Head of Marketing

What You Will Do

01  Strategy, Brand & Positioning

Good looks like: one coherent company, a clear promise and credible evidence wherever someone meets Zeraki.

• Build one company-wide marketing strategy tied to corporate strategy, the product portfolio, customer segments, revenue priorities and country plans.

• Run the operating rhythm: annual and quarterly planning, prioritisation, launch readiness, budget reviews and executive reporting.

• Define company positioning, brand architecture, brand promise, core narrative, voice and audience-specific messages.

• Keep Zeraki coherent across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and new markets — consistent where it must be, local where it should be.

02  Product Marketing & Customer Creation

Good looks like: launches begin with customer, buyer, proof and GTM logic — not last-minute requests for posters.

• For every material product, define the customer, buying trigger, value and commercial proposition, differentiation, proof and objections.

• Own messaging frameworks, launch plans, sales enablement, product pages, battle cards and post-launch learning.

• As Customer Creation Lead, define the next customer population, build the proof architecture, set pre-test thresholds and route qualified demand into the sales roadmap.

• Read the Market Type — existing, new, low-cost or niche — and never run one playbook for all four.

03  Demand Generation & Sales Partnership

Good looks like: Marketing and Sales stop debating whether leads are “good” — they share one definition and one data set.

• Design demand systems that fit our market: account-based and field programmes, cross-sell with Account Management, referrals, school networks, events, search, lifecycle and partner campaigns.

• For every major programme, know the audience, problem, message, proof, channel, handoff, cost and decision threshold.

• Agree with Sales one definition of customer fit, qualified demand, acceptance and attribution — and keep every opportunity’s context intact.

04  Customer Proof & Advocacy

• Turn customer outcomes into credible, traceable, authorised evidence: case studies, references, ROI and impact stories.

• Choose references that resemble the next buyer — not simply the largest or most famous school.

• With Account Management, build advocacy, referral, community and customer-education programmes that make value visible.

05  Content, Events & Communications

• Build a content system that helps education leaders solve real problems — and earns Zeraki a reputation for expertise, not self-promotion.

• Give every conference, school visit and roundtable a clear purpose, audience, follow-up and review.

• Lead PR, corporate narrative, spokesperson preparation and crisis readiness — never overstating evidence or announcing ahead of delivery.

06  Measurement, Budget & AI

• With Data, Sales and Finance, build measurement tied to business outcomes: fit, qualified demand, sales progression, conversion, acquisition cost and customer value.

• Own the marketing budget; allocate by priority, evidence and expected return — not by history or visibility.

• Build an AI-enabled operating model that adds speed and range, with firm controls on accuracy, privacy, brand and unsupported claims.

07  Build & Lead the Team

• Design the marketing organisation Zeraki needs — the right mix of employees, AI workflows, agencies, freelancers and country contributors.

• Hire, coach and hold the function to high standards: lean, commercially grounded, analytically strong and trusted across the company.

What Success Looks Like

First 90 days

• Time in schools, with buyers, Sales, Account Management and country teams

• Audit of brand, content, digital, product marketing and demand activity

• Principal audiences and buying actors mapped

• Marketing priorities and operating cadence agreed

• First company-level marketing strategy

• Clear list of what to stop, build and automate

First six months

• A clearer, more coherent company narrative

• Evidence-based positioning and enablement for priority products

• Customer proof collected systematically

• One shared definition of qualified demand with Sales

• At least one Customer Creation experiment designed and run

• Reporting that separates attention from demand

First 12 months

• A differentiated, credible brand architecture

• Positioning used consistently across every channel

• A Customer Creation model producing demand that progresses through Sales

• Measurable contribution to pipeline, cross-sell and advocacy

• A lean, high-performing, AI-enabled team

• Marketing trusted as a strategic function, not a service desk

What You Bring

Experience

• 8+ years of strong experience in marketing, product marketing, growth, brand, B2B demand generation or communications, including at least 3 years leading a marketing function or multi-disciplinary marketing team.

• A track record of building — or materially improving — a marketing function, system or major programme.

• Proven skill in positioning: translating complex product capability into clear customer value.

• Close partnership with Sales and a demonstrable contribution to pipeline and commercial outcomes.

• Experience designing multi-channel programmes and managing budgets, agencies, vendors or teams.

• Comfort with funnels, cohorts, attribution, experiments and channel economics.

• A bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience; an advanced degree may help but is not required.

Skills and Attributes

• A strategic marketer who can tell a market problem apart from a request for communications.

• A product marketer who makes complex products clear without oversimplifying or overpromising.

• A brand builder who knows brand is meaning, trust and expectation — not only visual identity.

• Commercially accountable — you never hide behind awareness metrics where commercial evidence is needed.

• An exceptional writer and storyteller who is equally credible in a principal’s office, a sales review and an executive meeting.

• Evidence-disciplined — you can state what the data supports, and what it does not.

• Field-oriented — you go to schools; markets cannot be understood through dashboards and agency decks alone.

• AI-fluent — you use AI for real leverage and understand its risks: generic output, hallucination and privacy.

• A function builder willing to define the work, do the work, and build a team that does it well.

Where you might be coming from

You may be a Head of Marketing, Product Marketing Lead, B2B or Growth Marketing Lead, Brand and Demand Generation Lead, or a commercially strong generalist who has built marketing in a scaling company. Your title matters less than whether you can connect customer understanding, positioning, proof, demand, Sales and commercial outcomes. Exceptional candidates from less conventional routes are welcome. 

EXPERIENCE THAT WILL HELP

B2B SaaS or enterprise tech · EdTech or education · Fintech, payments or insurance · Multi-product brand architecture · B2B2C or multi-sided models · Account-based marketing · Category creation · Partner marketing · Advocacy and reference programmes · PR and executive communications · Multi-country African markets · Marketing automation and CRM · Revenue attribution · Working directly with founders · Scale-up function building