CMO – Growth and Brand — Digital Lending Portfolio

The mandate

A privately held digital lender has distributed acquisition spending across paid search, affiliates, partnerships, direct mail and brand activity without a reliable view of incrementality. Channels claim the same customers, and approval and funding are separated from media reporting. The board needs a CMO who can establish both growth confidence and brand trust.

The CMO – Growth and Brand will influence approximately £3,550 million in assets and investment and lead about 225 employees and material partners. The remit includes brand, acquisition, lifecycle marketing, partnerships, customer insight, media, creative, communications and marketing operations. Credit, compliance and product remain independent decision owners; marketing must connect its promises to the product and customers actually funded.

Incrementality begins beyond leads. Cohorts should be tracked through eligibility, approval, funding, early repayment, arrears, repeat use, complaints and lifetime contribution. Experiments must account for channel overlap and base demand. The CMO will withdraw budget from activity that cannot demonstrate additional, responsible growth, even when reported cost per application looks attractive.

Remediation should change the marketing system, not only individual copy. Claims need governed substantiation, affiliates require source and placement transparency, and vulnerable-customer considerations belong in segmentation and testing. Brand recovery will depend on product and servicing experiences matching communication.

A common growth scorecard should enable finance, credit, marketing and product to debate the same facts. Brand salience matters alongside near-term demand, but it must be measured through defined audiences and future commercial behaviour rather than awareness alone.

Lifecycle communication is part of the brand. Approval, decline, payment difficulty and collections messages should reflect the promise made at acquisition and give customers practical choices. The CMO will examine where promotional tone creates expectations that servicing cannot fulfil. Customer research must include people who abandoned, were declined, complained or entered arrears, not only those who completed a successful journey.

Marketing technology and consent also require repair. Audience creation, suppression and partner sharing should be traceable to lawful purpose and current preference. The executive will reduce duplicate tooling and ensure that remediation populations cannot be retargeted through an adjacent channel because identity or suppression data failed to connect.

Why this seat is open

This urgent replacement follows an accelerated transition. Interim leadership cannot own remediation and the next allocation cycle, so the board seeks a permanent appointment within six to eight weeks. The search remains confidential until handover arrangements are agreed.

What you will own

• Reconcile channel investment to incremental funded-customer and lifetime value.
• Establish a shared growth scorecard across marketing, finance, credit and product.
• Govern claims, creative evidence, affiliates and media placement through remediation.
• Rebuild brand salience among priority customer groups with measurable commercial linkage.
• Steward £3,550 million of assets, investment, risk acceptance and forecasts.
• Redesign agency and partner economics around transparent, responsible acquisition.
• Lead 225 employees and partners with stronger analytics and succession depth.
• Stop campaigns or sources that cannot meet conduct and incrementality tests.

The first 12 months

The first 90 days should reconcile spend, source, customer, decision and outcome data. Meet the 30 stakeholders most consequential to growth integrity, including customers represented through research, credit, complaints, media partners and frontline colleagues. Review claims and high-volume sources, stabilise material conduct exposure, assess leaders and agree board gates for renewed investment.

Months four to nine should run controlled incrementality tests, reset affiliate and agency terms and relaunch priority propositions with approved evidence. Fill leadership gaps and shift spending towards sources that produce funded, retained and well-served customers. The first value should be visible in lower waste, improved cohort economics or recovery in trust measures.

By month twelve, efficient demand, brand salience and a common growth scorecard should be repeatable. The annual value case must land within 10% of baseline, with forecasts reconciling customer, cash, operating and people assumptions for three quarters. Priority remediation requires independent proof of sustainability; no severe escalation may age beyond 30 days.

What the board will measure

• Incremental funded customers and lifetime contribution by source and cohort.
• Claim, complaint and vulnerability outcomes after remediation.
• Brand salience and consideration within the customer groups selected for growth.
• Media, affiliate and agency spend withdrawn or redirected through evidence.
• Critical-talent retention above 90% and immediate succession for 70% of direct reports.
• Quantified improvement in growth allocation with clean data and an accountable owner.

The person

You are a CMO, Growth and Brand Leader or Marketing Executive with 22–28 years in lending, financial services or another regulated direct-to-consumer business. You have changed investment decisions using cohort and incrementality evidence and have personally owned material claims or conduct remediation.

Your accountable P&L, book, budget or portfolio has been at least £2,050 million, and you have led 220 or more people. You can evidence a growth reset whose commercial and customer outcomes held for two reporting periods.

You can defend long-term brand investment without hiding weak attribution and will stop a high-performing source when its customers or claims fail the required standard.

Compensation and terms

Base compensation is £210,000–280,000 plus annual incentive. This permanent London role is onsite, supports relocation and can accommodate notice of up to six months.

Confidentiality

The lender, remediation and campaigns will be shared only with qualified candidates under confidentiality. Figures and events are composite.