Chief Marketing Officer — Urban-Mobility Marketplace

The mandate

The marketplace has grown through city launches and smaller-platform acquisitions. The Chief Marketing Officer must build the brand as a truthful expression of the service and ensure communication reflects operational delivery across markets.

The remit spans approximately 1,050 employees and partners across brand, consumer growth, research, communications, city marketing, lifecycle and partner acquisition. Several teams report through regional lines, making influence as important as hierarchy. Pricing, safety and driver economics have other accountable owners; the CMO must insist that claims and campaigns reflect their evidence, and must withdraw marketing when the service cannot honour the promise.

There are two audiences with a shared trust equation. Reliable customer demand supports partner earnings, while sufficient engaged supply supports rider experience. Marketing must stop treating drivers only as inventory acquisition. The executive will develop propositions that are relevant to each side, disclose trade-offs and measure retained behaviour beyond installs or registrations.

Safety communication is part of the brand but cannot become theatre. Features such as trip sharing, identity checks and emergency support must be described in terms users can understand, with limitations made clear. After a serious incident, the CMO will support accurate, compassionate communication while investigations proceed; they must resist premature reassurance, speculative blame and campaigns that exploit public anxiety.

Why this seat is open

This planned new role was approved after the board separated enterprise brand leadership from a broad commercial remit. There is no departing CMO. The company wants to establish capability before the next national campaign and city integration wave, allowing time for research and operating changes before making new claims.

What you will own

• Define an evidence-based brand promise and the service standards required before it appears in national or city communication.
• Replace headline partner-earnings claims with representative, auditable information about income, costs, conditions and variability.
• Build consumer acquisition and lifecycle measurement around completed trips, frequency, contribution and trust recovery.
• Create city proposition playbooks that allow cultural relevance while preserving common safety and truth standards.
• Integrate acquired brands thoughtfully, deciding what equity to retain and how customers and partners transition.
• Establish campaign readiness reviews with operations, safety, legal and marketplace leaders, including authority to delay unsupported claims.
• Build insight panels that represent women riders, late-night users, drivers across earning cohorts and customers who left after service failure.
• Develop senior brand, growth, research and partner-marketing talent with clear ownership and succession.

The first 12 months

In 90 days, complete trust research that links stated perceptions to actual rider and driver behaviour, audit live earnings and safety claims, and remove material statements that cannot be substantiated. Map acquired-brand equity by city before deciding visual consolidation. Agree a marketing scorecard with finance and operations that separates incremental completed rides from paid acquisition noise.

By month six, launch the renewed proposition in two cities only after service readiness tests pass. Introduce representative partner communications and a lifecycle programme aimed at customers who experienced cancellation or support failure. Establish holdouts for major spending and publish campaign exceptions to the executive committee.

At 12 months, increase unaided consideration by six points in priority cities, improve 90-day rider repeat by eight points and reduce acquisition cost per retained customer by 15%. Partner recruitment complaints about misleading claims should fall by 60%, and organic driver referrals should rise. At least 80% of brand spending should have incrementality evidence or an explicit long-term brand hypothesis approved before launch.

What the board will measure

• Alignment between brand promise and measurable service delivery across cities.
• Rider growth that persists after promotion and contributes economically.
• Accuracy and fairness of partner recruitment and earnings communication.
• Trust recovery among specific affected cohorts rather than a favourable national average.
• Quality of acquired-brand integration and avoidance of premature equity destruction.
• Marketing capability, spending discipline and willingness to stop unsupported work.

The person

You are a CMO, consumer growth leader or brand-and-commercial executive with 22–28 years in a marketplace, travel, fintech, telecom or other high-frequency service. You have marketed to customers and a distributed provider network, and have changed or cancelled claims when operating evidence did not support them. Large media budgets alone will not establish relevance.

The expected scale includes at least 750 employees and partners and responsibility for a transaction, revenue or marketing perimeter above ₹3,000 crore. You can demonstrate incremental growth, brand change after acquisition and reputation recovery following service failure. The board will seek examples where you protected long-term trust despite pressure for immediate registrations.

The permanent role is onsite in Hyderabad with frequent city travel and reports to the Group Chief Executive or designated sponsor.

Compensation and terms

The fixed range is ₹2.2–3.0 crore plus performance variable based on retained growth, brand trust, claim integrity, spending evidence and leadership. This permanent position is onsite in Hyderabad and reports to the Group Chief Executive or nominated executive sponsor. Notice up to six months may be supported, with limited pre-joining research participation if appropriate.

Confidentiality

The marketplace, acquired brands, research and planned campaigns remain unidentified. Qualified candidates will receive detail after conflict clearance and mutual confidentiality. All scale is approximate and the situation blends several signals; speculative contact with agencies, drivers, employees or competitors would breach the process.