers, and business analysts—while creating a unified content and product architecture, strengthening Mathematica’s brand storytelling capabilities, and positioning the organization to compete effectively in an increasingly data-driven digital communication marketplace.

1. The Starting Point: Fragmented Channels, Siloed Content, and Limited Digital Infrastructure

When I assumed the role, Mathematica’s digital function reflected the norms of a traditional research organization: a focus on dissemination and maintenance of a large content library of research products and public affairs related to it—not brand building, product marketing, or audience engagement.

With more than 10,000 content assets spread across 140+ topical nodes, the site had a strong technical content framework but lacked a cohesive content strategy. Features like “trending content” and “related content” were built around rigid, manually maintained bi-directional links and overtime lost resonance with site visitors.  Audiences were “drilling down” through the hierarchy of the site, And web and email support operated primarily as service delivery functions (“send this email,” or “build this page”) rather than strategically aligned channels.

The result of constant content addition was a well-structured library of information relevant to niche audiences but it did little to advance a unified organizational narrative or showcase how digital could support the business development pipeline.

Key challenges included:

  • A site architecture organized around internal structures rather than clearly identified audience needs or information seeking intent
  • Content operations lacking consistency, prioritization, and governance
  • Minimal SEO strategy and no ability to assess what kinds of content topics performed well
  • No unified analytics or KPI framework
  • An email program rooted in list building and one-off blasts, not relationship development
  • Weak digital support for business development in new growth markets (foundations, commercial health, state/local agencies, international)
  • A growing mix of offerings (innovations, centers, products, applications, toolkits) with no cohesive “storefront”
  • A digital function positioned as reactive, not strategic

To address these gaps, I built the case for:

  1. a new strategic vision for mathematica.org;
  2. identifying and managing strategic digital partners; and
  3. creating a living, iterative roadmap aligned with the business goal of strengthening the organization’s positioning as a leader in evidence-based research and evaluation and data-informed decision-making.

2. Building the Digital Services Function from the Ground Up

Establishing processes and governance

To shift from ad-hoc production to a disciplined, Agile digital operation, I:

  • Designed a backlog management framework using Jira and Confluence across web, email, and multimedia workflows—aligning internal and external teams around shared priorities and named releases. Drawing from my early agency experience, I introduced structures for tackling complex initiatives while continuously improving.
  • Created a governance model for digital content, website components, and UX patterns—including worksheets for every content type, taxonomy management guidelines, and decisioning tools to determine when content belonged on the external website.
  • Partnered with IT to revamp the ServiceNow request menu, shifting from task-based asks to outcome-oriented requests.

This foundation enabled clarity, predictable delivery, and transparent stakeholder communication.

3. Leading Two Major Transformations of mathematica.org

Revamp #1: Reinventing the User Experience and Web Architecture

Working with Valtech, I led the strategy to update Mathematica’s content strategy and overhaul navigation and information architecture around:

  • Transforming the website into a strategic asset for brand amplification, topical information discovery, and business development
  • Mapping experiences to audiences REAL information-seeking journeys rather than “our” people, projects, and business units
  • Creating ways to connect content via categories aligned with demand generation (featured topics, blog series, and “markets” taxonomy)
  • Establishing unified service and product taxonomies
  • Implementing content governance and oversight with rigorously defined templates, content worksheets, and ongoing management of the site taxonomy

Key achievements:

  • Designed the first services and products architecture, consolidating scattered business development touchpoints under a new all encompassing umbrella called “Solutions.”
  • Introduced a “feature page” and “microsite” content model enabling evergreen storytelling around major projects and innovations
  • Developed scalable publishing workflows and a modernized UI/UX with a flexible component library that replaced rigid page templates

This transformation doubled monthly site traffic over four years and aligned the site with the company’s diversification strategy.

Revamp #2: A Strategic Pivot Toward Demand Generation

A few years later, evolving business priorities required a second major transformation—this time focused on:

  • A refreshed brand position
  • Audience growth, demand generation, and SEO
  • Thought leadership as free expertise
  • Operational efficiency and flexible component design

Partnering with Valtech and Fahlgren Mortine, I led:

  • Expansion of the content model to support blogs, case studies, data visualizations, splash pages, and gated content
  • A personalization and A/B testing roadmap for Sitecore and Acoustic
  • Integration of a pillar-based content strategy to drive top-of-funnel acquisition
  • A new design system that was faster, lighter, modular, and optimized for marketing use

This revamp institutionalized digital marketing as a core engine for business growth.

4. Strengthening Audience Acquisition, Content Strategy, and Storytelling

Working with a dedicated thought leadership and public affairs team, we developed a multi-year digital content strategy that reshaped how Mathematica communicated impact.

Key components included:

  • A “What / So What / Why It Matters to You” framework for thought leadership
  • Proactive SEO research and keyword-driven strategy, especially for emerging offerings, innovative methods and branded products.
  • Integrated digital campaigns across social, email, web, and paid search for solutions like Imersis, QCIT, Price Prism, and 19 and Me—one of the firm’s highest-engagement outreach efforts
  • Expanded the library of UX/UI presentation components and content formats including impact components, testimonials, short form video, and data visual summaries

These strategies improved visibility, clarified expertise, and elevated Mathematica’s brand narrative.

5. Enabling Smarter Decisions Through Analytics and Measurement

To move the organization from output reporting to insight-driven decision-making, I partnered with strategic digital vendors and internal analytics teams:

  • Designed Mathematica’s first integrated digital metrics framework, with Looker Studio dashboards tailored to content creators, product owners, and business development teams
  • Built reporting that enabled deeper analysis of content marketing performance—evaluating authors, audiences, topics, headline styles, and formats
  • Established internal benchmarks and performance norms to guide teams toward measurable goals
  • Incorporated Google Ad campaign measurement, enabling business units to assess ROI and refine strategy

This work helped establish a culture of data-informed storytelling and embedded metrics into campaign planning.

6. Scaling Channels, New Formats, and Emerging Technology

Content and channel expansion

  • Supported ongoing production of the On the Evidence podcast and YouTube Shorts to expand reach
  • Provided assets and tools for social amplification support through Hootsuite Amplify and LinkedIn Live

AI experimentation

As part of Mathematica’s internal AI pilot program, I tested use cases including:

  • Email subject-line optimization
  • SEO research through Microsoft Copilot
  • Creating persona dossiers with Copilot
  • Midjourney concept graphics
  • AI-generated video voiceovers
  • Front-end design QA

These pilots informed internal use cases and contributed to a broader AI adoption roadmap.

7. Business Impact

Across six years, these coordinated efforts drove measurable, organization-wide impact:

  • Monthly web audience doubled, reaching nearly 40k visitors
  • Email open rates improved from ~17% to nearly 30%
  • Record-breaking engagement for 19 and Me and innovations like Bayesian statistics and rapid-cycle evaluation
  • A shift from passive dissemination to strategic digital engagement
  • Greater clarity in Mathematica’s value proposition and service offerings
  • Scalable operations that reduced bottlenecks and improved delivery
  • Stronger brand storytelling through unified content models and feature pages
  • Improved search, social, email, and campaign performance
  • Increased visibility and engagement for mission-critical content
  • A consistent digital experience that supported business growth and audience expansion

Ultimately, the digital services function became a strategic asset—supporting growth in new markets, elevating thought leadership, and positioning Mathematica as an innovator in digital communication for public policy and analytics.