Chief Marketing Officer — Engineering Centre

The mandate

A Gurugram engineering centre is well known inside its parent but poorly understood by the specialists it needs to hire and the global product leaders whose work it wants to own. Recruitment campaigns describe innovation while candidates encounter generic roles; sponsor materials claim capability without referenceable outcomes. Rising attrition in principal engineering and product roles has made the credibility gap commercially consequential.

The Chief Marketing Officer will shape reputation, talent-market engagement and global sponsor communications for a centre of approximately 2,725 employees and partners. This is not a consumer advertising position. The CMO will build an evidence-led market proposition with engineering, people and commercial leaders, then ensure that candidate, employee and sponsor experiences support it. Ownership includes research, content, events, digital channels, executive positioning and measurement.

The role cannot solve weak careers or fragmented work through language. Where the underlying proposition is not true, the CMO must say so and work with accountable executives before promoting it. Marketing should make distinctive engineering work visible without disclosing client intellectual property, security-sensitive architecture or information that reveals the confidential employer.

Local reputation requires more than paid recruitment. The centre’s university links, technical communities and alumni relationships have developed separately and lack a common purpose. The CMO should decide which communities genuinely improve capability, build consent-based measurement and end sponsorships that offer visibility but neither trusted participation nor qualified talent.

Why this seat is open

The former CMO departed unexpectedly for a non-competing international role while attrition and capability pressures were rising. Communications cover exists, but no interim leader has authority across talent, sponsor and reputation strategy. This is an urgent replacement intended within six to eight weeks. The predecessor leaves in good standing and has no connection to the workforce issues described.

What you will own

• Research how priority engineers, employees and global sponsors perceive the centre, separating awareness from credible preference.
• Define a differentiated proposition grounded in real products, technical careers, leadership access and engineering outcomes.
• Align role, recruitment and onboarding communications with the actual work and progression candidates will experience.
• Build referenceable evidence for global sponsors without overstating ownership or exposing confidential technical information.
• Create focused communities, content and events for scarce disciplines rather than buying broad undifferentiated reach.
• Establish employee advocacy controls that enable authentic voices while respecting client, cyber and intellectual-property obligations.
• Measure source quality, offer acceptance, pivotal retention and sponsor engagement alongside conventional channel metrics.
• Lead brand, communications and research talent and govern external agencies against accountable outcomes.

The first 12 months

The first 75 days will produce a perception and evidence audit across priority talent segments and global sponsors. Claims that cannot be substantiated will leave active materials. The CMO will agree two scarce-skill markets and one sponsor proposition for focused intervention, with baseline measures established before campaigns begin.

By month eight, candidate journeys and technical-role content should reflect verified work, employee experts should participate under clear safeguards, and sponsor evidence should be used in live portfolio discussions. Agencies will be consolidated around specialist capability and measurable conversion rather than media volume.

At year-end, qualified applications in the two target disciplines should improve by 35%, accepted offers by 15 percentage points and regretted attrition in the identified pivotal cohort by at least five points alongside people interventions. Global sponsor engagement with referenceable evidence should double, while no substantiated confidentiality or misleading-claim breach occurs.

What the board will measure

• Alignment between the promoted proposition and evidence from candidates, employees and sponsors.
• Improved quality and conversion in scarce-skill talent markets rather than a rise in unqualified applications.
• Marketing influence on global sponsor confidence and work allocation.
• Responsible handling of technical, client and employee information.
• A capable internal marketing team with lower dependency on undifferentiated agency spend.

The person

You are a B2B technology, engineering-employer or services-marketing leader who has built reputation among scarce specialists and senior enterprise stakeholders. You understand employer proposition but are not limited to HR communications. The CEO wants a commercial marketer capable of interrogating technical proof and refusing claims that the employee or client experience cannot sustain.

The role requires 22–28 years of experience, marketing influence across a perimeter of at least ₹2,200 crore and exposure to an employee or partner population of 1,900 or more. You should show attribution beyond impressions, including quality of hire, sponsor consideration or work won. Experience managing confidentiality and expert advocacy is essential.

The CMO will work onsite in Gurugram, close to engineering and talent teams.

Compensation and terms

The fixed range is ₹2.2–3.0 crore with performance variable. Measures will blend talent quality and conversion, sponsor consideration, reputation integrity and marketing capability. Reach or lead volume alone will not trigger reward. Final structure depends on relevant scale and current mix, and the urgent appointment remains subject to careful referencing.

Confidentiality

The employer, products, clients and specialist disciplines are described only at category level. More detail is reserved for qualified candidates under confidentiality. Applicants must not try to identify the centre through published workforce or location information and must protect any later technical evidence.