CMO – Growth and Brand — Trading And Supply Organisation

The mandate

A strategy review found that growth expenditure has spread across channels, sponsorships, customer programmes and digital acquisition without a dependable view of what demand is incremental. Commercial teams can report activity, brand teams can report reach and regional units can report local wins, yet their measures do not reconcile to profitable volume, retention or portfolio value. A commodity-cycle repositioning makes that ambiguity unaffordable.

The CMO will take responsibility across a SAR 30,600 million operated asset and trading perimeter, influencing approximately 1,525 employees and material partners. The trading and supply organisation serves institutional, industrial and emerging lower-carbon customers through relationships whose economics differ materially. The work is therefore not consumer promotion transplanted into energy; it requires segmentation, offer clarity, account development and disciplined evidence across long buying cycles.

Based onsite in Riyadh, the appointee will report to the Group Chief Executive or designated executive committee sponsor. The immediate objective is to stop weak spend quickly without damaging market trust, then install a common growth system joining commercial, customer, brand and finance decisions. Efficient demand, brand salience and a shared scorecard must emerge together.

Why this seat is open

The requirement was absent from the approved hiring calendar. It became urgent when the strategy review exposed split accountability at the point when commodity-cycle choices require a single owner. Interim leaders can keep campaigns and customer communications operating, but cannot arbitrate the portfolio or reset incentives. The board seeks to move from qualified shortlist to offer within four to six weeks.

What you will own

• Reconstruct expenditure and performance across every material channel, market and customer programme, separating committed cost from discretionary growth investment.
• Define customer segments using needs, buying behaviour, margin, lifetime value and strategic relevance rather than internal product categories alone.
• Establish which demand signals represent acquisition, expansion, retention or simple displacement between channels and business units.
• Create a brand architecture for the trading and supply portfolio that clarifies enterprise promise, product relationships and treatment of emerging transition offers.
• Align marketing and commercial teams around named customer journeys, lead acceptance, account ownership and closed-loop feedback from lost or delayed opportunities.
• Introduce experimentation standards with pre-agreed hypotheses, control logic, decision thresholds and responsible data owners before new spend is released.
• Reallocate agencies, marketing technology and internal capability towards the priority markets; end activities maintained only through historical sponsorship.
• Chair a monthly growth review that reconciles spend, qualified demand, conversion, retention, margin and brand indicators without allowing one metric to disguise another.

The first 12 months

The first 45 days require a rapid investment triage. Build a ledger of growth activity, identify spend lacking a defined customer outcome and pause only where contractual and reputational consequences are understood. Meet priority customers and commercial leaders to learn why decisions advance, stall or move to competitors. Agree a temporary measurement standard with finance.

By day 90, present the executive committee with a segment strategy, brand choices and reallocation proposal. Every retained programme should have an accountable owner, economic hypothesis and decision date. Resolve competing definitions of lead, opportunity and active customer so that performance can be compared across regions.

Months four through eight should test the new system in two material customer journeys. Improve data capture at the boundary between campaigns and account teams, redesign incentives where volume masks value, and consolidate external partners where fragmentation prevents learning. Build internal leaders who can challenge both creative preference and commercial anecdote.

At the first anniversary, the organisation should show lower unmeasured spend, stronger conversion in priority segments and a brand system understood by customers and employees. The growth scorecard must reconcile to finance for three consecutive quarters and guide the following year’s investment before budgets are locked.

What the board will measure

• At least 95% of discretionary growth expenditure assigned to a named segment, customer outcome, baseline and decision owner within 100 days.
• A 20% improvement in qualified-opportunity conversion across the two priority journeys, measured against an agreed like-for-like baseline.
• Ten per cent of low-evidence spend stopped or redirected, with no material decline in aided awareness among priority decision-makers.
• Retention improvement of five percentage points in the customer cohort selected for lifecycle intervention.
• Growth forecast variance held within 10% for three successive quarters, reconciled to commercial and finance reporting.
• Ready-now succession for 70% of direct reports and retention of at least 90% of identified critical marketing and insights talent.

The person

You are currently a CMO, Growth Officer or Regional Marketing Vice President with 22–28 years across energy, oil and gas, utilities, chemicals, renewables, industrial services or another complex business market. You have governed demand, brand and customer economics together and can identify where apparent growth was channel displacement or price effect.

The minimum scale is accountability for a SAR 17,750 million P&L, book, budget or portfolio and leadership of at least 1,075 people. You have influenced sales and product choices without absorbing their accountability, managed external agencies and marketing technology, and defended measurement quality when senior stakeholders wanted a faster conclusion.

This is an onsite Riyadh appointment with international relocation support. The CMO must be available to customers, commercial leaders and the executive committee in person; it is not a remote leadership role.

Compensation and terms

The indicative package is SAR 1.4–1.9 million fixed plus annual incentive. Final calibration will reflect accountable scope and current mix. The accelerated process can accommodate an orderly notice arrangement, provided the selected leader can engage with urgent investment decisions during transition.

Confidentiality

The private group, customers, channels, agencies and strategy findings remain unnamed. Detailed information follows qualification, reciprocal interest, background review and appropriate confidentiality protection.