Chief Marketing Officer — Grocery And Convenience Platform

The mandate

The platform intends to take several grocery and convenience formats into new international markets. Each format solves a different customer mission: a supermarket supports planned household shops, a neighbourhood store prioritises proximity and availability, an express format serves immediate needs, and delivery offers convenience without a store visit. Current expansion plans use common brand assets but do not yet explain how each format will earn local relevance or how customers should understand the relationship among them.

The Chief Marketing Officer will define and lead that market and format proposition. The remit includes brand strategy, customer insight, format positioning, launch planning, local marketing, media, loyalty partnership, retail media governance and marketing effectiveness. Commercial teams own pricing and assortment with merchandising, operations owns format execution and country leaders own local results. The CMO must ensure the promise is distinctive, evidenced and executable before investment is committed.

This planned replacement is not a request for a global advertising platform translated into multiple languages. Food culture, shopping frequency, household structure, transport, payment and trust in fresh produce vary considerably. The executive must identify which parts of the brand should travel and which need local creation, without allowing every market to become a separate identity.

Scope and operating context

Based in Singapore under a hybrid arrangement, the CMO will influence approximately 1,150 employees and material partners across Singapore and a wider international region. Direct leaders will span brand, insight, format marketing, media, content, loyalty, launch excellence and marketing operations. Country teams and agencies provide local expertise through matrix and commercial relationships.

Expansion decisions carry long lead times in property, supply, hiring and technology. Marketing evidence must therefore arrive before locations and assortments are fixed. Catchment and digital-demand data can inform choices, but they do not reveal all barriers to trial. The CMO will combine behavioural evidence with direct local research, competitor observation and small-scale tests.

The platform's formats may overlap. A delivery proposition can serve the same household as a nearby supermarket; an express store may recruit new missions or cannibalise a larger basket. Marketing must describe each role clearly and measure the total relationship rather than celebrate channel acquisition separately.

First-year agenda

The first one hundred days will establish a format and market evidence base. The CMO will review existing brand health, customer missions, catchment behaviour, price perception, loyalty, local media, format economics and prior launches. Visits to homes, stores, markets and delivery operations will test whether internally defined segments reflect how people actually shop.

The executive will then create a format architecture. Each concept will have a target mission, value and quality promise, assortment cues, service expectations, identity rules and measures. Shared elements should make the enterprise recognisable; distinctive elements should help customers choose the right format. The architecture will also define when a proposition is too weak or operationally complex to launch.

Market-entry marketing will move through evidence gates. Early work may include local brand testing, digital demand experiments, partner activations, temporary assortments or a small number of launch sites. Tests must state what they can and cannot prove. Paid response alone will not establish store demand, and opening-week traffic will not be mistaken for sustained adoption.

The CMO will integrate marketing with location and assortment decisions. Customer missions and local culture should influence site selection, store layout, fresh or prepared-food emphasis, delivery radius and launch inventory. Marketing cannot promise abundance, freshness or speed beyond the operating model. When readiness changes, communications and media commitment must change with it.

Local agency and media models will be designed market by market within common governance. The executive will ensure cultural and language review, transparent buying, brand safety and clear data rights. Retail-media opportunities must be governed so supplier funding does not overwhelm customer relevance or compromise category judgement.

By the end of year one, the board should have a clear portfolio of format propositions, launch plans for priority markets and evidence-based stop or adapt decisions elsewhere. Early openings should show awareness converting into repeat mission, not only curiosity. Lessons should influence later property, assortment and capability choices.

Leadership responsibilities

The CMO will chair format and market proposition forums, joining insight, commercial, operational and financial evidence. They will ensure campaign plans identify the customer behaviour expected, the operating dependencies and the decision that follows. Marketing investment will be reallocated when evidence changes rather than protected by annual commitments.

The executive will build an international marketing organisation with strong local authority and clear portfolio standards. Country leaders should be able to challenge central assumptions, while central teams prevent unnecessary duplication and protect brand coherence. The CMO will assess leadership, strengthen succession and create movement across format and market experiences.

External representation includes agencies, media partners, loyalty partners and selected community or industry stakeholders. The CMO must avoid implying local endorsement without a genuine relationship and ensure influencer or partner content meets disclosure and claims standards. Local insight must never become a justification for discriminatory targeting or exploitative pricing communication.

Measures of success

The board will review qualified awareness, trial, repeat, mission frequency, basket, price and quality perception, loyalty participation, customer acquisition and format contribution. Launch measures will include readiness, media efficiency, availability during campaign, complaint and service recovery. Results will be segmented by format and market without forcing identical targets.

Portfolio progress will be visible through clearer format choice, fewer overlapping campaigns, earlier stop decisions and evidence transferred into property and assortment. Marketing effectiveness will include incremental behaviour and long-term brand indicators with stated attribution limits. Opening traffic and impression volume will not be sufficient.

Candidate profile

Candidates should bring 22–28 years of marketing and general-management leadership in grocery, convenience, retail, food service or another frequent-purchase international business. They must have launched or repositioned physical and digital formats in multiple markets and held accountable influence over commercial and operating outcomes.

The board will seek examples of adapting a global brand to local food or shopping culture, changing a site or assortment assumption through customer evidence and stopping a format launch after a test failed to demonstrate repeat. Candidates should understand loyalty, price perception, retail media and the connection between campaign and availability.

The successful CMO will combine cultural curiosity with disciplined portfolio judgement. They must influence property, merchandising and operations leaders, defend meaningful local difference and say no to localisation that adds cost without customer value. Experience across diverse Asian and international markets is preferred.

Compensation and appointment terms

The expected base range is SGD 420,000–570,000, supplemented by annual incentive and long-term participation tied to format and enterprise value. Final terms will reflect international launch scale, sector relevance and current arrangements. Any mobility or buyout provision will be assessed against the final appointee's documented circumstances.

Confidentiality

The platform is unnamed because target markets, property choices and format propositions are not public. Detailed launch and customer information will be shared after identity, conflict and confidentiality checks. Applications must anonymise site plans, research, media terms and unreleased market entries from other organisations.