Interim Chief Marketing Officer — Digital Commerce Economics

The mandate

The acquisition of a specialist commerce brand closed after both marketing chiefs declined the combined role, leaving duplicated agencies, audience overlap and incompatible attribution. The board cannot decide whether to retain both brands or migrate customers without a trusted economic and customer-impact baseline.

The interim must start within four weeks for a fixed nine-month term. Permanent CMO recruitment begins after the brand and channel investment decision in month four, with the final six weeks protected for transition.

Handover requires a board-approved brand architecture, customer cohorts migrated or retained without exceeding churn limits, paid acquisition inside agreed payback for three months, duplicated agency cost removed, and the successor to approve one integrated quarterly plan.

The interim may reallocate the approved media budget, terminate agencies within contract, change campaign mix and set acquisition gates. Brand retirement, customer migration affecting more than 20% of active users, spend above the annual envelope, permanent director hires and material loyalty changes require board approval.

Product pricing, logistics operations and international market entry are outside scope. Marketing will provide demand and cohort evidence but will not own fulfilment service or acquisition integration beyond customer communications.

Why this seat is open

The transaction created a leadership gap neither legacy team can fill neutrally. Each group has an incentive to defend its brand, agency and attribution method. The board is using an interim CMO to make evidence-led choices before installing permanent growth leadership.

What you will own

• Establish a common customer and channel baseline covering acquisition cost, incrementality, retention, frequency, margin and payback.
• Decide the recommended brand architecture and present customer, economic and execution consequences for each option.
• Reallocate media and CRM spend by incremental contribution rather than platform-reported attribution.
• Design and govern customer migration tests with explicit churn, consent, service and value thresholds.
• Consolidate agency scopes and document retained capability, fees, conflicts and exit obligations.
• Deliver three monthly acquisition cohorts within approved payback and quality limits.
• Transfer brand decisions, cohort evidence, agency commitments, team assessment and the next two-quarter plan to the permanent CMO.

Candidate qualifications

• Held CMO or growth director authority in scaled digital commerce, marketplaces or consumer technology.
• Integrated brands or customer bases following an acquisition without losing economic visibility.
• Built incrementality and cohort frameworks that corrected misleading last-touch attribution.
• Managed large performance, CRM and brand budgets with explicit payback gates.
• Made brand-retirement or migration recommendations under founder and customer sensitivity.
• Led multi-disciplinary marketing teams across major Indian consumer markets.

Non-negotiables

• Available for Mumbai-based work within four weeks.
• No current engagement with either legacy agency roster or a direct commerce competitor.
• Will not use platform attribution alone to defend media investment.
• Must accept a fixed-term handover with no implied permanent conversion.

1. 49 words maximum. State your availability and disclose any agency or commerce-brand conflict.
2. 49 words maximum. Describe a brand consolidation you led and the customer-retention outcome.
3. 49 words maximum. Which test would you use to distinguish incremental acquisition from attributed demand?