CMO – Growth and Brand — Project-Development Pipeline

The mandate

A privately held UK infrastructure developer invests across sector campaigns, policy engagement, events, account activity, digital channels and bid support, but cannot show which expenditure creates access to viable projects. The board has created a CMO Growth and Brand role to join commercial demand, market trust and disciplined disclosure around one project-development pipeline.

The perimeter covers approximately £20,400 million of projects and operating assets and influences 1,250 employees and material partners. Accountability includes market strategy, priority audiences, brand, corporate and project communications, demand creation, account marketing, research, digital channels, agency governance and marketing talent. Development leaders own bids and legal teams govern privileged claims. The CMO owns market evidence, message integrity and whether growth investment contributes to qualified opportunity.

Infrastructure buying is episodic and multi-stakeholder. Authorities, developers, landholders, investors, lenders, delivery partners and communities encounter the organisation for different reasons over long cycles. Attribution cannot copy a short consumer funnel, yet complexity is not permission to measure nothing. The CMO must establish credible influence paths from insight and engagement to access, qualification and project choice.

The safety reset adds a non-negotiable boundary. Communications may explain actions and evidence, but cannot pre-judge investigations, minimise harm or turn operational learning into a campaign. Trust will be earned through consistency between public statement, employee behaviour and project control.

Why this seat is open

This urgent new position has no incumbent. The safety-and-claims programme and a review of dispersed growth spending created the need after the organisation plan was approved. A permanent leader is sought within six to eight weeks, while interim teams maintain required disclosure and live bids. The role consolidates accountability; it is not a disguised replacement.

What you will own

• Define priority markets, audiences and decision-led growth plays.
• Build attribution suited to long infrastructure development cycles.
• Govern safety, claims and project communications against verified facts.
• Allocate channel, research, agency and account-marketing investment.
• Connect market insight with bid qualification and proposition choices.
• Develop communications, growth and brand successors.

Market choices will begin with the project conditions the business can serve distinctively. The CMO will examine policy, procurement routes, capital availability, public need, competitor position and the organisation's delivery evidence. Campaigns must identify a decision audience and next useful action. General visibility will not be funded as a substitute for access to a viable opportunity.

Attribution will combine account and market evidence. Named relationships, stakeholder engagement, event participation, content use, referral, tender access and bid progression will be tracked with appropriate time lags. Development leaders will confirm whether marketing changed access, understanding or preference. The CMO will use matched cohorts or bounded tests where possible and openly label influence that cannot support a causal claim.

Safety and claims communication will operate through a controlled fact room. Operations, safety, legal, insurance, people and communications leaders will agree what is known, unverified, privileged and publicly required. Employees and frontline partners should receive usable information before learning material facts externally. Expressions of concern, corrective action and learning will be clear without attributing liability beyond evidence.

Brand governance will extend to projects and partners. Bid language, environmental claims, community commitments, case studies and site materials must trace to approved evidence. Joint-venture messaging will identify authority and response routes before an incident. The CMO can withdraw unsupported award submissions or performance claims even when a sponsor considers them commercially useful.

Investment will move through quarterly choices, not annual entitlement. Agencies will have outcome, data, intellectual-property and exit obligations. Technology spending must reduce work or improve evidence rather than create another activity dashboard. The team will retire channels with persistent low decision value and redirect resources to research, account access or stakeholder capability.

The first 12 months

Within 75 days, the CMO will map the 15 most consequential markets and accounts, reconcile spending and assess safety-communication controls. The sponsor will receive stop, maintain and test decisions plus one agreed growth and trust scorecard.

By month eight, four priority accounts should use evidence-based engagement plans, two growth plays should reach formal scale-or-stop decisions and every material claim-related communication should trace to a controlled fact source. Agency scope and digital measurement will be reset around decision value.

At year-end, unqualified pipeline attributed to marketing should fall 25%, while marketing-influenced qualified opportunities increase 15% from a clean baseline. Growth expenditure should remain within 5% of approved allocation, unsupported public claims reach zero, and reputation measures among priority stakeholders show verified improvement without material inconsistency across employee and external audiences.

What the board will measure

• Qualified project access rather than impressions or raw leads.
• Growth investment shifted by evidence and explicit tests.
• Safety and claims communication faithful to operating facts.
• Consistent promises across bids, partners and public channels.
• A strong leadership bench across growth and communications.

The person

You are a CMO, growth executive or corporate-affairs leader with 22–28 years of experience. You have carried accountable scope above £11,850 million and led at least 875 people. Your background includes infrastructure, regulated services or another long-cycle business where public trust, complex buying and high-consequence incidents coexist.

The board will test a campaign you stopped for weak incrementality, a sensitive operating event communicated without spin, and a market insight that changed a bid or investment choice. You must be commercially ambitious and exacting about evidence. Pure brand or lead-generation experience without enterprise stakeholder consequence will not qualify.

This onsite London role includes extensive project, authority, partner and investor travel. Availability during material incidents and bid periods is inherent in the appointment.

Compensation and terms

Base compensation is £210,000–280,000 plus annual incentive. Measures cover qualified growth, investment effectiveness, claim integrity, stakeholder confidence, agency control and succession. Final terms reflect the confirmed remit and standard performance conditions.

Confidentiality

The developer, projects, incidents, claims, counterparties and campaigns are confidential. Further information is available only after qualification and an undertaking. Rounded scale and composite circumstances prevent reasonable inference of identity.